avelog

I’ve done it again: taken so long between posts that I must break my story up into sections, or fear the wrath of an audience bored to the brink of death by my aimless ramblings. Therefore, look below to the previous post for the final story of New Zealand, since this post will busy itself with novel news of Australia.

Arriving in the early evening to low petrol prices (only $1.30!) and balmy temperatures, we set all of our stuff down at Liz’s grandparents’ house, to enjoy a couple of days of rest and relaxation on the ever sunny Gold Coast. Temperatures had by now dropped to highs of around 22 degrees: as icy as the depths of winter, I’m told!

On the 26^th of May, we flew up to the Cairns in the tropical north, where tourist season is just getting started. Staying the night at a hostel in town (a room, having abandoned the tent on the Gold Coast), we got up in the morning and picked up our home for the next 35 days: a Toyota Hi-Ace campervan from Backpacker Campervans. Slightly narrower and shorter than a full-size North American Van, it packs a fridge, microwave (requiring outside power), cupboards (complete with dishes, pots, pans, and a French press coffee maker, and a big table with two long benches that altogether transform into a double bed. With its somewhat ugly high top, it has headroom enough to stand up, and a small transformation could theoretically supply a little loft in which a third vagrant could sleep.

We set off to explore Cape Tribulation and Daintree National Park, with all its sociable crocodiles and cassowaries. Having left Cairns late in the day, we were ill-prepared for our first night of free-parking-wherever-we-please-and-to-heck-with-the-law, which resulted in a nervous midnight stay on the side of a little street in a new, rich development in the little town of Mossman. The problem with our campervan is that it sticks out like a big white-and-orange sore thumb, of which the local residents must have been somewhat suspicious upon waking to a beautiful Saturday morning. Happy and relieved that nothing ill had befallen us during our first night in the van, we cut back half an hour to visit the market at Port Douglas, eat breakfast by the beach, and lie on the sand for an hour. We then headed up, across the Daintree River on a little cable ferry, towards Cape Tribulation, and into the most remote and unpopulated part of the East Coast. In defiance of the warning signs placed every few kilometers, not one cassowary deigned to cross our path and chance being hit. These ostrich-sized birds are apparently pretty dangerous if you’re on foot, and if you see one, you’re instructed to back away slowly for fear of being clawed to death.

After the anxiety of the previous night’s stay, we chose to park (legitimately) in a real (and very cheap) campground at Noah Beach, run by the state’s wildlife and parks service. We spent plenty of time that day and the next sunning ourselves on the beach, with only brief intermissions to explore the local flora and fauna; unfortunately (or fortunately), no crocodiles or cassowaries to be spotted, but a big Lace Monitor and a few wild turkeys came out to play.

Cape Tribulation

Having recovered somewhat from the stress of our first night of free-parking, we came to rest for the night in the fairly isolated gravel lot beside the pristine beach at Cow Bay, and spent the evening walking on the beach and making a leisurely meal. The next morning, we set off south again, crossing back over the ferry and driving down to the long, lovely, sunny, and sandy Ellis Beach, just north of Cairns, at which we’ve spent the better part of two days, leaving only to spend the night at a cheap caravan park in the nearby-but-far-more-touristy Palm Cove. Our campervan has been parked right beside the beach, and we’ve alternated between beach sunshine, ocean frolicking, and contemplative relaxation in the campervan, with the door open and the rhythms of the ocean constant and soothing in the background. We chose to bring Liz’s laptop on this part of our Australian adventure, and I’m therefore typing this as I sit next to the beach, looking up to the ocean for inspiration when I’m at a loss for words. I think we’re adjusting well to this whole vagrant-campervan-Australian-beach-bum thing that’s so popular over here. To be complete though, we’d need to have bought a hippy styled van, and brought along a good supply of pot. There aren’t many times in my brief history that could hope to rival this moment for relaxation.

Cow Bay in the morning

A break from the sun at Ellis Beach

We’ve now made our way back down to Cairns, and will pause for supplies, perhaps parking illicitly along the road, before continuing south on our 3500km journey to Adelaide (June 30^th). Hopefully we get lots and lots of beach weather in Queensland before we hit colder winter temperatures in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Plans after Adelaide are a bit murky at this point as the financing has yet to be pondered. I continue, intermittently, to try to sort out my life-after-Australia, but things on that front aren’t progressing all that quickly, perhaps owing in part to the intensity of relaxation.

