hello out there! hope you all had a fantastic christmas, especially those of you who were fortunate to have snow on the ground - how perfect!
my dad arrived safely on christmas eve and we had a quiet (but lovely) christmas in the motel, complete with handmade decorations that i made bryan get up early to finish. he's a good one. it was strange to miss most of the lead-up to the christmas season, being far away from commercials and christmas songs and window displays, and i was disconcerted to find myself almost comforted by the experience of a bustling mall when we arrived in the city during the peak of holiday shopping. after discovering many exciting surprises in our christmas stockings (so thoughtfully decorated and sent over by my mom), we drove east to the old french town of akaroa on the banks peninsula a few hours east of christchurch via some steep and windy roads. nothing was open, but it was a lovely drive and kept us away from the mountains of christmas chocolate for a little while.
yesterday we made another excursion, this time to mount sunday, best known as the town of edoras in rohan for my fellow lord of the rings fans. it's definitely off the beaten path, but there were quite a few cars on the gravel road so i suppose we're not the only cheesy tourists around. it's obviously peak tourism season, as the motels and backpackers are consistently slipping the "no" sign in front of "vacancy" and the roads are crowded with campervans and hitchhikers. we'd planned to take the bus up to nelson today, but the nakedbus was full so we opted to take the scenic train ride to greymouth and the bus from greymouth to nelson, making for a 10-hour day of traveling. tomorrow we'll hop on a shuttle bus for a short 90-minute drive to nelson lakes national park, where we'll head into the wilderness for about a week and see what adventures await us there.
-rachel
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
otago central rail trail
hey all! merry christmas! we're currently chilling for a few days in dunedin, a scottish city on the bottom of the east coast, home to new zealand's oldest university and the world's steepest streets. it's also got the cadbury factory, where we took a factory tour yesterday and scored some fantastic free samples. two days ago we finished up the otago central rail trail with a 2-hour scenic train ride into the city, a fitting conclusion for our historic and much-enjoyed long walk. if you've got time, i'd love to tell you more about it...
mon, dec 14
clyde to alexandra, 5 miles
we got started on the rail trail at 4:30 this afternoon, having spent the day bumping around on buses and drinking starbucks in queenstown. though we've only gotten as far as the first town, i 
already love this trail, a flat gravel path that stretches for 93 miles across the plains of central otago, a region known for its long-ago gold rush days, dry weather, farmland, and fruit growing. the rail trail was opened in 2001 by DOC, the land having been purchased in 1993 after the railway went bust in 1990, and is primarily used by cyclists, so we're certainly in the minority being on foot. because we're hopping on a train at the end of the track, and because this train only runs on fridays and sundays, we're squeezing what would most comfortably be a 7- or 8-day walk into a 5-day trip, keeping in the back of our minds the option to rent bikes at a stop along the way if we need a change of pace.
already love this trail, a flat gravel path that stretches for 93 miles across the plains of central otago, a region known for its long-ago gold rush days, dry weather, farmland, and fruit growing. the rail trail was opened in 2001 by DOC, the land having been purchased in 1993 after the railway went bust in 1990, and is primarily used by cyclists, so we're certainly in the minority being on foot. because we're hopping on a train at the end of the track, and because this train only runs on fridays and sundays, we're squeezing what would most comfortably be a 7- or 8-day walk into a 5-day trip, keeping in the back of our minds the option to rent bikes at a stop along the way if we need a change of pace.tues, dec 15
alexandra to omakau, 18 miles
from the reaction we're getting from cyclists, along with our own lack of encounters with other walkers, we seem to be the only people on earth who would dare not bring a bike along on the rail trail. i can certainly see the appeal of a set of wheels, as this is just the first of a series of long days on the flattest imaginable surface (the railroad was not allowed to exceed a 1:50 gradient) that extends in a straight line, often apparently 
interminably. DOC does an excellent job of providing information panels about the history of the region and the railway; there's even a guidebook that i wanted to have but was too cheap to buy. what they don't do so well, in classic DOC fashion, is mathematics. the distances between stations vary from brochure to trail sign, and then from trail sign to trail sign; in many places there are three variations to choose from. if we have yet to hike the section in question, we choose the smallest distance; if we have already completed it, we count the largest :)
interminably. DOC does an excellent job of providing information panels about the history of the region and the railway; there's even a guidebook that i wanted to have but was too cheap to buy. what they don't do so well, in classic DOC fashion, is mathematics. the distances between stations vary from brochure to trail sign, and then from trail sign to trail sign; in many places there are three variations to choose from. if we have yet to hike the section in question, we choose the smallest distance; if we have already completed it, we count the largest :)most of the land we're passing through is inhabited by sheep, deer, cows, or horses; outside of one or two vineyards spotted on our first short day, there doesn't appear to be any fruit grown here after all. in northland, a prime spot for oranges, at the end of many driveways would be a chair or old bookcase holding bags fo fruit and a donation box, a passive but possibly effective way to get rid of a surplus. we very nearly contributed $2 to one such roadside stand for a custard apple, but balked at the last moment, our curiosity being ultimately outweighed by the strangeness of the item, which in appearance had more in common with an artichoke than an apple.
wed, dec 16
omakau to oturehua, 18.25 miles
i make an effort not to start counting down the remaining miles until after lunchtime, but sometimes i just can't help it. instead of making a long walk more tolerable, it keeps me from finding distraction in my surroundings and leads to some discouraging "surely we've walked farther than that..." moments. but while the day was long, it wasn't at all uninteresting - the highlight being two flashlight-required walks through 
old railway tunnels, emerging to beautiful views of a deep gorge and a crossing of a high viaduct. we're also appreciating the dry and hot weather that results from being, for once, on the eastern side of the mountains - a welcome change for us, but not so for the locals, who are suffering through the early stages of drought.
old railway tunnels, emerging to beautiful views of a deep gorge and a crossing of a high viaduct. we're also appreciating the dry and hot weather that results from being, for once, on the eastern side of the mountains - a welcome change for us, but not so for the locals, who are suffering through the early stages of drought.we accidentally chased a poor sheep down the trail for the last mile of the day; it had (not uncharacteristically) wriggled out of its pen and didn't have time to squeeze back in by the time it spotted us. as the trail at this point is bounded on both sides by fences, it trotted along ahead of us for quite a while, occasionally darting into the tall grass alongside the trail to check another section of fence and even desperately head-butting a closed gate before finally escaping. in oturehua we stopped at gilchrist's general store, the oldest continuously operating store in new zealand, and arrived at the backpackers still nibbling at our ice cream bars. best $3 we've ever spent.
thu, dec 17
thu, dec 17
oturehua to waipiata, 21.5 miles
new longest distance for the harmons, 21.5 miles, edging out our previous high of 20.5. this day was another hot one, adding to my strange finger-imprinted sunburn collection despite (because of?) three sunscreen applications. we restocked our food supply in ranfurly, known as a hub for rural art deco architecture, where we wished we could stop for a break at the historic centennial milk bar. i'm unfamiliar with the idea of a milk bar, and am more than a little curious - could a person successfully order a glass of 2% strawberry goat's milk there? probably not...
at our campsite, an "informal camping area" right off the trail, the remains of a blue tent are mysteriously lying just over the fence behind the latrine. who abandons their tent on the trail? even if the weather was acting up and you decided to bail in favor of the b&b up the road, wouldn't you return the next morning to retrieve it? i just finished a swedish book where a couple is murdered while camping in a tent (like ours, also blue), so i may be prone to over-dramatize anything out of the ordinary that involves blue nylon...
fri, dec 18
fri, dec 18
waipiata to hyde, 14.25 miles
the big story today is the violent wind, which made us grateful that we'd planned such a short day today. a woman on a bike was pushed off the trail by an especially strong gust just outside the small ganger's shed in which we were eating lunch; we watched her climb 
back up the bank, bloodied up a bit and much more cautious. from then on, she walked the bike through the exposed sections, where bryan and i held hands to keep each other on the trail, affecting a silly hop-run resulting from the bullying wind making every effort to buckle our knees. the worst was the sandblasting of our arms and faces when the wind picked up bits of gravel and offered us a natural exfoliating treatment. from time to time we caught sight of how goofy we looked, and our anger was interrupted with fits of giggles at this ridiculous and unexpected experience.
back up the bank, bloodied up a bit and much more cautious. from then on, she walked the bike through the exposed sections, where bryan and i held hands to keep each other on the trail, affecting a silly hop-run resulting from the bullying wind making every effort to buckle our knees. the worst was the sandblasting of our arms and faces when the wind picked up bits of gravel and offered us a natural exfoliating treatment. from time to time we caught sight of how goofy we looked, and our anger was interrupted with fits of giggles at this ridiculous and unexpected experience.we didn't have a reservation for a room in hyde, which generally isn't a problem but the hotel that we stopped in seemed really flustered by our unexpected arrival. they did have a room left in the bunkhouse, very expensive for its size but mercifully sheltered (mostly) from the wind, so we gratefully took it anyway. i returned from a long, hot shower to find the weather still unabated; my raincoat, which had been hanging on a hook in the bedroom, had blown out of the open window and was now making its way down towards the road.
sat, dec 19
sat, dec 19
hyde to middlemarch, 17 miles
we finished off the last of the 93(ish) miles early this afternoon, arriving at the small station in middlemarch where tomorrow we'll board the taieri gorge railway to dunedin for a few days of touristy exploration. this has been our longest trail so far, as other weeklong trips have consisted of stringing together two or more small trails, and the historic focus and change of scenery has made the rail trail a good choice for our second-to-last trip before settling down for a while to work. i do wish, however, that the longest straight stretch of this taril hadn't been reserved for the final 4 miles - it's cruel to be able to see our destination continuously from so far away and yet not seem to make any progress towards it.
on these flat expanses that require little mental exertion, i've been aware of the thoughts that meander through my mind during an 8-hour day on the trail. far from the disciplined theological debates or progress towards career decisions that i'd expected to result from unlimited thinking time, the brain instead chooses to squander its resources on trivial matters of zero consequence: remembering a forgotten word in a song that i know rhymes with "pathetic" (prophetic), finding an actor whose first and last names both start with "E" (emilio estevez), wondering just how bad the word "bloody" actually is. maybe it's time to go back to school...
-rachel
pictures:
1) view through an old traffic light (do you still call it that on a railroad?)
2) arriving at what was once lauder station
2) arriving at what was once lauder station
3) bryan's new deer friends. looks like a family photo.
4) looking over the manuherikia river from one of many bridges
bryan took all but the first one - he did a stellar job as photographer, don't you think?
