avelog

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!

We’ve made our triumphant return to Queenstown after a week and a half in the bush! Queenstown remains the same touristy, overdone, and cold plastic town it was when we left it, with the addition of thousands of young university students freed from their academic shackles for Easter break, drinking, carousing and generally causing havoc.

Way back when we left Queenstown for our Fiordland adventure, we managed to hitch a ride with a pair of Austrian women heading to Te Anau, from where our track transport departed. We stayed the night at a tent site on the edge of town, stocking up on our remaining trail supplies (bagels and muesli bars) the next morning, and sending our food and tent for the second track to Milford Sound, where it would be waiting for us upon our completion of the Milford Track.

Milford Day 1: We boarded the Tracknet bus, taking it through forest and over stream to the edge of Lake Te Anau, near a little town called Te Anau Downs. An hour and a quarter later, the ferry dropped us at the trailhead with all our gear. Since the Department of Conservation (DOC) allows no camping on Milford Track, our load was much reduced as we didn’t need the tent, sleeping mats, stove, etc…. The first day’s hike consisted of only an hour’s trek up an easy, well-graded path to our first night’s shelter at Clinton Hut. We got in at five o’clock and took advantage of the little remaining daylight to explore a nearby side-trail boardwalk to the middle of an alpine wetland. By the time we hunkered down for the evening, all of our stuff was already a bit damp, as it had been raining lightly all day; a portent of what was to come.

We spent the evening eating our Backcountry Cuisine (Sweet and Sour Lamb; not so tasty) and dried Curry Chicken Noodles (quite tasty!), and playing cards with some newfound friends: Rob (music director, maestro of somesuch; originally from the UK, but living in NZ), Caroline (studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London; over visiting Rob for Easter break), Elisabeth and her mother (both from Austria; unknown vocations). Goodies were shared and stories exchanged, but our card game was cut off at ten o’clock when the solar battery-powered lighting cut out.

Milford Track Day 2: Although the weather was crappy (rain all day), we saw magnificent waterfalls and the awesome remnants of powerful landslides, drowned forests and some impressive mountain scenery as we trekked up Clinton Valley. Our next stop would be Mintaro Hut about two thirds of the way up the valley at Mile 13, and we were on pace to easily beat the brochure-estimated time when tragedy struck.

Shortly after we passed the twelve mile marker, my eyes down watching my next step on the path, Liz let out a yelp ten feet ahead of me, and I looked up to see fall hard, having tripped on a rock, striking her right knee on a second rock, followed by her forehead on a third as the weight of her pack took her outstretched arms by surprise, driving her towards the ground. Dazed and confused, a nickel-sized, but thankfully shallow, gash on her forehead, knee throbbing and ego bruised, she took a moment to sit up and collect herself. After a short while, with strength of will and fierce spirit, she evaded my attempts to have her rest longer and allow me to attend her with the first aid kit, and insisted that we push on towards the hut. Limping along, with blood on her forehead, we took an extra hour to finish the day’s trek, with hail pounding down on us, but arrived at the hut with little further incident. Cold, wet and tired, we sat down for a cup of tea and I washed out her wound with soap and water. We then discovered that she also had terrible blisters that almost covered her heels, her boots having changed shape with the constant moisture.

We both felt a bit better after a hot supper, more cards with Rob and company, and a share of our chocolate stash.

Milford Track Day 3: The morning dawned to a fresh layer of hail and snow blanketing the mountains, trees, and trail, and Liz’s blisters and knee causing pain and doubts. A cold breakfast of muesli bars was meant to help us depart quickly after packing up our things, but we spent extra time taping up the blisters and preparing psychologically, nearly the last to depart out of 41 hikers. The first leg of the day was a steep climb up 500m to the top of Mackinnon Pass, the track transformed into a trench filled with snow and ice-water. The climb was strenuous, every step treacherous. Through an unfortunate breakdown in communication when I bought my newest hiking boots in Edmonton a month and a half ago, the boots I purchased were incredibly comfortable, but apparently the only hiking boots that I looked at that weren’t waterproof. Having only discovered this after arriving in New Zealand, I decided that at least they were really breathable and that I would make do for our trip. On this day, I lived to regret that decision, my boots filling with fresh ice-water with every step I took. By the time we reached the pass shelter 3.5 hours from our start (2 hours in the brochure), my feet were so numb that I couldn’t feel the ground, and only knew that I was stepping on solid ground by the fact that by leg has stopped its downward journey. Sleet and driven rain pelted us the whole way, and a biting wind found what small cracks we had between pieces of clothing. Both of us were wearing almost all the clothes we’d brought with us. Water-resistant windproof glove shells and possum-fur/polypro inners weren’t enough to prevent chilled hands that could hardly manipulate the simplest straps, buckles, bags, and buttons.

