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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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