Monday, December 14, 2009
mavora walkway
these last few days have been kind of a bust due to the unceasing rain, so i'll try to give a fairly brief recounting of our short walk (if i'm capable of doing so). i also recognize that it's christmastime and most of you have better things to do than keep up with this blog.
oh, and the pictures this time don't have anything to do with the text - i'm just uploading old ones from our road trip down the west coast. first one is of bryan taking a picture at arthur's pass national park, second one is me with the guided tour at fox glacier, the third is an incredible sunset at the "ithilien" campground , and the fourth is a "senior portrait" that bryan posed for at some ruins that we found on a short walk just outside of queenstown.
wed, dec 9
queenstown to mid caples hut, 4 miles?
queenstown to mid caples hut, 4 miles?
this little trip is not starting off well. we nearly missed the bus/got in a fight with the bus driver, who failed to announce our destination when loading the bus and then snapped "you're late" at us when another employee rushed us to the departing vehicle. i rarely see bryan so riled up - 
it's fun to watch :) it's raining today, as it has been for the last two days, and our clothes are still a bit damp from the laundry since we hopefully hung them on the line for a full day before giving in to the dryer. to make things more uncomfortable, i've developed a minor irritation in my left eye that makes me look like some sort of red-eyed mutant and requires that i wear my glasses for a few days. glasses and hiking in the rain don't mix well - the glasses tend to fog up at the first sign of body heat - so i blindly led the way across sodden pastures and riverside forest tracks without the aid of my spectacles.
it's fun to watch :) it's raining today, as it has been for the last two days, and our clothes are still a bit damp from the laundry since we hopefully hung them on the line for a full day before giving in to the dryer. to make things more uncomfortable, i've developed a minor irritation in my left eye that makes me look like some sort of red-eyed mutant and requires that i wear my glasses for a few days. glasses and hiking in the rain don't mix well - the glasses tend to fog up at the first sign of body heat - so i blindly led the way across sodden pastures and riverside forest tracks without the aid of my spectacles. these first two days of our five-day hike were supposed to be along the caples track, which forms half of a loop with last week's greenstone track, but because of the weather we've decided to hike just a short ways along the caples track today and then backtrack tomorrow to avoid the overflowing streams. it's amazing how quickly the streams and rivers rise to dangerous levels, and also how quickly they drop once the rain has stopped. along the track we saw (and smelled) three dead cows, which we learned from the hut warden had drowned a few days ago in another storm.
burned a hold in my sock by stupidly "drying" it on top of a wood stove while in use, which i'm both embarrassed about and a little amused by. as you can see, i still have plenty of things to learn.
thurs, dec 10
mid caples hut to greenstone hut, 15 miles?
bryan and i decided to split up at the convergence of the caples and greenstone tracks, as i wanted to add
a 2-3 hour detour that he wasn't particularly interested in. we set our "if i'm not at the hut by..." emergency deadlines, redistributed lunch, and both happily started down our respective trails just before 11. i'm very glad that i chose to check out the lake rere loop, as it winds back to lake wakatipu which otherwise is only seen on the way to the track, and also passes by a small sub-alpine lake where i took a long break in the sun and pulled out a book that i've been working on since we arrived in new zealand. also, skipping this track would have meant hiking exclusively on trails that i've already experienced, which is hard to get excited about. i made my way to greenstone hut (our favorite!) with plenty of time to spare, and we spent the evening talking with a guy from atlanta who has a nightmarish story about his deportation from russia while with the peace corps.
a 2-3 hour detour that he wasn't particularly interested in. we set our "if i'm not at the hut by..." emergency deadlines, redistributed lunch, and both happily started down our respective trails just before 11. i'm very glad that i chose to check out the lake rere loop, as it winds back to lake wakatipu which otherwise is only seen on the way to the track, and also passes by a small sub-alpine lake where i took a long break in the sun and pulled out a book that i've been working on since we arrived in new zealand. also, skipping this track would have meant hiking exclusively on trails that i've already experienced, which is hard to get excited about. i made my way to greenstone hut (our favorite!) with plenty of time to spare, and we spent the evening talking with a guy from atlanta who has a nightmarish story about his deportation from russia while with the peace corps. fri, dec 11
greenstone hut to careys hut, 17 miles
this was one of our longest days on the trail in a while, reminiscent of our crazy days on the te araroa a few months ago when we put in the long hours out of necessity, having no places in between to set up the tent. today we passed two huts
before settling in at the six-bed careys hut; we had originally planned to stay here tomorrow night instead of tonight but with another bout of rain coming in on our heels we opted to get as far as possible today. this track, the mavora walkway (actually part of the te araroa) is extremely boggy in many places and isn't very well signed, so while the scenery was lovely, this isn't going down in history as our favorite walk ever. this hut won't be winning any medals either, quaint as it is, as the hut book entries keep mentioning mice and every surface is covered with dead blowflies, who occasionally revive themselves long enough to skitter around upside-down on the windowsill, much like wind-up toys.
before settling in at the six-bed careys hut; we had originally planned to stay here tomorrow night instead of tonight but with another bout of rain coming in on our heels we opted to get as far as possible today. this track, the mavora walkway (actually part of the te araroa) is extremely boggy in many places and isn't very well signed, so while the scenery was lovely, this isn't going down in history as our favorite walk ever. this hut won't be winning any medals either, quaint as it is, as the hut book entries keep mentioning mice and every surface is covered with dead blowflies, who occasionally revive themselves long enough to skitter around upside-down on the windowsill, much like wind-up toys.sat, dec 12
careys hut to te anau, 8 miles?
when the alarm went off at 7 this morning, barely audible over the temper tantrum that the sky seemed to be throwing, bryan, already knowing the answer, asked, "do you want me to reset it 
for an hour from now and see if the rain has stopped by then?" of course i did, but the rain paused for just a brief window, so we were quickly drenched anyway. after two hours we reached a point where the track splits, giving us the option of taking a more direct route to kiwi burn hut along a gravel road or the longer but likely more scenic trail to the hut along a lake. we opted for the first choice, but in the end didn't make it to the hut after all, giving in to an offer of a ride down to the highway with a couple running support services for "the big walk", a fundraising effort for a community youth program that involves two groups walking the te araroa from opposite ends and meeting in the middle in february. they dropped us off a good 30 miles south of town, but we quickly found another ride with a young british couple and their 1-year-old daugher, who seemed to take well to the travelling lifestyle. when we have kids, i want to retain my sense of adventure like this adorable family.
for an hour from now and see if the rain has stopped by then?" of course i did, but the rain paused for just a brief window, so we were quickly drenched anyway. after two hours we reached a point where the track splits, giving us the option of taking a more direct route to kiwi burn hut along a gravel road or the longer but likely more scenic trail to the hut along a lake. we opted for the first choice, but in the end didn't make it to the hut after all, giving in to an offer of a ride down to the highway with a couple running support services for "the big walk", a fundraising effort for a community youth program that involves two groups walking the te araroa from opposite ends and meeting in the middle in february. they dropped us off a good 30 miles south of town, but we quickly found another ride with a young british couple and their 1-year-old daugher, who seemed to take well to the travelling lifestyle. when we have kids, i want to retain my sense of adventure like this adorable family. te anau's a cute town, so what was supposed to be just an overnight stop turned into two days of sightseeing, coffee drinking, and movie watching - much better than walking in the rain!
-rachel
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
rees-dart track
fri, dec 4 (happy birthday, grandpa!)
glenorchy to shelter rock hut, 13.5 miles
were it not for the american guy who picked us up outside of town, we'd still be walking the 12 miles to the start of the rees-dart track. while he
couldn't get us all the way there, as the road fords some deep streams, we were grateful to have our pre-hike walking trimmed down to just an hour. on the turnoff to the access road we spotted two large yellow arrows pointing our direction and desperately hoped it didn't mean that we'd be joined by the rowdy bunch of middle-schoolers who'd been hitting our tent with their soccer ball all night. fortunately for us, that wasn't the case at all; instead, one of our secret hopes had been realized: we'd stumbled upon a film crew. a kiwi bloke on a 4x4 explained that they were shooting scenes for a movie called tracker (starring ray winstone, which bryan's stoked about), seeming to apologize for their intrusion into our "remote" tramping experience. we so-very-graciously accepted his apology, trying to look casual, as if we regularly come into contact with actors' trailers parked on the trail.
sat, dec 5
sun, dec 6
i wouldn't shed a single tear if i never had to see another gully for the rest of my life. the problem with topo maps and elevation charts, as helpful as they are, is that they don't operate on a small enough scale to be of any assistance to me between point A and point B. with topo lines indicating elevation only every 20m (approx. 60 ft), i'm constantly discovering
ascents and descents that leave me huffing and puffing but don't even feature on the map because they total, say, only 18m of elevation change. i could essentially climb up and down the stairs of a 5-story building and not see any of my effort reflected on the map - and that's what i felt like we were doing all day. i'm exaggerating, of course, but it was a fairly bland day of walking in the rain so i've got to play it up somehow. spent a slow-moving evening reading the hut book, which all hikers are required to sign in case they go missing, as this helps search and rescue teams identify where the person last turned up. we generally spot a few other minnesotans that have passed through during the last year, though you can find entries representing outdoor enthusiasts from nearly every state and country.
glenorchy to shelter rock hut, 13.5 miles
were it not for the american guy who picked us up outside of town, we'd still be walking the 12 miles to the start of the rees-dart track. while he
couldn't get us all the way there, as the road fords some deep streams, we were grateful to have our pre-hike walking trimmed down to just an hour. on the turnoff to the access road we spotted two large yellow arrows pointing our direction and desperately hoped it didn't mean that we'd be joined by the rowdy bunch of middle-schoolers who'd been hitting our tent with their soccer ball all night. fortunately for us, that wasn't the case at all; instead, one of our secret hopes had been realized: we'd stumbled upon a film crew. a kiwi bloke on a 4x4 explained that they were shooting scenes for a movie called tracker (starring ray winstone, which bryan's stoked about), seeming to apologize for their intrusion into our "remote" tramping experience. we so-very-graciously accepted his apology, trying to look casual, as if we regularly come into contact with actors' trailers parked on the trail. all in all, it took us a little over 7 hours to reach the hut today, passing through miles of valley marshlands, beech forest, and, at higher elevations, avalanche gullies. all morning we kept our eyes on mt earnslaw across the valley, waiting to see the obvious line of snow accumulation collapse and rush downhill, but all we saw was a tiny tremor that had stilled by the time its brief rumble could be heard.
sat, dec 5
shelter rock hut to dart hut, 5.5 miles
we didn't cover much ground today, just over 5 miles in a 5 hour period, a testament to the difficulty of terrain that we encountered. the 4-day track is pretty straightforward: 500-1000m, hut; 1000m-1500m-1000m, hut; 1000m-500m, hut. this morning, we set out to tackle the highest part of the track, a 500m scramble up and down gullies to the rees saddle. just two days ago the ice axe and crampon requirement was lifted by the DOC (this should
have clued us in), but we still didn't expect to face anything as scary as the final 150m climb up the crazy steep slope to the saddle. snow still clung to the slopes, disguising the shape of the mountainside and causing some frightening (this is actually quite an understatement; i nearly hyperventilated) slips through the wet and muddy grass. this wasn't a hike but a full-on scramble, all limbs engaged, our bodies pressed flat against the slope to keep our heavy packs from pulling us backwards and causing what could easily have been a fatal tumble. i'm officially reverting to my original philosophy that mountaineering is only for the crazy, and i am not one of them.
have clued us in), but we still didn't expect to face anything as scary as the final 150m climb up the crazy steep slope to the saddle. snow still clung to the slopes, disguising the shape of the mountainside and causing some frightening (this is actually quite an understatement; i nearly hyperventilated) slips through the wet and muddy grass. this wasn't a hike but a full-on scramble, all limbs engaged, our bodies pressed flat against the slope to keep our heavy packs from pulling us backwards and causing what could easily have been a fatal tumble. i'm officially reverting to my original philosophy that mountaineering is only for the crazy, and i am not one of them.when we mentioned our harrowing experience to the hut warden whom we encounted on the trail an hour later, he responded to our comment that it was "scary" with a casual and almost insulting "how so?"; we later found our from other hikers in the evening that they'd had the same experience. if we are total wusses, at least we're not alone.
read some of tom clancy's patriot games in the hut (slim pickings at the last book exchange) and learned that popular authors don't even have to be decent writers as long as they throw in words like "counterintelligence" and "electronic detonator" every few pages. terrible book, but i'm sure i'll finish it anyway - i'm that desperate.