Three weeks ago I left you wondering, wandering, confused. “Is this some kind of season-ending cliffhanger?” you asked yourselves. “Are we to be left all summer to become distracted by all manner of fun things, only to forget all about what last happened in New Zealand; whether our intrepid voyagers made it back across the stormy Tasman Sea to land with false sense of safety on the golden shores of Australia, only to be eaten by an all-to-welcoming crocodile?” Let me hereby allay your worst fears: Season 1 of The Greatest Voyages of Our Time has yet to come to its stunning conclusion. The writers have yet to decide on a proper cliffhanger, perhaps waiting for the results of internal polling and focus groups.

From skydiving, spotty showers, and bubbling mud in Taupo, we head south towards Tongariro National Park, clouds darkening overhead, the towering volcanoes hidden by thick fog and rain. Passing through forest and plain, catching not even the smallest glimpse of majestic peaks, we arrive unceremoniously in National Park, a tiny little village on the western side of the park, so named in a vain attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the real thing. Dampened and chilled by a constant drizzle, we arrive at the local YHA to find that the five-day forecast calls for rain, rain, and more rain, with 100% probability of precipitation. Inconceivably unbuoyed by this news, we strike a deal with the proprietor and take a room in the cavernous and empty hostel.

The new dawn greets us with rain, grey skies, and no hope of seeing Tongariro or doing the crossing, and we don’t have time to wait more than a day or two, so we move on in the hope that we can make better use of those precious days somewhere else. Driving north, we head towards Waitomo, home to the famous and touristy Waitomo Caves. We sign up with the Legendary Blackwater Rafting Company, still unsure of what this entails, and find ourselves climbing down into the bowels of the earth, grasping a great big black inner tube in one hand, and keeping ourselves from slipping off the rocks with the other. We follow a small stream down through a crack in the limestone, wading along narrow caves and sometimes floating under low overhangs, all to the faint light of our headlamps. Soon, we dim the lights in order to better see the glowworms hanging from the roof in big patches, unable to tell in the dark whether the roof is a hundred feet up, or within arm’s length. We climb down underground rapids, hopping backwards off little waterfalls to splash bum-and-innertube-first in the pools below, black water streaming down our faces to contrast the bright smiles and toothy grins visible in the dark. And then, switching off our lights, we float slowly towards a faint distant glow, sometimes leaning back to stare upwards at the patches of glowing green that follow the stream; sometimes warding off the encroaching walls with blind fingers and vigorous paddling. And we emerge into bright daylight, floating down what is now a muddy yet calm creek, numb to the core despite our wetsuits and polypropylene long underwear, smiles threatening to crack frozen faces. Brilliant, late afternoon sun guides us to our campsite on the outskirts of Hamilton, capping off a very enjoyable day.

Hamilton is a fairly large city by New Zealand standards, considered by our guidebook to be an overgrown agricultural center. Since it’s Sunday morning, we visit the local (disappointing) market, and come away with more than enough vegetables to feed us for the rest of our New Zealand adventure. Unable to find much else to do, and unable to get ahold of my trail-acquaintance, Leigh, we head out once more, making for the Coromandel Peninsula, a sparsely-populated spit of land only a couple of hours east of Auckland, and therefore a favourite for weekend getaways from that city. We set up base near Coromandel Town, at a cozy and excellent hostel called Tui Lodge, and spend two days exploring the rugged native forest on the peninsula, and visiting the local gym-in-a-tin-shed. Since my feet are as pain-free as they’ve been in months, I make this the site of my first Southern Hemisphere run, jogging for only fifteen minutes but coming away refreshed and invigorated.

At Cathedral Cove on Coromandel Peninsula

Sunny morning in Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula

Passing through Auckland, we pause only to decide not to hop across to Waiheke Island, another favourite weekend destination of Aucklanders, since we probably wouldn’t experience anything new for our forty dollars each on the ferry. A night spent camping at a pleasant but deserted hostel in Owera is followed by a sunny day meandering up the east coast of Northland, arriving finally in Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. Enchanted by sunny forecasts and beautiful coastal landscapes, we board a fifty-foot yacht, along with eight other backpackers, for a day of sailing, snorkeling, and dolphins. Before lunch, we anchor off a tiny-but-hilly little island and enjoy a barefoot hike up and down its grassy slopes. A few minutes’ hunting on the beach is rewarded with a shell from which the formerly-Canadian skipper makes a necklace for Liz. Half an hour of snorkeling is rewarded by glimpses of many and varied fish flitting in and around the rock shelf, along with numb feet and near hypothermia once back aboard the boat. Sunset sailing on calm waters completes the day as we cruise into port, offload, and make the short drive up to Kaitaia: gateway to Cape Reinga.

