Kepler Track, The West Coast, and Nelson Lakes

This post is long overdue, for which we apologize.  But we have a good excuse: a cyclone surprised us as we headed up the west coast of New Zealand a week or so ago...

But before that, we had an awesome 3-day hike along the Kepler Track.  This was a fairly long (36-38 mile) hike through beach forest and along a ridgeline straight out of Lord of the Rings:

Awesome scenery, no mishaps, and we even managed to dodge the rain -- which poured down like the wrath of god, but only when we were in the hut and just after we made it back to the car at the end of the hike.  We'll just let the photos speak for themselves.  Here's a link to the full album.

After making it back to the car, we drove up to Arrow Town for a day of wine tasting and rest before heading to the west coast, where we hoped to do more hiking.  Little did we know, a cyclone was bearing down.  Apparently, the media played up the last cyclone, which was a dud, and so no one really raised an alarm over this one, which was definitely not a dud.

We didn't get nailed by the worst of it, but did have 5-6 days of windy and wet weather as we made our way through the pass and up the coast.  We did manage a few day hikes, had a good swim in the public pool at Hokatika, and stopped at the cool Pancake Rock formations.

From there, we headed inland to Nelson Lakes.  Once at the Lakes, we had two great days of day hiking, and one of the best campsites yet.

We followed that with a (difficult) 2-day trip from Nelson Lakes out to Angelus Hut, perched among alpine ridges and accessed by an eight-kilometer ridgeline that took us about six hours to hike - most of it was scrambling, rocky business - but the views were fantastic.

Here's a link to the full album.

We're in Nelson now, hanging out with some Kiwi's we met in Milford Sound, beer tasting, and recovering from a 2-day kayaking trip that sorely tested Erin's patience with Brook's steering. But more on that later...

Rain; some heavy falls

So read the forecasts, all three that we checked before heading to the west coast of New Zealand. Rain, with some heavy falls. We took it in stride, planned a few relaxed days, and carried on. But what none of the three forecasts, two parks offices we stopped in (or anybody, really) knew was that we were headed into the tail of a cyclone. Not yet spent from battering Australia, the storm veered off and made a direct hit on the west coast of New Zealand. Winds of 120 knots (that's something like 140 mph), and rainfall of over an inch per hour at times.
We missed the "bad" day, but when we arrived in Haast, the locals looked pretty haggard. The woman tending the desk at the campground we checked into hadn't slept in 48 hours, and told us the bridge was out just north of town. We asked why. And she replied nonchalantly, "a flying tree hit it." Which was true. Said tree had taken out a railing; if we were to make it across, an early start was required before they closed it for repairs at around 8:30, she said. And so we went to bed, thinking the storm had passed, that the worst was over, and that we could continue on our merry way. Rudely awoken by a driving rain and shaking van at 3:35 am, we realized the storm wasn't spent. A few somewhat-sleepless hours later, and we were back on the road, headed north. The bridge was not closed, as it turns out, but a big orange sign on the other side read "Road to Fox Glacier: CLOSED." So we turned around, went back to town, and found a fisherman who knew that another bridge, an hour north, had lost several of its cables in the winds. They were letting cars across one at a time, maybe. So again, we headed north. It was that, or an 8-hour drive back through a pass that could also be closed due to mudslides.  It only takes a glance at a map to realize just how isolated the Southwest coast of New Zealand is. We were, we realized, on something of an island.

We reached the bridge, waited in line, and made it across. Then we drove through a blasted, flooded countryside that put our minor travel hassles into clear perspective.  Smashed buildings. Trees, 150 feet tall, uprooted and thrown across fields. Miles of concrete power towers felled like blades of grass. A mobile home tossed 50 feet from the road. And still, a lashing, hard rain fell, and trees continued to crack.

After several hours of very cautious driving, we made it to Hokitika with a small sense of relief. The rain hasn't quite ended, but we found a dry place to camp and a public pool that was still open for a few laps in the late afternoon.