sun, dec 6
dart hut to daleys flat hut, 9 miles
i wouldn't shed a single tear if i never had to see another gully for the rest of my life. the problem with topo maps and elevation charts, as helpful as they are, is that they don't operate on a small enough scale to be of any assistance to me between point A and point B. with topo lines indicating elevation only every 20m (approx. 60 ft), i'm constantly discovering
ascents and descents that leave me huffing and puffing but don't even feature on the map because they total, say, only 18m of elevation change. i could essentially climb up and down the stairs of a 5-story building and not see any of my effort reflected on the map - and that's what i felt like we were doing all day. i'm exaggerating, of course, but it was a fairly bland day of walking in the rain so i've got to play it up somehow. spent a slow-moving evening reading the hut book, which all hikers are required to sign in case they go missing, as this helps search and rescue teams identify where the person last turned up. we generally spot a few other minnesotans that have passed through during the last year, though you can find entries representing outdoor enthusiasts from nearly every state and country.mon, dec 7
daleys flat hut to queenstown, 8 miles
daleys flat hut to queenstown, 8 miles
we finished off the last 8 miles of the rees-dart by lunchtime, meeting up at the shelter one last time with the other 4 hikers who've been following the same route since shelter rock hut and whose company we've enjoyed in the huts each evening. this track being more difficult than the last two, it draws more serious hikers from whom we've learned much.
tonight we're back in QT to do the usual: restock, shower, laundry, internet, and plan the week ahead. as soon as we finalize our route for the next 5 days, we'll have our last month of tramping planned out and will have to start looking ahead to finding work, which doesn't seem like nearly as much fun. already we're realizing that we may never get to see some parts of the country - apparently a year isn't really limitless time. on the plus side, these last few months having gone by so quickly means that my dad will arrive in just over two weeks to spend christmas with us in christchurch and test his backpacking abilities in the southern alps. i vividly remember arriving at the crappy hostel in auckland, despairingly telling ourselves that we just needed to hold out long enough for my dad to visit, and then we could go home if we still wanted to. i'm glad things have changed on that front. our greatest fear is that he'll arrive in shape (as usual) and show us up on the trail, so we've been pushing ourselves a bit harder than normal to minimize this potential embarrassment :)
-rachel
pictures:
1) drying off the socks at lunchtime after crossing 25 mile creek
2) bryan's lion king pose in the rees valley
3) looking up towards rees saddle
2) bryan's lion king pose in the rees valley
3) looking up towards rees saddle
4) the shelter at chinaman's bluff - the end of 8 great days of tramping!]
PS - more pictures up on our photobucket page.
greenstone & routeburn tracks
happy december! i'm going to post this latest update in two sections, for those of you who don't have an hour to devote to reading about our travels :)
mon, nov 30
queenstown to greenstone hut, 7.5 miles
we took a shuttle from queenstown to the start of our track (we're combining two short tracks), which included a bit of an impromptu lord of the rings tour, as we were the only two in the van with a driver who worked on the movies and also runs commercial tours to the filming sites. when asked if they see many hardcore "ringers" on the tour, he relayed a story of a german woman, apparently bordering on viggo mortensen stalker status, who began crying at one of the sites and who came attired in her own "regalia" (his words,
indicating at least the standard hobbit cloak and perhaps more).
another addition to the shuttle service today is that it involved a crossing of lake wakatipu by boat, normally not part of the plan but included this time because of a problem with the company's bus. we joined a guided tour group for this portion of the trip, about 10 hikers of various ages who'll hike the same route as us but pay 5-10 times more for the pleasure of staying in lodges with hot showers and meals, thus carrying much smaller packs. apparently, according to our driver, some of them don't realize that you can easily navigate these tracks on your own. hope it's worth it to them.
we only walked for 3.5 hours today, bringing us to the luxurious greenstone hut where the incredible sunset over the mountains lured even the hut warden outside to take photos. the walking was easy, with breathtaking glimpses of the turquoise greenstone river, so we're feeling pretty good about this track so far.
tues, dec 1
greenstone hut to mckellar hut, 9 miles
if we'd known what chaos awaited us at the mckellar hut tonight, we might not have been able to make ourselves move from quiet greenstone hut this morning. but, being ignorant, we trekked down through the boggy valley, which, being surrounded by high mountains on our left and right, gave us the impression that we were being squeezed through a giant intestine. i won't take this illustration any further, but i will say that we are feeling the discomfort of being bottled up with about 20 others in a hut built for 16. being the only ones with
a tent, it's expected that we volunteer to sleep outside, no matter the fact that we were among the first to arrive and were already installed on one of the lower bunks. to aggravate this irritation further, a horde of sandflies attacked while we were setting up camp, inviting themselves into the tent where they now lie dead on the floor and remain smashed into the mesh canopy. i know that i don't really have the right to complain about this common hiking experience, but we were really looking forward to sleeping in huts the first two nights, as our next two will be at campsites. bummer.
wed, dec 2
mckellar hut to mackenzie camp, 9 miles
we made a lazy start today, being the last to leave the hut, though in our defense we did have to sweep up after the people who actually got to sleep inside. early on in the day we completed the greenstone track, which meets up with the routeburn (a great walk) at howden hut, where we devoured our peanut butter sandwiches and got the latest track updates from another american couple also using the hut as a lunch spot. apparently there's an avalanche-prone section near the saddle that's
caused the DOC to require a guided crossing, so all trampers have to meet at a certain time to be led across in a bunch. this couple's opinion, which we heard echoed many times throughout the day, is that the DOC is being extremely cautious and the guided crossing isn't really necessary. there have also been rumors that the saddle opened back up this afternoon, so i guess we'll see when we get there. either way, we're luckier than last week's hikers, who could only cross that portion of the track by paying $55 each for a 45-second helicopter ride across the affected area. yikes. we left howden hut at about the same time as a frantic german guy with a baguette strapped to his pack who was stopping every hiker from the opposite direction to ask about the saddle before scurrying on up the hill. later, we learned that he had foolishly planned to hike all of the 20-mile track today and hurry back into town for a 10:30 am flight back to europe tomorrow, leaving himself no buffer for a delay like this one.
only 3 hours of our day were spent on the routeburn, but already we like what we see. with so much promotion of the great walks it's rare to be surprised by an exceptional vista; usually we find ourselves thinking "this looks familiar", even if it is worth seeing in person. on this part of the track, however, we felt as if we'd stumbled upon a secret treasure at earland falls, where the track skirts the pool at the base of the powerful waterfall, close enough to soak us pretty thoroughly with the spraying mist. then, upon reaching our campsite, we took the side track marked "split rock --> 25 min return" which took us to a gigantic boulder that's been split in two, the path between the halves just wide enough to walk through but not a place i'd want to be during an earthquake. tomorrow we should rack up twice the mileage on the routeburn - does it follow that we'll find twice as many fascinating spots? hope so!
thu, dec 3
mackenzie camp to glenorchy, 13.5 miles
turns out the guided crossing is still required, so we paused at the harris saddle in a chilly wind for a half hour before being led through the danger zone by a hut warden. we couldn't see any snow on the slopes above us and the only tricky spot was a 10m section through lingering snow, but i still managed a spectacular fall by slipping on a wet rock on the descent, which was witnessed by about a dozen people. fantastic. the massive bruises that i just noticed on my right arm are, i think, a result of this incident...but who can say?
on the track down to the 50-bed (!) routeburn falls hut, we passed a group of 4 hikers sporting a "7 in 7" patch on their matching shirts. i recognized them from an article in nz's wilderness magazine, which explained that they're running 7 of the 9 great walks (skipping stewart island's rakiura track and the great "walk" that's really a river journey) in 7 days to raise money for the leukemia and blood foundation. that's more than 220 miles in a week. think about that for a second. in my typical awkward fashion, instead of acknowledging my interest in their challenge, i stared at the patches on their chests in a way that probably made them feel extremely uncomfortable. at least one of them interpreted my rude gaping as curiosity and passed me a small laminated card about their mission, sheepishly admitting, "we're supposed to be running, but..." and gestured up the steep slope of loose rock ahead of them.
during the last two hours of the track we began passing the group of hikers just arriving off of the transport bus, still smelling pleasantly of deodorant and shampoo and attired in some of the most inappropriate hiking gear i've seen so far: jeans and white sneakers, cotton t-shirts, feminine tops with plunging necklines. every track transport drive in queenstown has a story about some under-equipped, flip-flop wearing idiot that he's
dropped off at the routeburn. i'm beginning to wonder if it's just too accessible to the average tourist, though the DOC office admittedly does a good job of stressing wilderness safety.
at the track's end we ran into a fly fisherman who gave us a ride into glenorchy, the nearest town to the start of tomorrow's track, the rees-dart. somehow when i tell people that we're hiking this track, they can't seem to understand me; the fisherman asked "what's the restart?" and then, when i explained, said "oh, the rees-dart" with exactly the same inflection as i thought i had used. glenorchy was the perfect place to spend a night before hitting the trail again; being the first summer-hot day of the year, i bought an ice cream cone, sat cross-legged at the end of the dock, and watched the sun setting over the mountains. this is why we came to new zealand.
-rachel
queenstown to greenstone hut, 7.5 miles
we took a shuttle from queenstown to the start of our track (we're combining two short tracks), which included a bit of an impromptu lord of the rings tour, as we were the only two in the van with a driver who worked on the movies and also runs commercial tours to the filming sites. when asked if they see many hardcore "ringers" on the tour, he relayed a story of a german woman, apparently bordering on viggo mortensen stalker status, who began crying at one of the sites and who came attired in her own "regalia" (his words,
indicating at least the standard hobbit cloak and perhaps more).another addition to the shuttle service today is that it involved a crossing of lake wakatipu by boat, normally not part of the plan but included this time because of a problem with the company's bus. we joined a guided tour group for this portion of the trip, about 10 hikers of various ages who'll hike the same route as us but pay 5-10 times more for the pleasure of staying in lodges with hot showers and meals, thus carrying much smaller packs. apparently, according to our driver, some of them don't realize that you can easily navigate these tracks on your own. hope it's worth it to them.
we only walked for 3.5 hours today, bringing us to the luxurious greenstone hut where the incredible sunset over the mountains lured even the hut warden outside to take photos. the walking was easy, with breathtaking glimpses of the turquoise greenstone river, so we're feeling pretty good about this track so far.