Sailing on the Bay of Islands

The next morning, full of muesli and milk, we board a bus for our tour up Cape Reinga; the only real commercial tour we’ve taken in New Zealand. The reason for our breach of character: Ninety-Mile Beach, which is classified as a main highway, but on which car insurance is void and rental cars are prohibited. Our coach speeds down the beach at a hundred kilometers per hour as the tide slowly moves in. We only dip into the ocean once, to get around a jumble of rocks, but we make great, satisfying splashes every time the bus crosses creek waters streaming down the beach. Our guide pauses for a few minutes to allow us to gape at the wreckage of a late-model BMW half-buried in the sand, abandoned to the tides when its driver hit a creek to fast and the engine cut out. At the northern end of the beach, we turn inland, driving up a stream and pausing so that all the tourists can get out and slide (slowly) down the massive sand dunes on little plastic toboggans (no substitute for snow!). We drive up to the northern tip of the North Island for the obligatory photos at the Cape Reinga lighthouse and signpost, followed by a quick but somewhat lacking filled roll (sandwich-in-a-bun) and muffin. By mid-afternoon on the drive back down the paved highway, the bus is filled with drowsy eyes and intermittent snoring, but everyone soon perks up at the news of one-dollar-ice creams at a little grocery in the middle of nowhere. A handful of other stops on the way back seem quite boring after our other Cape Reinga adventures.

Ninety-mile Beach

Having stayed the night at the Treehouse Lodge in Kohuhu on the west coast, we take a little ferry across an inlet and make our way down the west coast of Northland, pausing to take in the magnificent sand dunes near Opononi and the giant Kauri, amongst the largest trees in the world. After a few days of respite, constant rain returns to plague us for the rest of our New Zealand adventure. Following a night in Whangarei, we arrive finally to our point of departure: the sprawling, noisy, no-fresh-air metropolis of Auckland. A night out for gourmet pizza (need a treat once in a blue moon!), a day spent busing about town, a morning of frantic packing, and a tidge of anxiety over the discovery of a soft (but-it’s-a-slow-leak!) tire cap off our Kiwi foray as we hop back over the ditch to land softly to the enthusiastic but misguided love of the Food Control puppy at the Coolangatta Airport on the Gold Coast.

These’ll make more sense if you’ve read the other posts below:

The West Coast:

Kieran’s lonely journey:

Wine tasting:

“Backpacker’s Paradise” at Maraehako Bay, East Cape, New Zealand:

Smoking Rotorua:

Maori concert:

Craters of the Moon:

Skydiving:

(sorry, no inflight photos! would have cost another arm or leg)

We’ve now been up on the North Island for ten days, but the first few were fairly uneventful, so a quick summary:

We arrived on the ferry in Wellington, New Zealand’s political and cultural capital. After spending so much time on the South Island in the bush or tiny little towns, it was quite a shock to once again be in a big city. Traffic was horrible, as we’d arrived right at rush hour, and we were unable to find a suitable place to camp within or near Wellington, so we eventually drove half an hour out of town to a crowded little hostel called BaseCamp Backpackers.

Back in Wellington the next morning, we finally wandered into Te Papa, the national museum, after spending a good chunk of time looking for parking. Te Papa was quite amazing, with wonderful, informative, and exciting displays of all sorts of different native creatures, invasive species, volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, immigrant history, art, and on and on, made all the better by the fact that it was FREE! We then wandered around the shops downtown for a while, before heading out north to Paekakariki, a little town on the coast, home to a small, friendly, and quite comfortable hostel, as well as very strong winds. A relaxed and enjoyable evening was followed by eight hours of restless sleep spent dreaming that the tent was going to blow down the hill, over a couple of houses and into the ocean below. So we decided to stay another night!

