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