tues, dec 1
greenstone hut to mckellar hut, 9 miles
if we'd known what chaos awaited us at the mckellar hut tonight, we might not have been able to make ourselves move from quiet greenstone hut this morning. but, being ignorant, we trekked down through the boggy valley, which, being surrounded by high mountains on our left and right, gave us the impression that we were being squeezed through a giant intestine. i won't take this illustration any further, but i will say that we are feeling the discomfort of being bottled up with about 20 others in a hut built for 16. being the only ones with
a tent, it's expected that we volunteer to sleep outside, no matter the fact that we were among the first to arrive and were already installed on one of the lower bunks. to aggravate this irritation further, a horde of sandflies attacked while we were setting up camp, inviting themselves into the tent where they now lie dead on the floor and remain smashed into the mesh canopy. i know that i don't really have the right to complain about this common hiking experience, but we were really looking forward to sleeping in huts the first two nights, as our next two will be at campsites. bummer.wed, dec 2
mckellar hut to mackenzie camp, 9 miles
we made a lazy start today, being the last to leave the hut, though in our defense we did have to sweep up after the people who actually got to sleep inside. early on in the day we completed the greenstone track, which meets up with the routeburn (a great walk) at howden hut, where we devoured our peanut butter sandwiches and got the latest track updates from another american couple also using the hut as a lunch spot. apparently there's an avalanche-prone section near the saddle that's
caused the DOC to require a guided crossing, so all trampers have to meet at a certain time to be led across in a bunch. this couple's opinion, which we heard echoed many times throughout the day, is that the DOC is being extremely cautious and the guided crossing isn't really necessary. there have also been rumors that the saddle opened back up this afternoon, so i guess we'll see when we get there. either way, we're luckier than last week's hikers, who could only cross that portion of the track by paying $55 each for a 45-second helicopter ride across the affected area. yikes. we left howden hut at about the same time as a frantic german guy with a baguette strapped to his pack who was stopping every hiker from the opposite direction to ask about the saddle before scurrying on up the hill. later, we learned that he had foolishly planned to hike all of the 20-mile track today and hurry back into town for a 10:30 am flight back to europe tomorrow, leaving himself no buffer for a delay like this one.only 3 hours of our day were spent on the routeburn, but already we like what we see. with so much promotion of the great walks it's rare to be surprised by an exceptional vista; usually we find ourselves thinking "this looks familiar", even if it is worth seeing in person. on this part of the track, however, we felt as if we'd stumbled upon a secret treasure at earland falls, where the track skirts the pool at the base of the powerful waterfall, close enough to soak us pretty thoroughly with the spraying mist. then, upon reaching our campsite, we took the side track marked "split rock --> 25 min return" which took us to a gigantic boulder that's been split in two, the path between the halves just wide enough to walk through but not a place i'd want to be during an earthquake. tomorrow we should rack up twice the mileage on the routeburn - does it follow that we'll find twice as many fascinating spots? hope so!
thu, dec 3
mackenzie camp to glenorchy, 13.5 miles
turns out the guided crossing is still required, so we paused at the harris saddle in a chilly wind for a half hour before being led through the danger zone by a hut warden. we couldn't see any snow on the slopes above us and the only tricky spot was a 10m section through lingering snow, but i still managed a spectacular fall by slipping on a wet rock on the descent, which was witnessed by about a dozen people. fantastic. the massive bruises that i just noticed on my right arm are, i think, a result of this incident...but who can say?
on the track down to the 50-bed (!) routeburn falls hut, we passed a group of 4 hikers sporting a "7 in 7" patch on their matching shirts. i recognized them from an article in nz's wilderness magazine, which explained that they're running 7 of the 9 great walks (skipping stewart island's rakiura track and the great "walk" that's really a river journey) in 7 days to raise money for the leukemia and blood foundation. that's more than 220 miles in a week. think about that for a second. in my typical awkward fashion, instead of acknowledging my interest in their challenge, i stared at the patches on their chests in a way that probably made them feel extremely uncomfortable. at least one of them interpreted my rude gaping as curiosity and passed me a small laminated card about their mission, sheepishly admitting, "we're supposed to be running, but..." and gestured up the steep slope of loose rock ahead of them.during the last two hours of the track we began passing the group of hikers just arriving off of the transport bus, still smelling pleasantly of deodorant and shampoo and attired in some of the most inappropriate hiking gear i've seen so far: jeans and white sneakers, cotton t-shirts, feminine tops with plunging necklines. every track transport drive in queenstown has a story about some under-equipped, flip-flop wearing idiot that he's
dropped off at the routeburn. i'm beginning to wonder if it's just too accessible to the average tourist, though the DOC office admittedly does a good job of stressing wilderness safety.at the track's end we ran into a fly fisherman who gave us a ride into glenorchy, the nearest town to the start of tomorrow's track, the rees-dart. somehow when i tell people that we're hiking this track, they can't seem to understand me; the fisherman asked "what's the restart?" and then, when i explained, said "oh, the rees-dart" with exactly the same inflection as i thought i had used. glenorchy was the perfect place to spend a night before hitting the trail again; being the first summer-hot day of the year, i bought an ice cream cone, sat cross-legged at the end of the dock, and watched the sun setting over the mountains. this is why we came to new zealand.
-rachel
pictures:
1) the incredible view from greenstone hut. we should be back there again 2 or 3 nights from now - let's hope the weather is just as perfect this time around!
2) looking up the greenstone valley on day 2
3) just past the harris saddle on the routeburn track
4) the blue-green waters of the glacial valleys
5) one of the classic views of the routeburn
Sunday, November 29, 2009
karamea to queenstown
happy belated thanksgiving! while i originally didn't think we were missing out on much by skipping thanksgiving this year, i've spent the last day and a half perusing everyone's thanksgiving pictures and facebook status updates and am now almost wishing that i'd had a chance to participate in black friday, as much as i revile it under ordinary circumstances.
advance notice: this update is, sadly, picture free; while our hostel has free internet, they(strangely) don't offer a USB connection. we gave in and bought another memory card for the camera, as we haven't been able to clear the pictures out quickly enough due to slow connections and expensive internet cafes.
tomorrow morning we're leaving for what should be a 7-day (monday to monday) link of three tracks in the area: 2 days on the greenstone track, 2 days on the routeburn, and 3-4 days on the rees-dart. this will be the longest we've been out without a resupply, so the packs feel insanely heavy with all of the food. wish us luck! here's what we've been up to since finishing the heaphy:
sun, nov 22
karamea
waste of a day. visited the information center to arrange transport to st arnaud (the main hub of nelson lakes national park), only to discover that a regular bus service hasn't run there since 2001, despite its location on what seems like it should be a prominent east-west route between blenheim and westport. striking a second blow to our tramping plans, we found out that our intended route included an alpine crossing that would be impassable without crampons, ice axes, and the skills needed to wield them. so we gave in and booked an early morning shuttle to westport as there seemed no other way out of this dang town. our original plan called for us to hike the wangapeka track across to the park's eastern bounday, but we just couldn't get ourselves excited about that trip. i'm not sure if this "i don't feel like it" option that we have while travelling is a good thing - it's not practical in other contexts, but is it acceptable here, given that this whole trip is really just one big indulgence?
mon, nov 23
karamea to arthur's pass
today has mercifully carried us far from karamea, though it wasn't cheap and wasn't without its frustrations. we took a shuttle to westport, which is big enough for an i-site but not big enough for a car rental, then hopped on another bus down to greymouth, where we succeeded at last in renting a car. to save money, we're travelling with david, an aspiring teacher from germany, whom we met at the bunkhouse in karamea. he's heading to queenstown, so i guess that's where we're going, too. the rental company has a 5-day minimum, so we'll explore the west coast until saturday and then go our separate ways. tonight we're camping between the highway and the train tracks (surprisingly, in an established camping site) in the town of arthur's pass, which is situated along the arthur's pass (road) in arthur's pass national park. setting up camp in the rain wasn't fun, but at least there's a spacious shelter in which to make dinner. tomorrow we'll look for a good day hike and then make our way back to the west coast highway.
tues, nov 24
arthur's pass to goldborough
the sun, though rising much too early for this time of year (6 am, late spring), revealed the beautiful alpine scenery that we were unable to appreciate in yesterday's foul weather. a consultation with a park ranger led us to the scott's track up to avalanche peak, though it was suggested with the warning that the wind was likely to reach gale strength and with the requirement that we submit an intentions form. intentions forms entail a submission of your hiking plans along with a notification of your safe return, and are required on the routes with more danger potential. the DOC office in nelson no longer accepts them due to so many casual hikers forgetting to complete the safe arrival portion and leading to unnecessary search and rescue efforts, but we've seen them more frequently as we've been heading south.
we made it to 1600m, a new personal high for us though still 250m shy of the summit, which we reluctantly decided not to attempt due to strong winds on a narrowing ridge. being a few hundred meters above treeline, the views were still incredible; never before had i felt so "in the mountains". i'm just glad to be kept from boredom by constantly finding myself in unfamiliar landscapes. after lunch we hit up a short track leading to a waterfall, which failed to impress. rather than risk bad weather for the dangerously steep drive out of the mountains tomorrow, we packed up and headed back to the west coast tonight, leaving a short drive into hokitika in the morning.
our camping spot tonight is situated in an old mining area, so bryan's gone down to the stream to find us some gold with which to finance the rest of this trip. the campsite's welcome sign displayed the usual symbols advertising bathrooms, a water source, and a cooking shelter, but the woman leaning over a river and carrying a basket containing three squares was puzzling to me until i spotted the gold fossicking information board. not a usual campsite amenity.
wed, nov 25
goldsborough to fox glacier
having partaken in an excellent meal of fish and chips and being quite snugly lodged in a warm hostel in this pouring rain, i can confidently assert that our decision to see the west coast by car was a good one. travelling with strangers is, obviously, potentially disastrous, but our plans have aligned well with david's and he's proven to be an amiable companion. we started the day with a half-hour walk in a forgotten mining area that led us through three short hand-carved tunnels, which, despite my shrieks of fear, contained no bats or rats. goldsborough, despite its possession of a town-identifying black dot on the map, is really no town at all. during the short-lived goldrush days of the 1860s its population peaked at 7000, but now all that remains is our tiny campground and a sign commemorating the hotel that distinguished itself as the last functioning building in town. i suppose what we now see isn't too far removed from what the area looked like before its resources were discovered at all.
other towns born in the gold rush had enough alternative resources to stick around beyond the initial boom. we spent a few hours in one of these towns, hokitika, which is now known for its greenstone (jade) carvings and for its annual wildfoods festival. for the first time in our travels, we stopped in a town and thought "oh, it's bigger than i'd pictured it!". most importantly for me, it had a museum; having seen plenty of references to the west coast's mining history, i was eager to learn more. bryan even patiently waited as i read all of the information panels, though i offered him the chance to roam around town instead. after lunch, we drove 2 hrs south to franz josef glacier, the first of the two glacier towns where you can pay for a guided glacier tour or even take a helicopter ride up to higher, bluer ice. we'll join the group for a half-day walk tomorrow, but for now satisfied ourselves with a 10-minute walk to a lookout. actually, it was fairly unsatisfying, the glacier being distant from the lookout and shrouding itself in the wet afternoon's low mist.
we'd planned to camp at a free spot a half hour out of town, but gave in to the appeal of the hostel with the rain beating down on the car windows. it's also given us the opportunity to shower, as i realized that i haven't done so since saturday and thought, in a way that now seems alarmingly casual, that maybe i could benefit from some soap and hot water.
thu, nov 26
fox glacier to lake paringa
our first "adventure experience" tourist splurge - a half-day walk on the fox glacier. as much as i don't want to admit disappointment, i probably wouldn't do it again; our group of 15 was too large and inexperienced (read: out of shape) to move along at a decent pace, resulting in barely an hour of ice time during a 4-hour tour. i was happy with our guide, nadine from australia, as she taught us quite a bit about glacial formation and movement. you can tell that it takes a lot of work (and money) to sustain tourism on a glacier: the parking lot, being built on the retreating glacier's "dead ice", is constantly under construction to keep it at a stable elevation, the trail from the parking lot falls victim to heavy rains and is reconstructed completely after every storm, and the ice steps on the glacier itself melt away daily. it seems as if the glacier is trying to keep itself inaccessible.
fri, nov 27
lake paringa to ithilien
i am in lord of the rings geek heaven: we are camping in ithilien. it may have disguised itself as a DOC campsite just minutes outside of queenstown, but i see through this facade and would not at all be surprised to see an oliphant wandering past our tent. i will admit that, in choosing our campsite, the yellow movie reel symbol on our road atlas indicating a filming location held some sway.
it's just the two of us tonight, as david, having just over two weeks left in nz, is hoping to get on the trail as soon as possible and had us drop him off in queenstown a day early. most of our day was spent driving, though we made short stops in haast (visitor center and overpriced grocery store), wanaka (lunch break - ate in the car because of the fierce winds), arrowtown (kitschy historic town; we stopped for the gelato), and hit up a few short walks off of the highway where it ran through mt aspiring national park.
sat, nov 28
ithilien to queenstown
here we are in queenstown, the "party town" that i just recently publicly resolved not to visit. while its terrible aspects were not overplayed, i suppose i have failed to give credit to some of its better qualities: an abundance of fantastic restaurants, a beautiful location on lake wakatipu, and an easy-to-navigate layout that includes plenty of green space on the fringes. our hostel, the best rated in town, is small (18 beds) and comfortable, with an impressive movie collection, so passing two nights here shouldn't be too difficult.