We decided that it would take too long to go west and see Mount Egmont, an apparently amazing volcano, and instead crossed over to the less populated east coast, stopping in Napier. It had been overcast and raining on and off ever since we arrived on the North Island, so we decided to keep going the next day rather than tour the local wineries by bike, and arrived in Gisborne in the darkness and pouring rain to find that our intended destination was closed and apparently abandoned, so that we had to camp at the Flying Nun, a creepy and somewhat rough hostel in an old convent.

It was still raining the next morning, and having had enough of cities of any size, we set out for East Cape, a poorly populated and well-forested bulge halfway up the North Island’s east coast. By the time we arrived at Maraehako Bay Retreat, the sun was out and our spirits were on the rise. The hostel was a multistory affair built into the side of a steep shoreline, with the ocean mere feet away. It was by far the single most beautiful place that we’ve stayed, with the camp spot on a soft patch of grass near a little waterfall and a trickling stream, below a giant tree, with views of the adjacent rocky beach stretching out to the horizon, where the setting sun lit the sky and ocean with yellow, red, and purple. The hostel appeared to have been mostly built and decorated by the father and son who own and run it, with seashells set in the concrete steps and heavy multi-colored ropes as handrails. The warm fire in the outdoor hearth was a pleasant prelude to dinner and a relaxed evening.

When the sun rose the next morning to clear skies, revealing magnificent views from our tent, we decided to stay another night, and spent the day making pancakes, drinking tea, reading, sunbathing, and generally not doing anything productive at all. It was the warmest and sunniest day that we’ve enjoyed thus far in New Zealand, and we weren’t about to let it go to waste by actually doing anything!

Feeling the pressure of our dwindling time in New Zealand, and with so much still to see and do, we set off again the next morning, heading inland and south to Rotorua, considered to be the hotspot for Maori cultural displays as well as the northern tip of the biggest thermally-active area in New Zealand. Although the entire country sits along the intersection of two tectonic plates, evidence of this is more spectacular on the North Island, with active volcanoes and many thermal areas. On the South Island, most evidence is of the older and colder sort, including the entirety of the Southern Alps, as well as numerous volcanic remnants.

It’s hard to miss the fact that Rotorua is smack in the middle of a thermally active area, giving the steam rising from random bits of ground (appropriately surrounded by warning tape and pylons), and a pretty impressive park in the middle of the city, filled with pools of boiling water and mud, with steam rising tens of meters into the air. We set up camp at the local YHA hostel and then attended a Maori concert and hangi (feast). This particular tribe owns a forested piece of land just south of Rotorua, with a rebuilt village, stream, and cold springs. The concert was quite entertaining, with the audience in chairs in front of an outdoor stage with the village behind it. Hangi is a feast cooked underground, in pits heated by glowing embers beneath rocks onto which water is poured to produce steam. The food is then layed on top and covered with damp cloth followed by dirt. The result was some very tasty chicken, lamb and potatoes. Unfortunately, the only traditional food present was the (delicious) kumara (sweet potato).

After swimming and gymming the next morning we set out south once more to Taupo, skydiving capital of New Zealand, and a base for shuttles to Tongariro National Park, which contains New Zealand’s most popular one day walk, the Tongariro Crossing. It is supposed to be incredible in good weather, with volcanoes, multi-coloured mud pools, and all sorts of other thermal treats. Unfortunately the shuttles don’t even run in poor weather, because the crossing can be quite dangerous and it is not uncommon for people to die attempting it (two so far this year).

With a mix of sun and clouds yesterday, and the shuttles cancelled because of a pessimistic forecast, we visited instead and thermally active field called Craters of the Moon. Protected by the Department of Conservation, it consists of a wide field of steaming fumaroles, geysers, and craters in a hot desolate landscape. This particular field has only been really active since 1958, when a geothermal power station was built a few kilometers away and changed the dynamics of the superheated groundwater. Major explosions of steam occur every few years when vents have become blocked with debris, resulting in massive craters and permanent alterations to the boardwalk.