A frigid lunch of bagels and peanut butter in the frozen shelter and we stepped out once more to begin our 1000m descent into Arthur valley. Our view of the greatest landscape New Zealand has to offer was obscured by endless cloud and fog in every direction, through which we could see nearly nothing. Milford Track’s much-vaunted scenery was officially a bust, with the exception of the magnificent waterfalls created by endless rain and snow. Parts of Fiordland average greater than 9 meters of rain per year, with some years as high as 15 meters!

As we got closer to the valley floor, my feet slowly thawed and regained feeling, dispelling fear that I might have done some damage to them, having spent almost five our in ice-water. Near the bottom of our sharp descent, a side trail to Sutherland Falls beckoned, boasting the highest permanent waterfall in New Zealand, and sixth highest in the world at 580 meters in three jumps. With only a moments thought for the few hours until dark, we set off on what turned out to be a two hour return journey. Having passed a few struggling groups on the descent, we were the last group to opt for the side-trip, everyone behind us (at least a dozen) making their way to Dumpling Hut to ensure that they arrived before darkness. Sutherland Falls was indeed impressive. We were able to walk within twenty meters, the spray and driven wind from the falls drove at us with almost-irresistable power, making it impossible to look directly at the torrent of water for longer than it took to close our eyes, faces drenched, water cascading down our rainclothes.

Pushing hard to get to the hut before total darkness, we thought we must have missed it in the faint dusk light, but finally arrived; last into camp, but only twenty minutes behind the runners up. We slowly disentangled ourselves from our soaked gear and put on what few dry clothes we had, making our way over to the kitchen hut, where very little room remained to hang clothes to dry by the wood-fired stove, but where we could huddle over cups of hot tea and devour our last Milford Track supper.

Milford Track Day 4: Due to poor hut spacing, Day 4 of the Milford Track was an 18km sprint to catch the 2pm ferry at Sandfly Point. Remarkably flat after the previous days, but still rocky and quite slippery at times, this day would have been an easy stroll, given no injuries and plenty of time. Liz bravely pushed on through pain from heels, knee, and forehead, by this time with blisters on her toes as well, and we made it to the ferry with ten minutes to spare, tired, frustrated, disappointed in the poor views, but happy with the waterfalls, the verdant beech forest, and well-built trail.

We were overjoyed to stumble into our room at the Milford Sound Lodge, collapsing on the first real bed we’d seen in a month. A month in sleeping bags really put the luxury into perspective, and we spent the afternoon enjoying long, hot showers and naps, followed by a meal of pasta and sauce, with canned beans and tiny corn cobs scavenged from the tiny hostel shop, the only such establishment in Milford Sound; exorbitant prices, but delicious after our trail food.

Milford Sound: We had a day to “rest” between Milford and Routeburn Tracks, for which we’d previously booked a sea kayaking day trip, so we packed a lunch of bread, tuna, and cheese, and caught our shuttle down to the boat launch. Sunshine and blue skies were in sharp contrast with our days on the trail, and we enjoyed six hours of paddling on Milford Sound with seals swimming and sunning, gorgeous waterfalls, and nary a wave. We lunched while floating out in the middle of the sound with the rest of our guided group, and were able to look back up Arthur Valley (from whence we’d come the day before) on our way back into the harbour.

Routeburn Day 1: After an evening and the following morning contemplating whether we should even attempt our next track with Liz’s raw blisters and swollen knee, she decided that she wanted to go for it, since the forecasted clear days might make up for Milford’s dreary fog. We took our trail bus down Milford highway, through a ten-minute tunnel blasted and carved out of solid rock, with no other obvious man-made supports, to the trailhead. The day was amazingly clear, and we took a side trip up to Key Summit with views down three different glacially-carved valleys.

There are only two campsites on Routeburn Track, so we didn’t have much choice as to where we stayed the night. We trekked up to Mackenzie Lake campsite, with Liz battling her injuries the entire way, arriving shortly before dark to discover that we were the only tenters, everyone else having opted for the more expensive hut. We ate our hot supper, hot chocolate and cookies, shivering in the chill wind, with the temperature dropping quickly once the light disappeared. We read in the tent for awhile, but slept early, exhausted after a painful first trail day, our muscles not yet recovered from the previous track.