-rachel
advance notice: this update is, sadly, picture free; while our hostel has free internet, they(strangely) don't offer a USB connection. we gave in and bought another memory card for the camera, as we haven't been able to clear the pictures out quickly enough due to slow connections and expensive internet cafes.
tomorrow morning we're leaving for what should be a 7-day (monday to monday) link of three tracks in the area: 2 days on the greenstone track, 2 days on the routeburn, and 3-4 days on the rees-dart. this will be the longest we've been out without a resupply, so the packs feel insanely heavy with all of the food. wish us luck! here's what we've been up to since finishing the heaphy:
sun, nov 22
karamea
waste of a day. visited the information center to arrange transport to st arnaud (the main hub of nelson lakes national park), only to discover that a regular bus service hasn't run there since 2001, despite its location on what seems like it should be a prominent east-west route between blenheim and westport. striking a second blow to our tramping plans, we found out that our intended route included an alpine crossing that would be impassable without crampons, ice axes, and the skills needed to wield them. so we gave in and booked an early morning shuttle to westport as there seemed no other way out of this dang town. our original plan called for us to hike the wangapeka track across to the park's eastern bounday, but we just couldn't get ourselves excited about that trip. i'm not sure if this "i don't feel like it" option that we have while travelling is a good thing - it's not practical in other contexts, but is it acceptable here, given that this whole trip is really just one big indulgence?
mon, nov 23
karamea to arthur's pass
today has mercifully carried us far from karamea, though it wasn't cheap and wasn't without its frustrations. we took a shuttle to westport, which is big enough for an i-site but not big enough for a car rental, then hopped on another bus down to greymouth, where we succeeded at last in renting a car. to save money, we're travelling with david, an aspiring teacher from germany, whom we met at the bunkhouse in karamea. he's heading to queenstown, so i guess that's where we're going, too. the rental company has a 5-day minimum, so we'll explore the west coast until saturday and then go our separate ways. tonight we're camping between the highway and the train tracks (surprisingly, in an established camping site) in the town of arthur's pass, which is situated along the arthur's pass (road) in arthur's pass national park. setting up camp in the rain wasn't fun, but at least there's a spacious shelter in which to make dinner. tomorrow we'll look for a good day hike and then make our way back to the west coast highway.
tues, nov 24
arthur's pass to goldborough
the sun, though rising much too early for this time of year (6 am, late spring), revealed the beautiful alpine scenery that we were unable to appreciate in yesterday's foul weather. a consultation with a park ranger led us to the scott's track up to avalanche peak, though it was suggested with the warning that the wind was likely to reach gale strength and with the requirement that we submit an intentions form. intentions forms entail a submission of your hiking plans along with a notification of your safe return, and are required on the routes with more danger potential. the DOC office in nelson no longer accepts them due to so many casual hikers forgetting to complete the safe arrival portion and leading to unnecessary search and rescue efforts, but we've seen them more frequently as we've been heading south.
we made it to 1600m, a new personal high for us though still 250m shy of the summit, which we reluctantly decided not to attempt due to strong winds on a narrowing ridge. being a few hundred meters above treeline, the views were still incredible; never before had i felt so "in the mountains". i'm just glad to be kept from boredom by constantly finding myself in unfamiliar landscapes. after lunch we hit up a short track leading to a waterfall, which failed to impress. rather than risk bad weather for the dangerously steep drive out of the mountains tomorrow, we packed up and headed back to the west coast tonight, leaving a short drive into hokitika in the morning.
our camping spot tonight is situated in an old mining area, so bryan's gone down to the stream to find us some gold with which to finance the rest of this trip. the campsite's welcome sign displayed the usual symbols advertising bathrooms, a water source, and a cooking shelter, but the woman leaning over a river and carrying a basket containing three squares was puzzling to me until i spotted the gold fossicking information board. not a usual campsite amenity.
wed, nov 25
goldsborough to fox glacier
having partaken in an excellent meal of fish and chips and being quite snugly lodged in a warm hostel in this pouring rain, i can confidently assert that our decision to see the west coast by car was a good one. travelling with strangers is, obviously, potentially disastrous, but our plans have aligned well with david's and he's proven to be an amiable companion. we started the day with a half-hour walk in a forgotten mining area that led us through three short hand-carved tunnels, which, despite my shrieks of fear, contained no bats or rats. goldsborough, despite its possession of a town-identifying black dot on the map, is really no town at all. during the short-lived goldrush days of the 1860s its population peaked at 7000, but now all that remains is our tiny campground and a sign commemorating the hotel that distinguished itself as the last functioning building in town. i suppose what we now see isn't too far removed from what the area looked like before its resources were discovered at all.
other towns born in the gold rush had enough alternative resources to stick around beyond the initial boom. we spent a few hours in one of these towns, hokitika, which is now known for its greenstone (jade) carvings and for its annual wildfoods festival. for the first time in our travels, we stopped in a town and thought "oh, it's bigger than i'd pictured it!". most importantly for me, it had a museum; having seen plenty of references to the west coast's mining history, i was eager to learn more. bryan even patiently waited as i read all of the information panels, though i offered him the chance to roam around town instead. after lunch, we drove 2 hrs south to franz josef glacier, the first of the two glacier towns where you can pay for a guided glacier tour or even take a helicopter ride up to higher, bluer ice. we'll join the group for a half-day walk tomorrow, but for now satisfied ourselves with a 10-minute walk to a lookout. actually, it was fairly unsatisfying, the glacier being distant from the lookout and shrouding itself in the wet afternoon's low mist.
we'd planned to camp at a free spot a half hour out of town, but gave in to the appeal of the hostel with the rain beating down on the car windows. it's also given us the opportunity to shower, as i realized that i haven't done so since saturday and thought, in a way that now seems alarmingly casual, that maybe i could benefit from some soap and hot water.
thu, nov 26
fox glacier to lake paringa
our first "adventure experience" tourist splurge - a half-day walk on the fox glacier. as much as i don't want to admit disappointment, i probably wouldn't do it again; our group of 15 was too large and inexperienced (read: out of shape) to move along at a decent pace, resulting in barely an hour of ice time during a 4-hour tour. i was happy with our guide, nadine from australia, as she taught us quite a bit about glacial formation and movement. you can tell that it takes a lot of work (and money) to sustain tourism on a glacier: the parking lot, being built on the retreating glacier's "dead ice", is constantly under construction to keep it at a stable elevation, the trail from the parking lot falls victim to heavy rains and is reconstructed completely after every storm, and the ice steps on the glacier itself melt away daily. it seems as if the glacier is trying to keep itself inaccessible.
fri, nov 27
lake paringa to ithilien
i am in lord of the rings geek heaven: we are camping in ithilien. it may have disguised itself as a DOC campsite just minutes outside of queenstown, but i see through this facade and would not at all be surprised to see an oliphant wandering past our tent. i will admit that, in choosing our campsite, the yellow movie reel symbol on our road atlas indicating a filming location held some sway.
it's just the two of us tonight, as david, having just over two weeks left in nz, is hoping to get on the trail as soon as possible and had us drop him off in queenstown a day early. most of our day was spent driving, though we made short stops in haast (visitor center and overpriced grocery store), wanaka (lunch break - ate in the car because of the fierce winds), arrowtown (kitschy historic town; we stopped for the gelato), and hit up a few short walks off of the highway where it ran through mt aspiring national park.
sat, nov 28
ithilien to queenstown
here we are in queenstown, the "party town" that i just recently publicly resolved not to visit. while its terrible aspects were not overplayed, i suppose i have failed to give credit to some of its better qualities: an abundance of fantastic restaurants, a beautiful location on lake wakatipu, and an easy-to-navigate layout that includes plenty of green space on the fringes. our hostel, the best rated in town, is small (18 beds) and comfortable, with an impressive movie collection, so passing two nights here shouldn't be too difficult.
-rachel
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
takaka to karamea (heaphy track)
here's the official record of our four days on the heaphy track, the only one of new zealand's great walks that we've done so far.
wed, nov 18
takaka to perry saddle hut, 10.5 miles
our 10 am shuttle to the start of the heaphy track arrived at 11:30, so the day began with concerns about our ability
to reach the first hut before sundown. while we waited for the bus, we foudn a brochure for a competitor that ran more frequently and more cheaphy and wished that we'd discovered this company earlier. the hour-long bus ride was interesting, as i sat next to a belgian guy my age who's had some incredible adventures aroudn the world. before arriving in nz he was in china, trekking across the gobi desert ("which isn't very wide...just three weeks to cross it") with his girlfriend and a donkey. they got lost when his compass filled with sand but were rescued by some passing bedouins. meeting these kinds of people knocks us down to size, curtailing our gloating sense of "we're real backpackers now!" it's good for us.
we made our way to the perry saddle hut with plenty of time to spare (it took 4 hours compared to DOC's 5 hour estimate), beating out the crowd of sprightly 70-somethings who are also joining us on this trip.
sign seen at a supermarket: "tasty nz corned silverback - $6.49/kilo". what the heck is a corned silverback?
thurs, nov 19
perry saddle hut to james mackay hut, 14.5 miles
what short days we have on the heaphy! 4 hour
s yesterday, barely 6 today, less tomorrow. the pressure to wake up for an early start is lessened as a result, so we were perfectly fine with leaving an hour or so after most of the older tramping club members.
the landscape between the huts today was incredible - wide expanses of high-altitude downs, flat and scrubby, that could almost be mistaken for the african savannah. i hope that's not a silly thing to say, as i've never seen the savannah. after so much forest hiking, pretty though it was, i'm fully embracing the change of scenery.
fri, nov 20
james mackay hut to heaphy hut, 12 miles
waking up is always a difficult process for me, even after consecutive nights of 11 hours of sleep, but i have recently been assisted by the partial deflation of my sleeping mat each night, which seems to want to help me by 
jamming my bony places with underlying sticks and rocks. this morning wasn't quite so bad, as the designated campsite placed us atop a wooden platform about 2 feet off the groups with straps hanging off from all sides to use as "stakes". surprisingly, this platform was located near a flat stretch of ground labeled "helicopter landing pad" - usually the landing pads are the platforms and the grass is for campers.
the 3-hour downhill stretch to the lewis hut was unremarkable, which emphasized the jurassic park-like landscape of tropical ferns and overhanging cliffs all the more. during yesterday's hike we crossed over from the nelson region into the west coast region (passing near the "rugged country south of rivendell"), and today we camped at the confluence of the heaphy river and the tasman sea. the sandflies, as we were warned, are out in full force; all evening it sounds like a light rain is tapping on the tent, but it's just the pesky flies hopping around on the underside of the rainfly.
sat, nov 21
heaphy hut to karamea, 12 miles
but for the sandflies, there would have been no reason to hurry out of camp this morning, having just 5 hours ahead of us by DOC's generous estimates. great walks, being so visitor-accessible, have a high standard of maintenance that means easy tramping for those of us used to hiking on rougher standard tracks. in the end, it 
took us 3.5 hours plus a brief lunch break (we ate walking around in circles to avoid the sandflies) to reach the end of the trail, kohaihai shelter, where we'd planned to spend the night. being not even 1 pm, however, we chose to walk the 11 miles into karamea instead. 3 miles in, when a half-full shuttle offered us a ride at a price that "recognized the effort already put in", we took it and rode into town, finding a dirt cheap bunkhouse at a campground where we shared a room with a talkative elderly gentleman from reno who snored vigorously all night long.
karamea itself, despite the attractive marketing brochures, is tiny and has little to offer, so we'll spend a day restocking and will then be on our way somewhere else...anywhere else.