When in Rome… so we went skydiving! In New Zealand, unless you take a multi-month course costing several thousand dollars, you are required to jump tandem, attached to an experienced jump instructor. This obviously makes it a lot easier just to hop in a plane, climb up to a decent altitude, and hop out. Liz and I both opted to jump from 12,000 ft, with 45 seconds of freefall time. Along with eight other skydivers to be and all the tandem instructors, we were suited up in jumpsuits and harnesses and crammed into a small plane. Two benches ran the length of the interior and we slid up on them backwards, pressed in together, with each skydiver-to be jammed in front of an instructor. My knees were trembling a bit as we made the fifteen minute climb up to altitude, with great, sunny views of Lake Taupo and the surrounding countryside. Our instructors, snapped their harnesses into ours, we lowered our goggles, and before we knew it, each of us was slid down to the door and out! A quick roll to catch a glimpse of the plane above, and falling so fast, down through icy cloud (slightly painful, with ice crystals bombarding us), and out into sunny, free air! The feeling was quite incredible, and the freefall was of course much too short in retrospect. After the parachute had opened, we spent another four minutes swooping down over Taupo, to the grassy field below, beside the hangar from which we had started. And all for the same price as it had cost to bungy-jump in Queenstown.

We’re now heading south to Tongariro National Park, in the hopes that it will clear tomorrow or the next day. Otherwise, we won’t be able to waste any more time waiting, and will be force to head north to the sunny Coromandel Peninula and subtropical Northland. Only twelve days left!

What a long time to go without posting! My mom seemed to think that I might have disappeared off the face of the earth, but thankfully that’s not yet the case. I’ll just do a quick rundown of the South Island stuff we were doing during the past couple of weeks, and then I’ll post again very shortly about our new North Island adventures (read: boringness and rain rain rain). Unfortunately, no photos will follow today, but I might get to that shortly, depending on plans.

I left you all at Queenstown almost three weeks ago, after which you likely concluded that we had another go at the whole bungy-jumping thing and forgot to tie the rope or some such thing. Much to your disappointment I’m sure, no such thing happened, and instead we set off across the Southern Alps for the wild and rainy West Coast. We spent a few days making our way up the coast, tenting at backpackers as we went, with one particularly nasty encounter with the proprietor of an establishment in Greymouth. We did the tourist thing by stopping at Franz Joseph Glacier (not like there’s any ice in Canada, right?), the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki (limestone formations that look like stacks of pancakes because of some unique erosional patterns), and ended up in Westport, the last stop before the road turns inland again. We didn’t see any of the West Coast rain, stories of which NZ mothers use to scare their children into cleaning their rooms, and we actually had two glorious days of sunshine in Westport, while we stayed at the Trip Inn, a two-story backpackers in a restored hundred-year-old building, with the most beautiful, lush, and most importantly, soft, grass we had yet encountered.

Given that New Zealand is about the only place in the world without any large predators, poisonous snakes, and only one such spider, it’s likely one of the safest places in the world for lone hikers. With the popularity of hiking (tramping) here in New Zealand, it comes as little surprise that there are an enormous number of hikers who go it alone, as opposed to those in Canada who huddle down in large groups, armed with bells and bear spray. Therefore, I jumped on the unique opportunity to challenge myself and possibly break my body.

Enter the Wangapeka and Leslie-Karamea Tracks. Liz would drop me off further north on the West Coast, and I’d hike over the mountains and meet up with her there after she had driven around. The track normally takes seven days, but I decided (foolishly?) that I would attempt it in five days, so as to waste as little New Zealand time as possible. I would catch a little shuttle from the other end of the track over to Nelson, where I would spend the night, and then catch a bus early the next morning up to the Abel Tasman track, where I would meet up with Liz (this would be her second day on the track) and we’d hike out three days together. Complicated plan, but it seemed to be workable.

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Wangapeka, Day 1:

Liz dropped me off at Little Wanganui on the West Coast as planned on April 21, accidently picking a hitch-hiking family (parents and eight-year-old) who were finishing the Wangapeka track the other way, and driving them to Murchison with her. I set off on my easy day, an estimated three hours in to Belltown Hut, where I spent the first night. I shared the hut with a couple of middle-aged women (both hiking solo), ate my dehydrated food, read my book, wrote in my journal, and looked up the next day’s hike in my guide. I had to imagine the descriptions in reverse, since 99% of people hike it the other way. My plan was to hike in two days on the Wangapeka track, and then cut up north on the Leslie-Karamea, a less-frequented and tougher track. Time to sleep.