Routeburn Day 2: We awoke to a cold, clear morning, packed up quickly and set out right away in order to try to warm up. Passing the nearby hut, we were surprised and delighted to be greeted from the porch by a group of three Australian women with whom we’d shared the misery of Milford Track. Since hut-hikers usually take four days to hike Routeburn, they were now on the same “day” as us even though they’d headed to Routeburn the day that we went sea kayaking in Milford Sound. We exchanged news, with promises that we’d see eachother on the trail later in the day, and Liz and I began the climb up the side of the valley over a long series of switchbacks. As the trail came out above the treeline, we were rewarded with our most impressive views of New Zealand thus far, sun peeking over the mountains at the head of the valley, illuminating a clear green-blue lake and beech forest stretching out endlessly down the valley and around the bend, snow-capped mountains (very unusual at this time of year) covering the horizon. Our campsite and the nearby hut remained in view below us for a couple of hours, disappearing only when we crossed over a ridge to neighbouring Hollyford Valley. Now on the exposed east face of Hollyford Valley, we could see clearly all the way down its length to the Tasman Sea, likely more than fifty kilometers away.

Heading for Harris Saddle, the highest point on Routeburn Track, Liz insisted that I push ahead so that I would have time to make the sidetrip up to Conical Hill, above Harris Saddle, as she continued to march through the pain up to the pass shelter. I made my way quickly up to the shelter, dropping my pack, and starting up the side of Conical Hill, a summit about three hundred meters above the pass. Although the pass itself was covered in snow, it was a couple of days old, and the main trail was clear for the most part. I was quickly surprised by the depth of the snow up Conical Hill, and once the shelted disappeared around the bend, it became clear that many people had turned back within ten minutes, the number of footprints falling sharply. Buoyed by the sight of a couple of young men whooping and hollering their way down the hill above, I pushed upwards, encouraged by their exclamations of incredible views. It took half an hour to reach the summit, with snow sometimes four feet deep, but the lack of water made it bearable, as my boots dampened, but didn’t fill with water. Arriving at the summit, I was greeted by 360 degrees of fog, broken infrequently by brilliant sunshine and glimpses of the surrounding mountaintops. Entertained by the antics of a tiny mountain bird, and the spiders and caterpillars which made surprise appearances on the snow, I enjoyed a snack, waiting half an hour for the skies to clear, but setting out on the descent without having seen the Tasman Sea.

I caught up to Liz once again on the trail, and we continued down the other side of the pass, enjoying the views, but hindered by her injuries. We arrived into camp a half hour before dark, set up, ate supper, and enjoyed the beautiful but chilled flats beside which we were camped.

Routeburn Day 3: Frost and ice greeted us in the morning, and I’d slept poorly because of the cold, but all ill thoughts were quickly dispelled by the sun rising at the foot of the valley; another beautiful day on Routeburn Track. The last 6.5 km was an easier-than-predicted slight downward trek over a couple of swing bridges and along a “gorge” struggling to live up to that title. We arrived at the road-end shelter with an hour to spare before our trail bus back to Queenstown, sunny, happy, and ready to eat the last of our pita bread and peanut butter.

Routeburn more than made up for the fog on Milford Track, and both of us were definitely glad that we opted to push through it. Liz is one tough cookie.

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Back in Queenstown, we stayed once more at our previous rest-stop, Deco Backpackers, relaxing, showering, and eating. Picking up our new rental car the next morning ($16 per day!!!), we decided to test Queenstown’s reputation as the adrenaline capital of New Zealand (or the world depending on who’s talking), and went bungee-jumping at the original spot: AJ Hackett’s Kawarau Bridge jump; the first commercial operation in the world! Quite exhilerating! My weak-kneed hop off the ledge wasn’t quite the magnificent leap I’d envisioned performing, but I look pretty good in the photos (I’ll see if I can get a digital copy somehow)! I managed to get to the gym in the evening, followed by lots of beer and food!

Now we head north, up the wild West Coast, a narrow strip of relatively flat land (30 km at best), sandwiched between the towering Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea. We have yet to decide on a definite itinerary, but it will include stops at the Franz Joseph glacier, and the coastal town of Greymouth, possibly with a white-water kayaking course in Murchison, and one or two more tracks on the South Island before crossing over to the North Island at the end of the month.