-rachel
pictures:
1) crossing one of the many swingbridges over a flood-prone river
2) a view of the scrubby downs. it was hard to get a picture, as it was so foggy.3) bryan perched on some rocks between lewis and heaphy huts 4) a bridge along the west coast on the final day of the trek
Monday, November 23, 2009
from greymouth
really brief update - we're in greymouth, arranging a rental car to take us down the west coast for a few days. we completed the heaphy track (beautiful!) on saturday, spent sunday in a really cheap bunkhouse in karamea with an older man from reno who was still ranting about the "anti-intellectuals" that he worked with as a physics professor 20 years ago, and took the bus south to westport and then another one to greymouth today. we're travelling with a german guy who also stayed in the bunkhouse and plan to end up in queenstown (hopefully just for a day!) on friday. the highlight of these few days should be a brief foray into arthur's pass national park and part of a day on fox glacier.
more updates when we can! thanks again for all of your wonderful notes on this blog and in emails and on facebook - you're fantastic!
-rachel and bryan
more updates when we can! thanks again for all of your wonderful notes on this blog and in emails and on facebook - you're fantastic!
-rachel and bryan
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
nelson to takaka (abel tasman national park)
hello friends and family! we're now safely in takaka, having completed the inland track at abel tasman national park, which forced us back into shape over the 5 days that we spent hiking along it. here's how it went:
friday, nov 13
marahau to castle rock hut, 7 miles
this morning we hopped on the 7:45 bus to marahau to begin working off ice cream and pizza pounds that have been accumulating this last month. 
we said a sad goodbye to our cozy home in nelson with one last mug of tea and the morning paper before setting off to hike the inland track at abel tasman national park. the bus ride was short and mostly uneventful; fortunately, the vast majority of passengers departed at kaiteri for a catamaran cruise, relieving our concerns about a congested trail experience. so far the track, which briefly follows the coastal track before branching off inland, has been good to us out-of-shape trampers, giving us some lovely views to compensate for our aching calves. we arrived at castle rocks hut in the early afternoon and claimed a couple of mattresses on the top berth before being joined by 5 others coming from the opposite direction. this is our first experience with huts, and i must say it's wonderful not having to set up the tent.
we said a sad goodbye to our cozy home in nelson with one last mug of tea and the morning paper before setting off to hike the inland track at abel tasman national park. the bus ride was short and mostly uneventful; fortunately, the vast majority of passengers departed at kaiteri for a catamaran cruise, relieving our concerns about a congested trail experience. so far the track, which briefly follows the coastal track before branching off inland, has been good to us out-of-shape trampers, giving us some lovely views to compensate for our aching calves. we arrived at castle rocks hut in the early afternoon and claimed a couple of mattresses on the top berth before being joined by 5 others coming from the opposite direction. this is our first experience with huts, and i must say it's wonderful not having to set up the tent.saturday, nov 14
castle rocks hut to awapoto hut, 8 miles
progress was unexpectedly good today, allowing us to stop for the day 
shortly before 3 pm at the spacious and comfortable awapoto hut. this hut is also devoid of other hikers, which we were hoping for after sharing last night's hut with a fast-talking american woman who kept one-upping everyone else with stories of her travels in asia.
shortly before 3 pm at the spacious and comfortable awapoto hut. this hut is also devoid of other hikers, which we were hoping for after sharing last night's hut with a fast-talking american woman who kept one-upping everyone else with stories of her travels in asia. bryan and i shared a perfect moment on the front porch at sunset, eating bowls of oatmeal and watching the sun's rays wash all of the color out of the eastern hills. afterwards we lit a fire in the wood stove, spread out across the bunks, and wished for an equally enjoyable day of tramping tomorrow.
sunday, nov 15
awapoto hut to anapai bay, 11 miles
learned a valuable lesson about map-reading today when my failure to scrutinize the topo lines gave us a severely over-optimistic impression of 
the route ahead. though it was true that our descent to sea level from 700m meant plenty of downhill, i neglected to notice that we'd frequently be required to scramble down into valleys from which we also had to climb back out. the potential terribleness of the day was, however, mitigated by an excursion to what may be the most scenic spot so far, seal-friendly separation point on the coast track. the pathway ends 50m above the rocky spit, where a sign asks you to remove your packs for the steep and precarious climb down to sea level. the forceful wind threatened to blow us into the sea, but we kept our balance long enough to spot two seals and snap pictures of the dramatic rock formations. from separation point the track took us along the beach to our stunning waterfront campsite at anapai bay. we're dreading tomorrow's long and strenuous uphill battle but are glad to have made today's detour.
the route ahead. though it was true that our descent to sea level from 700m meant plenty of downhill, i neglected to notice that we'd frequently be required to scramble down into valleys from which we also had to climb back out. the potential terribleness of the day was, however, mitigated by an excursion to what may be the most scenic spot so far, seal-friendly separation point on the coast track. the pathway ends 50m above the rocky spit, where a sign asks you to remove your packs for the steep and precarious climb down to sea level. the forceful wind threatened to blow us into the sea, but we kept our balance long enough to spot two seals and snap pictures of the dramatic rock formations. from separation point the track took us along the beach to our stunning waterfront campsite at anapai bay. we're dreading tomorrow's long and strenuous uphill battle but are glad to have made today's detour.monday, nov 16
anapai bay to wainui hut
a terrible day on the trail - who picked this route, anyway? eight hours of
unending uphill torment has left us exhausted and ticked off, though i'm extremely proud not to have smashed my walking stick against a tree in anger, as i've done on a number of regretful occasions in the past few months. not much to eat, as a possum rifled through our food bag last night and pawed at our english muffins, so tomorrow's lunch will be peanut butter...just peanut butter.
unending uphill torment has left us exhausted and ticked off, though i'm extremely proud not to have smashed my walking stick against a tree in anger, as i've done on a number of regretful occasions in the past few months. not much to eat, as a possum rifled through our food bag last night and pawed at our english muffins, so tomorrow's lunch will be peanut butter...just peanut butter. wainui hut, where we'll spend the night, is a tiny 4-bed shelter with a fireplace that lets off a lot of smoke but doesn't actually seem conducive to keeping a fire burning - hopefully it'll stay lit long enough to dry out my socks and shoes that i soaked in a river crossing just minutes before arriving at the hut.
tuesday, nov 17
wainui hut to takaka
we finished up our abel tasman trip via the wainui and rameka tracks down to takaka, the nearest town to the west. a few miles outside of town, we were picked up by a jehovah's witness from whom we received a witnessing tract before being dropped off at the information center. we paid what seems like a fortune for groceries compared to prices in nelson, but we know that it will only get worse as our restocking stops become farther from civilization. tomorrow morning we'll hop on the shuttle bus to start the heaphy track, beginning the track with the highest climb, a 900 m hike up to perry saddle. we've opted to stay in campsites instead of at the huts, purely as a cost-saving measure (they're about half the price), so we're hoping that the famous west coast rain holds off until saturday evening, when we plan to arrive in karamea.
pictures:
1) the beginning of the treacherous inland track, where it branches off of the easygoing coast track
2) a short rocky climb on our first day of hiking
3) climbing down to see the seals at separation point
4) cute little wainui hut (other notes in the hut book called it a "wee hut")
P.S. - sorry about the strange formatting - i have trouble with this blog sometimes and don't have time to fix it now.
-rachel
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
we're really leaving...i promise.
with just one day left in nelson, we're bobbing somewhere between excitement and mourning, though i suppose the knowledge of an eventual departure has been hanging over us all month. as much as i love exploring a new locale, i also become quickly rooted, so nelson has become my new zealand home over these last few weeks and is difficult to leave. we've been so fortunate to have this opportunity to work at the bug, as the busy summer season is now upon us and we're getting calls daily for people looking for jobs here. we've grown close to some people here, especially our finnish friend salla, with whom i attended a catholic mass last week near her new apartment. those catholics are tricky - close your eyes for a second in reverent prayer and they've silently shifted to kneeling while you're still sitting. another new friend is our roommate julian, whom we affectionately refer to as "zhulian". we recently introduced him to the splendid combination of peanut butter and banana, and while he justly proclaims nutella's superiority, he's warming up to the flavor sensation.
bryan and i have been filling in as managers here for the last four days while the owners took a much-needed vacation. despite the endless work hours and constant phone calls, we've had a blast and would definitely do this again if another opportunity opens up. one of my favorite parts of the job is matching the people with their names. apparently, according to anthony, a courtney is always an american. i've discovered that a jemma is also equally identifiable as a brit. markus, fabian, and konrad are, not surprisingly, german. i was thrown off when another hostel called to book a room for a guy named "patty", but it was made clear when he arrived with an irish accent and the correct spelling, "paddy". there are a few that i'm still wondering about, though...the japanese "andrew" and israeli "eric", for starters. anyone want to try their hand at a few?
-edwin and marieke
-carl and mike
-livon and elad
-yusuhiro and misako
-claudia and anna-lisa
-pauline and jean-baptiste
-cariza and sergio
better get going, as it's midnight and we plan to wake up early enough to make tomorrow feel productive. not sure when we'll have (affordable) internet again, so it might be a little while before you hear from us. then again, our bus might skip our stop and send us along to an unplanned destination...you never really know.
-rachel
bryan and i have been filling in as managers here for the last four days while the owners took a much-needed vacation. despite the endless work hours and constant phone calls, we've had a blast and would definitely do this again if another opportunity opens up. one of my favorite parts of the job is matching the people with their names. apparently, according to anthony, a courtney is always an american. i've discovered that a jemma is also equally identifiable as a brit. markus, fabian, and konrad are, not surprisingly, german. i was thrown off when another hostel called to book a room for a guy named "patty", but it was made clear when he arrived with an irish accent and the correct spelling, "paddy". there are a few that i'm still wondering about, though...the japanese "andrew" and israeli "eric", for starters. anyone want to try their hand at a few?
-edwin and marieke
-carl and mike
-livon and elad
-yusuhiro and misako
-claudia and anna-lisa
-pauline and jean-baptiste
-cariza and sergio
better get going, as it's midnight and we plan to wake up early enough to make tomorrow feel productive. not sure when we'll have (affordable) internet again, so it might be a little while before you hear from us. then again, our bus might skip our stop and send us along to an unplanned destination...you never really know.