Wangapeka, Day 2:

While Liz drove from Murchison to Nelson, with a little day-walk-turned-bad thrown in for good measure, I set out early for my first big climb. The track from Belltown Hut follows the Little Wanganui River up to its source, sidling around a gorge and then climbing steeply up to Little Wanganui Saddle.

Kieran being an idiot:

Against all common sense and better judgement, I followed the advice in my three-year-old track guidebook (Lonely Planet), and decided to forego the unnecessary climb around the gorge, instead opting to walk up the riverbed, since the author said it was a great option when the water level was reasonably low, as was the case that day. So when I came to Smith Creek, I scrambled down it’s dry, giant-rock bed to the Little Wanganui River and turned upstream.

I almost came to serious harm a whole lot more than is healthy to chance. Slippery rocks, numerous fords to get to the shallow side of the river, sharp rocks unseen under the water, big slippery logs and rocks to climb up and over, and a growing sense that I should never, ever have trusted the book, given the variability of rocky riverbeds. I fell many times, banging my knees, sharp rocks stabbing my calves and ankles, bruised arms and elbows, wrenched back, and a slight daze from my Nalgene smacking me in the back of the head every time I tipped over.

I decided early on that I had made a big mistake, but by that time, some of the obstacles I’d crossed looked impassable in the other direction, so I forged on with the knowledge that the track would come back to the river and eventually cross it on a swingbridge. My book-acquired knowledge indicated that I should be able to easily get back on the track at McHarrie Creek.

It would have helped if I’d ever found McHarrie Creek, which you’d think would be easy, given that it’s a fairly major tributary and I knew which side it was supposed to be on. But somehow I missed it, and after thinking I had found it twice, with no such luck (the river had simply split for a short distance) I was getting pretty desperate.

A flash of orange up on the bank! It’s a track marker in the bush beside the river!!! I’m SAVED!! I don’t think I realized until I got back up on the track and had a snack, a drink of water, and a reassessment of my situation, that I’d been quite so desperate. Nevertheless, after a short rest and a quick note in my journal saying “NEVER TAKE THE STUPID OPTIONAL ROUTE”, I set off again to make the climb up to the saddle.

There’s a definite reason that most people walk it both the Wangapeka and Leslie-Karamea in the other direction: the climbs. Steep, steep, steep, and very rough. Big steps, with narrow footing, at times on fairly sheer sections. But I eventually made it up and had a snack at the top, with great, sunlit views. I climbed down the other side to Taipo Hut, where I had planned to spend the night, but since it was only one o’clock and feeling strong (I’d taken only 5.5 hours to the DOC’s estimated 7) I decided to press on to Trevor Carter Hut, technically on the Leslie-Karamea portion of my journey.

Three hours later, I arrived physically and mentally broken, dragging my feet into the empty hut and flopping down on a mattress. My feet and legs were in a lot of pain, and my mind was numb. Two hours later, I woke up to the deepening darkness, and set about making some food. I was all alone in the hut that night, and spent quite a bit of time reading the scrawls of fellow travellers in the registration book (useful for letting people know where you last were and intended to go if you disappear): tales of woe mixed with a healthy dose of success. There were quite a few warnings about a stream I would have to cross the next morning, Kendall Creek, which becomes very dangerous when it’s been raining. DOC, Lonely Planet, and a bunch of other hikers emphasized that it would be pretty much suicide to try to cross it when it was flooded. I therefore had quite a bit of apprehension about the next day’s hike, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I realized that it would be nearly impossible to finish in five days if I didn’t complete a stretch of track that DOC estimated to take 11.5 hours, with only about 11 hours of good daylight available.

Leslie-Karamea, Day 3:

Rain. It started raining right after I woke up. Anxiety building. Pack up and get out. Cross back over the Karamea River on a swingbridge, and hike down the other side. I got lost for about twenty minutes, of my own fault (many others had done the same thing from the number of footprints going the wrong way and then turning around). This didn’t help my fear that Kendall Creek would be a raging torrent by the time I arrived.

Kendall Creek. Ankle deep! I don’t think I actually felt relief about this until an hour after I’d crossed it, since the anxiety was so deeply set. In fact, for the rest of the five-day journey, anxiety tickled my conscious mind whenever I heard the rush of water. Given the enormous size of the creekbed relative to the current creek and the huge jagged rocks from which it was made, it was obvious that Kendall Creek must have awesome power when flooded. I was simply very, very, very lucky to get there before it had rained that much. If I had arrived a couple of hours later, I likely would have been stuck at Trevor Carter Hut for three or four more nights before being able to cross.

I arrived at Thor Hut (DOC estimated 4.5 hours) in only 3.5 hours, even with getting lost and all that, signed the logbook, and pressed on. The trek to Venus Hut took only 1.5 hours (DOC 2 hours), where I stopped for lunch and pressed onwards, feeling strong. i arrived at Crow Hut only 1.5 hours later (DOC 2 hours), but my energy was fading and it was already 2:30pm, with a 3 hour trek to go. Against the advice of the German hiker I’d been following in the logbooks and had finally caught up to, I pressed on to Karamea Bend Hut, in the hope of making my last two days on the track reasonable.

Three hours later (DOC 3 hours) and ten hours from the time I set out, I arrived exhausted but elated at Karamea Bend hut, for the first time on my trek I was fairly sure that I could get out in five days and meet up with Liz on time. I even had the energy to chop wood for myself and the two middle-aged couples staying at the hut with me. The rain did not break all day, and by late afternoon, the trail was pretty much one big lake from Crow Hut to Karamea Bend. The stretches that Lonely Planet described as “dry, well-marked creekbeds” found me wading knee-deep down a fast-flowing creek, with no trail markers in sight and no idea where the trail headed off.

Leslie-Karamea, Day 4:

Like I said, there’s a reason most people go the other direction: a 1000 meters up all at once, with no consolling downhill to follow since the track ends around 975m above sea level. Mind-numbing and muscle-burning, these savannah-evolved, prairie-bred legs weren’t made for this. And where do I find myself? Right back in Saskatchewan. Rolling plains of golden grass stretch out in front of me; well, close enough. I’ve finally reached the Tablelands, a wide plateau of red tussock fields at 1260m - higher than some of the nearby “mountains”.

The night was spent at Salisbury Hut on the edge of the plateau, chatting for hours with Stephen and Leigh, architect and zoologist living near Auckland, just on the trail for two nights as a weekend getaway.

Leslie-Karamea Track, Day 5:

The final day was a piece of cake: four hours fairly flat to get out to the carpark near Flora Hut; the third straight day of continuous rain on the trail. Stephen and Leigh offered me a lift into Nelson, saving me thirty-five dollars and four hours of waiting for the mini-bus. Two hours in the car was well-spent learning all about New Zealand culture and politics, since these were the first Kiwis I’d actually had an extensive conversation with, given their scarcity in the hostels. They dropped me in Nelson, where I immediately spent a good long time soaking up the heat from the shower at Tasman Bay Backpackers, followed by several hours of gorging myself on all sorts of food and candy.

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Early the next morning, I took the bus up to Marahau at the southern end of Abel Tasman National Park, then the water taxi up the coast to Totaranui. Liz was supposed to have taken a water taxi further north a day earlier and stayed at Whariwharangi Hut, then hiked down the coast on my arrival day and met me at Awaroa Hut. Unfortunately, because of the poor weather, strong wind, and unabated rain, the water taxi would only take her as far as Awaroa Hut, where she had to hang out the better part of two days cooped up in the hut waiting for me. We spent the afternoon exchanging tales of trial and tribulation and set up the tent, ready for another night of rain.

The next morning, with yet more rain threatening, we decided to cut our hike short and take two days, instead of the planned three, to exit the south end of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, since most people hike the track for its sunshine, golden beaches, and safe swimming. One decent day of fast hiking got us down to Anchorage, barely beating the tide at the last estuary, followed by another four hours of rain on the way out the final day.

We spent the night in Nelson resting up, then headed over to Blenheim, deep in the heart of the Marlborough wine region, known for its Sauvignon Blanc, and more recently Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. We took a wine tour from our base at the Lemon Tree Backpackers, spending five hours tasting wine at a number of wineries, at the end of which we were quite happy, but couldn’t really tell the difference between the last few vintages.

A short drive up to Picton the next morning, and we said goodbye to the South Island, tears in our eyes.

I’ll post again soon with the latest details. We’ve only got seventeen days left in New Zealand so we’re trying to make the most of it!

I hope everything is well in Canada. You can be smug in the knowledge that it is now warmer there than here. Grrrrrrr!