-rachel
Friday, November 6, 2009
lessons learning
i think it's time for a more personal, reflective post. my philosophy of travel requires not just that a person see things but that they learn things, so i'll make an attempt to demonstrate that my brain is being engaged by these months abroad. here's what i (and sometimes we) have been thinking about lately:
we miss going to church. this morning as i refilled the coffee jar, the usually unenticing scent of cheap church-foyer coffee made me wish i was back with the preschoolers at oak hills church, where we were starting to get comfortable in our roles and in our friendships. our experience there was unlike our past church experiences - we didn't attend every church event, we weren't known by all that many people, we didn't serve in very public roles - but we were taught and taught others and genuinely looked forward to being there. not being burned out by your church is a beautiful thing. (i should clarify here that the coffee found at oak hills is quality stuff, not the crap alluded to above).
though not even 3 months into our trip, we're concerned that we won't be ready to settle back down when this year is over and are exploring opportunities to keep travelling for a while longer. much of the fun for me is in planning the trip, whether it's a year-long adventure or a weekend of camping, so i'm not surprised to find myself already longing to pull out the maps and budget sheets for the next stop. i'm quite familiar with grief and disappointment at the beginning of a trip, as this beginning really signals the end of a long process that's consumed me for weeks or months. terribly depressing, isn't it?
one of my biggest concerns before we left, which i shared with a few of you back at home, is that a natural shyness would prevent me from meeting others, leading to a lack of the great chance encounters that form the heart of international travel. i am pleased to report that this concern, as so many of you assured me, was quite unfounded and we've enjoyed many friendly and interesting conversations along the way. at the same time, not needing the constant presence of others allows us to enjoy the solitude of hiking, so we've been striking a nice balance with our travels so far.
that's enough self-disclosure for now. sorry if it felt like this was taken straight from a tearful session with my diary :)
-rachel
we miss going to church. this morning as i refilled the coffee jar, the usually unenticing scent of cheap church-foyer coffee made me wish i was back with the preschoolers at oak hills church, where we were starting to get comfortable in our roles and in our friendships. our experience there was unlike our past church experiences - we didn't attend every church event, we weren't known by all that many people, we didn't serve in very public roles - but we were taught and taught others and genuinely looked forward to being there. not being burned out by your church is a beautiful thing. (i should clarify here that the coffee found at oak hills is quality stuff, not the crap alluded to above).
though not even 3 months into our trip, we're concerned that we won't be ready to settle back down when this year is over and are exploring opportunities to keep travelling for a while longer. much of the fun for me is in planning the trip, whether it's a year-long adventure or a weekend of camping, so i'm not surprised to find myself already longing to pull out the maps and budget sheets for the next stop. i'm quite familiar with grief and disappointment at the beginning of a trip, as this beginning really signals the end of a long process that's consumed me for weeks or months. terribly depressing, isn't it?
one of my biggest concerns before we left, which i shared with a few of you back at home, is that a natural shyness would prevent me from meeting others, leading to a lack of the great chance encounters that form the heart of international travel. i am pleased to report that this concern, as so many of you assured me, was quite unfounded and we've enjoyed many friendly and interesting conversations along the way. at the same time, not needing the constant presence of others allows us to enjoy the solitude of hiking, so we've been striking a nice balance with our travels so far.
that's enough self-disclosure for now. sorry if it felt like this was taken straight from a tearful session with my diary :)
-rachel
Monday, November 2, 2009
great nz commercials
here are a few new zealand commercials that we've been enjoying, in case you're in the mood for some youtube time.
1. spin the wheel - nz must take its driving very seriously, as we've spotted numerous dramatic commercials that end with something like "buckle up, new zealand drivers" or "stay safe: always look before turning".
2. 33% faster joke getting guy - a commercial for the beer company export 33. not sure if this is the one i was looking for, as there's no sound on these computers, but the youtube users think this one's pretty funny, too...
3. make it light and bubbly - this one, for cadbury bubbly chocolate, makes you want to pull out the exercise ball that's been hiding in your closet for the last few years and bounce around to the beat of this ad's infectious/irritating song.
4. you're so beautiful - this one's not a commercial, but we've been discovering the flight of the conchords (a tv comedy about a kiwi parody band trying to make it in new york) and this song, especially the line "you're so beautiful...you could be a waitress", induced much laughing and many tears even on its second watch.
in other news, we've set a date for leaving nelson and have booked bus tickets to help ourselves enforce this deadline. we'll be leaving on friday the 13th (uh-oh) and will follow the abel tasman-heaphy-wangapeka plan laid out a few blog posts ago. our guilt at having lingered so long was assuaged by an offer from anthony and steph, the bug's owners, to manage the hostel next weekend while they're out of town, so we'll be moving on up from bathrooms to bookings for a few days and are plenty excited about the opportunity.
generally the job seems pretty straightforward, but an irritating personality or two can make things interesting. we're just hoping that the american frat boy with the surfer dude voice (think crush the turtle from finding nemo) moves on in the next day or two. he's been here before, but when he returned yesterday from a trip to queenstown proclaiming that "it's such an awesome party city! everybody's just there to party hard!" and bragging about the amount of alcohol consumed on the bus ride there, we immediately crossed queenstown off of our list...and wrote him off as well. he embodies the american tourist stereotype that makes us want to claim canada as our homeland.
well, i've got some great movies (chariots of fire, the piano, wit - $1 each for a week!) calling my name and a few people waiting to use the internet, so i'd better move along. have a wonderful week!
-rachel
1. spin the wheel - nz must take its driving very seriously, as we've spotted numerous dramatic commercials that end with something like "buckle up, new zealand drivers" or "stay safe: always look before turning".
2. 33% faster joke getting guy - a commercial for the beer company export 33. not sure if this is the one i was looking for, as there's no sound on these computers, but the youtube users think this one's pretty funny, too...
3. make it light and bubbly - this one, for cadbury bubbly chocolate, makes you want to pull out the exercise ball that's been hiding in your closet for the last few years and bounce around to the beat of this ad's infectious/irritating song.
4. you're so beautiful - this one's not a commercial, but we've been discovering the flight of the conchords (a tv comedy about a kiwi parody band trying to make it in new york) and this song, especially the line "you're so beautiful...you could be a waitress", induced much laughing and many tears even on its second watch.
in other news, we've set a date for leaving nelson and have booked bus tickets to help ourselves enforce this deadline. we'll be leaving on friday the 13th (uh-oh) and will follow the abel tasman-heaphy-wangapeka plan laid out a few blog posts ago. our guilt at having lingered so long was assuaged by an offer from anthony and steph, the bug's owners, to manage the hostel next weekend while they're out of town, so we'll be moving on up from bathrooms to bookings for a few days and are plenty excited about the opportunity.
generally the job seems pretty straightforward, but an irritating personality or two can make things interesting. we're just hoping that the american frat boy with the surfer dude voice (think crush the turtle from finding nemo) moves on in the next day or two. he's been here before, but when he returned yesterday from a trip to queenstown proclaiming that "it's such an awesome party city! everybody's just there to party hard!" and bragging about the amount of alcohol consumed on the bus ride there, we immediately crossed queenstown off of our list...and wrote him off as well. he embodies the american tourist stereotype that makes us want to claim canada as our homeland.
well, i've got some great movies (chariots of fire, the piano, wit - $1 each for a week!) calling my name and a few people waiting to use the internet, so i'd better move along. have a wonderful week!
-rachel
Friday, October 30, 2009
nearing the end of our time in nelson...
hello again! hope you all are enjoying your halloween festivities. halloween is theoretically celebrated here, but the pumpkins and ghosts and cobwebs are certainly not out in full force like they are in the states and, lacking a november thanksgiving holiday, new zealand has already moved on to their warm and sunny christmas season.
i've made an effort to bring the camera along with us this last week so that you all could see a bit of nelson...i hope you're appreciative, because i'm quite self-conscious about being the one standing on the sidewalk while traffic rushes by, snapping silly shots of the beach. for the most part, however, the pictures i have are of remote locations where i can slip the camera quickly into a pocket if there's any indication that someone else might appear in the vicinity.
these first few pictures are from tahunanui beach, downtown nelson's beachside counterpart just a half hour's walk over the hill from the hostel. the first is a statue of abel tasman, the first european to "discover" new zealand, with an attractive headpiece; the second is of two beautifully presented cups of coffee from esquires coffee, the main nz chain. the "arrivals" coupon magazine that can be found at nearly every hostel includes multiple two-for-one offers at this chain, so it's quite a nice (and nearly unlimited!) deal.
the short but steep walk to the beach is made especially beautiful by the lovely private gates along it, two of which are pictured here. colorful paua shells decorate the first; the second is just a standard garden gate that i found attractive. as you can imagine, there are some beautiful homes on the hill overlooking the beach.
these last photos are of our home ("the shed") at the bug, which some of you have expressed interest in seeing. while we're really quite fond of it (it's the secretive living space that my twelve-year-old self desperately wanted), it's really just 
a storage area with a homemade plywood bunk system making use of the top three feet. there are three good-sized bunks up on top with wooden dividers between them; we were able to slide our divider out to make a double unit for the two of us. the japanese guy who was staying in the shed with us, "tyler" if we heard him right, has recently moved out and has been replaced by julian from germany, who is very friendly if a bit slow with the mop.
in this last picture, i am proudly displaying the most delicious chocolate chip cookies ever made. i made four batches on two separate occasions and, being more than satisfied with how
they turned out, requested that bryan burst forth in praise every four minutes for an indeterminate amount of time. it was sucessful for twelve minutes, with much prompting.
i've made an effort to bring the camera along with us this last week so that you all could see a bit of nelson...i hope you're appreciative, because i'm quite self-conscious about being the one standing on the sidewalk while traffic rushes by, snapping silly shots of the beach. for the most part, however, the pictures i have are of remote locations where i can slip the camera quickly into a pocket if there's any indication that someone else might appear in the vicinity.
these first few pictures are from tahunanui beach, downtown nelson's beachside counterpart just a half hour's walk over the hill from the hostel. the first is a statue of abel tasman, the first european to "discover" new zealand, with an attractive headpiece; the second is of two beautifully presented cups of coffee from esquires coffee, the main nz chain. the "arrivals" coupon magazine that can be found at nearly every hostel includes multiple two-for-one offers at this chain, so it's quite a nice (and nearly unlimited!) deal.
the short but steep walk to the beach is made especially beautiful by the lovely private gates along it, two of which are pictured here. colorful paua shells decorate the first; the second is just a standard garden gate that i found attractive. as you can imagine, there are some beautiful homes on the hill overlooking the beach.this afternoon, convinced by the shorts weather and a cloudless blue sky, we got off our bums and went for
a two-hour hike along the grampians walkway just east of the city. this should-be-easy-especially-without-a-pack trail thoroughly chastised us for having allowed ourselves so much chocolate these last few weeks and gave us our first good workout since early october. it also gave us another embarrassing lesson in routefinding. having arrived at an unmarked junction, we made a guess as to the trail's direction and wandered around with a small family of sheep for a while, eventually returning back at the "unmarked" spot to find a very clear sign ("to tawa track -->") nailed to a tree right in front of us.
a two-hour hike along the grampians walkway just east of the city. this should-be-easy-especially-without-a-pack trail thoroughly chastised us for having allowed ourselves so much chocolate these last few weeks and gave us our first good workout since early october. it also gave us another embarrassing lesson in routefinding. having arrived at an unmarked junction, we made a guess as to the trail's direction and wandered around with a small family of sheep for a while, eventually returning back at the "unmarked" spot to find a very clear sign ("to tawa track -->") nailed to a tree right in front of us. 
these last photos are of our home ("the shed") at the bug, which some of you have expressed interest in seeing. while we're really quite fond of it (it's the secretive living space that my twelve-year-old self desperately wanted), it's really just 
a storage area with a homemade plywood bunk system making use of the top three feet. there are three good-sized bunks up on top with wooden dividers between them; we were able to slide our divider out to make a double unit for the two of us. the japanese guy who was staying in the shed with us, "tyler" if we heard him right, has recently moved out and has been replaced by julian from germany, who is very friendly if a bit slow with the mop. in this last picture, i am proudly displaying the most delicious chocolate chip cookies ever made. i made four batches on two separate occasions and, being more than satisfied with how
they turned out, requested that bryan burst forth in praise every four minutes for an indeterminate amount of time. it was sucessful for twelve minutes, with much prompting.as you can see, we feel very at home here and are having a wonderful time on our new zealand adventure. we plan to move on sometime in the next ten to fourteen days, being excited to see more of the south island, but have been having the most restful time reading the paper each morning, biking to the grocery store, and perusing local bookstores. this second month has certainly been different from the first, and i'm sure the third will hold its own special vibe. miss you all!
-rachel
Saturday, October 24, 2009
learning finnish
i just had to give a quick rave about the beaus and belles show that i attended on thursday night, since it really was one of the highlights of the trip so far. while the show itself was fantastic, there were a number of factors surrounding the event that made it so spectacular, which are as follows:
1) i attended the show alone, by choice, not realizing until afterwards that it's one of the very few times that bryan and i have been separated in the two months that we've spent in new zealand. when i returned from the show, i told him "i love you, but you 
don't know how nice it was to have some alone time," to which he quickly and emphatically responded "oh, i know". sounds like i'm not the only one feeling that way.
don't know how nice it was to have some alone time," to which he quickly and emphatically responded "oh, i know". sounds like i'm not the only one feeling that way.2) the film was screened at the suter theater & gallery, conveniently located next to the queen's gardens as if beckoning me to arrive early with a book and snag a pondside bench. hardly any pages were actually read, though, as the four squawking ducks working out some sort of family drama provided an entertaining distraction.
3) the 150 or so others in attendance were primarily sporting a head of white hair - no backpackers to be seen! when old pictures of nelson flashed onto the screen, the theater rippled with murmurs of recognition - "those must be the cathedral steps"; "remember when oysters were sold in bags like those?"; "look at the water levels back then". it was beautiful.
highlights of the 70-minute film were the self-conscious girls posing uncomfortably for a beauty competition, a skiier attired in what can only have been a predecessor of ronald mcdonald's classic outfit, and the surprisingly moving closing footage of the sinking of the tahiti ferry. a local pianist provided live accompaniment that perfectly fit the mood of the film. i walked home the long way, a happy little smile planted firmly on my face.
yesterday we found some leftover baking supplies in the free box and made 5 batches of chocolate chip cookies, which were partially shared with others but mostly devoured by the two of us and our new friend salla, an 18-year-old from helsinki who is teaching me a bit of finnish. i can now confidently say "moi!" (hi) and "mita kuuluu?" (how are you?) but won't be able to carry the conversation any further should the other person respond to my friendly greetings. we popped in at the farmers market this morning before work so that 
salla could pick up some supplies for her fruit crumble, an unfamiliar dish that she's adventurously planning to attempt this evening. from what i'm picking up, traditional finnish food includes the famously bland meatballs and mashed potatoes, which led to some enjoyment at the farmers market when she vigorously fanned her mouth and warned me "spicy!" about a very tame mustard sample. :)
salla could pick up some supplies for her fruit crumble, an unfamiliar dish that she's adventurously planning to attempt this evening. from what i'm picking up, traditional finnish food includes the famously bland meatballs and mashed potatoes, which led to some enjoyment at the farmers market when she vigorously fanned her mouth and warned me "spicy!" about a very tame mustard sample. :)bryan's out picking up dinner for us at the moment - naanwiches (salad and chicken tikki on naan bread), from the indian restaurant mango, which we actually had for lunch yesterday as well. tipping at restaurants is not customary in nz, so eating out can be surprisingly affordable, especially at lunchtime. ooh-he's walking in the door now and i'm hungry, so that's it for now. wish i knew the finnish word for "goodbye"!
-rachel
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
still chillin'
happy wednesday!
-take a bus or water taxi from nelson to motueka and spend a night at a backpackers in motueka or marahau, which lies just north of motueka and serves as the beginning of the abel tasman tracks. hike a modification of the abel tasman inland track (5 days) and end up in takaka, on the west side of the track. the two long tracks in abel tasman national park are the inland and the easier coast tracks, of which the coast track is by far the most popular. it's also one of new zealand's nine great walks, which means that it's much more expensive to stay in a coast walk hut or campsite and the route is always crowded; nearly everyone that we encounter at the bug has hiked or will hike the coast track, which dramatically lessens the appeal for us. unfortunately, according to the DOC office, at the current time the inland track is hardcore tramping due to wind damage and heavy snow in the higher passes, so we'll have to check on conditions before we leave to see if it's still appealing. we're really just hiking it to have seen the golden bay area, so i don't think we'd be devastated if we have to bypass abel tasman for now.
-take a bus from takaka to the start of the heaphy track (3-4 days) in kahurangi national park. this is also a great walk track, but DOC workers at a few different offices have especially recommended it and the lower volume traffic makes it more enticing. the big sell for this track is that it crosses a variety of landscapes before emerging on the wild west coast, originally settled during its short-lived gold rush but currently pretty sparsely occupied.
-spend at night in karamea, just south of the end of the heaphy, and arrange for a shuttle to the start of the wangapeka track, which cuts back east across the park. the transportation from here is a bit awkward, as the wangapeka track ends far from civilization, but we may be able to arrange for a shuttle from tapawera, where we're hoping to spend the night at a campground.
-catch a bus from tapawera to st. arnaud, the entry point to nelson lakes national park. here's where our plans become less settled. we may hike the travers-sabine circuit, but another option is to hike just the southbound portion and detour onto a trail heading south out of the park and eventually connect with the st. james walkway. we could also explore some of the many other trails in nelson lakes and extend our visit from a few days to a week or more. we have some ideas for the route after this, but i think this will keep us busy enough for a while (probably about a month). isn't this fun?
sorry about the lack of pictures - i'll try to get some shots before we leave nelson. hope you all are doing well - we'd love to hear what you're up to!
-rachel
as we're coming up on the two-week mark here in nelson, we're forcing ourselves to start planning the next leg of our journey lest we let ourselves squander away the rest of the year at the bug, which would be plenty easy to do (friendly people, free internet, great city...). also prompting us to pull out the maps again is the realization that we're becoming the kind of sedentary backpackers who don't actually do any backpacking. my short bike ride home from the grocery story (i went to get chocolate and ice cream) left me surprisingly winded...that just won't do!
yesterday we visited the DOC office in town and received some very helpful information about track conditions, transport options, and resupply locations that filled in the gaps of our current plan and instigated some possible changes. one of the benefits of this trip is that i'm becoming much more comfortable in these kinds of conversations, finally shaving off the last stranger shyness of my teenage years (a little delayed, i know) and coming to appreciate the many disasters averted by the information that i gain as a result.
the last few days at the hostel have been especially enjoyable because of the number of solo travellers that have been passing through. a monday evening power outage made for a great atmosphere in the hostel as everyone gathered around the few candles in the commons area. i was especially revered for my "torch" (flashlight-i can't get past the image of a torch as a flaming stick) which made bathroom trips much easier and i quickly secured a few new friends with my newfound power. finally i found myself conversing long into the night with travellers from ireland, wales, germany, finland, and taiwan - the hostel experience that i've been seeking for the last few months. all five of these girls are in nz alone, which i much admire and have plenty of curiosity about. from al, the welsh girl, i've learned plenty about cardiff and the revival of the welsh language and eisteddfod festivals and dr. who; in return, i have introduced her to the mall of america and given strict instructions to watch the mighty ducks movies. it's obvious that i made out better on this cultural exchange.
tomorrow i'm planning to attend beaus and belles at the nelson arts festival. the film presents silent footage of everyday life in the 1920s with live piano accompaniment and will, i'm sure, make me plenty nostalgic for this bygone era, especially as i'm going alone - solo visits to obscure films practically guarantee a withdrawn and contemplative mood for the rest of the evening.
the last few days at the hostel have been especially enjoyable because of the number of solo travellers that have been passing through. a monday evening power outage made for a great atmosphere in the hostel as everyone gathered around the few candles in the commons area. i was especially revered for my "torch" (flashlight-i can't get past the image of a torch as a flaming stick) which made bathroom trips much easier and i quickly secured a few new friends with my newfound power. finally i found myself conversing long into the night with travellers from ireland, wales, germany, finland, and taiwan - the hostel experience that i've been seeking for the last few months. all five of these girls are in nz alone, which i much admire and have plenty of curiosity about. from al, the welsh girl, i've learned plenty about cardiff and the revival of the welsh language and eisteddfod festivals and dr. who; in return, i have introduced her to the mall of america and given strict instructions to watch the mighty ducks movies. it's obvious that i made out better on this cultural exchange.
tomorrow i'm planning to attend beaus and belles at the nelson arts festival. the film presents silent footage of everyday life in the 1920s with live piano accompaniment and will, i'm sure, make me plenty nostalgic for this bygone era, especially as i'm going alone - solo visits to obscure films practically guarantee a withdrawn and contemplative mood for the rest of the evening.here's what we're tentatively thinking that we'll do after we leave here in a few weeks (sorry about the poor quality of the map):
-take a bus or water taxi from nelson to motueka and spend a night at a backpackers in motueka or marahau, which lies just north of motueka and serves as the beginning of the abel tasman tracks. hike a modification of the abel tasman inland track (5 days) and end up in takaka, on the west side of the track. the two long tracks in abel tasman national park are the inland and the easier coast tracks, of which the coast track is by far the most popular. it's also one of new zealand's nine great walks, which means that it's much more expensive to stay in a coast walk hut or campsite and the route is always crowded; nearly everyone that we encounter at the bug has hiked or will hike the coast track, which dramatically lessens the appeal for us. unfortunately, according to the DOC office, at the current time the inland track is hardcore tramping due to wind damage and heavy snow in the higher passes, so we'll have to check on conditions before we leave to see if it's still appealing. we're really just hiking it to have seen the golden bay area, so i don't think we'd be devastated if we have to bypass abel tasman for now.-take a bus from takaka to the start of the heaphy track (3-4 days) in kahurangi national park. this is also a great walk track, but DOC workers at a few different offices have especially recommended it and the lower volume traffic makes it more enticing. the big sell for this track is that it crosses a variety of landscapes before emerging on the wild west coast, originally settled during its short-lived gold rush but currently pretty sparsely occupied.
-spend at night in karamea, just south of the end of the heaphy, and arrange for a shuttle to the start of the wangapeka track, which cuts back east across the park. the transportation from here is a bit awkward, as the wangapeka track ends far from civilization, but we may be able to arrange for a shuttle from tapawera, where we're hoping to spend the night at a campground.
-catch a bus from tapawera to st. arnaud, the entry point to nelson lakes national park. here's where our plans become less settled. we may hike the travers-sabine circuit, but another option is to hike just the southbound portion and detour onto a trail heading south out of the park and eventually connect with the st. james walkway. we could also explore some of the many other trails in nelson lakes and extend our visit from a few days to a week or more. we have some ideas for the route after this, but i think this will keep us busy enough for a while (probably about a month). isn't this fun?
sorry about the lack of pictures - i'll try to get some shots before we leave nelson. hope you all are doing well - we'd love to hear what you're up to!
-rachel
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