Travel, we were reminded today, is sometimes powerless. You are at the mercy of the weather; you can't Google answers from an alpine pass; and sometimes you just don't know what the hell is happening - despite your best efforts to find out. And so you hunker down, regroup, and say a silent prayer for the local farms and families who were uprooted by the cyclone. And then continue on your way.

Meet Mo, our third wheel

We've got a couple days of downtime thanks to a cyclone hitting New Zealand and thought it would be a good time to introduce our new traveling companion, Mos Eisley. But we just call him Mo.

On the outside Mo looks like your average soccer mom minivan, but on the inside he's much more. For example, here's a look at Mo's kitchen: dishes are stored on the left, the fridge is on the right, and (not shown) the two burner stove can be set up on a stand out the door.

Mo also has a dining set up, as Brook demonstrates below:

At night, Mo is a cozy double room, complete with DVD player. It's just right for one person under 5'5" and another 6' or under:

And during the day, it's a cruisy ride that comfortably seats two with one German hitchhiker in the back.

The Milford Track

When someone asks you "would you like to hike the Milford Track?", the only reply is "yes." The Milford Track is billed as NZ's premier hike and "the finest walk in the world." Now, we're not sure about that last bit after hiking in Patagonia and Tasmania (our standards are getting pretty high), but the route is certainly stunning. The track takes you through Fiordland, in southwestern NZ, which is hacked out of hard granite, with deep u-shaped furrows forming countless valleys and fjords full of waterfalls, rainforest, unique wildlife, and stunning scenery. It's about 35 miles, and done over four days (although day one is a short one-hour jaunt from the ferry landing).  There's space in each hut for 40, so most people book months ahead. But when we walked into a DOC office in Wanaka for unrelated reasons, the ranger cheerfully informed us there had just been a cancellation, and moved our booking from the Kepler track over to the Milford. So we bought some food, drove down to Te Anau and set off on April 6.

Because of its isolation, the track is accessed at the start by a 1-hour, 30km boat ride to the end of lake Te Anau. We set off with good weather, and headed one hour up along the Clinton River to Clinton Hut. We were a little excited and were the first to arrive at Clinton Hut, where we first experienced the sand flies (like black flies) that would plague us intermittently the whole way (but only when stopped, so good motivation to keep walking). The ranger also provided some evening entertainment by feeding dead possum to the native eels, which are huge and were featured in a River Monsters episode.

Day 2 saw us further up the valley under clouds and fog, but no actual rain. We caught glimpses of the nearly vertical mountains surrounding us between long stretches of hiking in a rain forest full of trees dripping with moss and ferns. On the second night everyone began to build a rapport that would last the rest of the trek - and by the end we had about 25 new friends. It would have been 38 new friends, but our trekking group included 13 Koreans and a language barrier, along with their insistence on waking up at 5am and getting on the trail shortly after sunrise, made it difficult to have much conversation.

On day 3 it was up and over the pass, straight through a cloud. Luckily, the cloud was an inversion layer in the Clinton Valley and we dropped into a brilliantly clear Arthur Valley with gorgeous alpine views. From here the trek was stunning, with a waterfall every mile or so and 6,000 foot granite peaks looming around each bend. That night we went for a walk by ourselves a mile or so back up the trail and found a glow worm colony. These are little worms that glow to attract other insects, which they eat. We got to see 30-40 of them twinkling in the forest understory.

Day 4 was a 5-hour walk out through rainforest, more waterfalls, more peaks, and along the Arthur River. Another ferry took us across the beautiful Milford sound, where we sat for a couple of hours on a jetty waiting for the bus back to town, cooked our last two packets of ramen, and enjoyed the view. 

This is a longer photo album than most, but it seemed appropriate given the stunning scenery around each bend: 

https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6000887032098315297

We camped in Te Anau that night and celebrated the hike with venison, lamb, and a bottle of wine, joined by two German guys we met on the hike. The next day dawned mostly clear, so we decided to head back out

towards Milford Sound and climb Gertrude's Saddle, which affords a bird's-eye view of Milford Sound. It was a very steep climb on tired legs, but well worth it for the views. The scale of the mountains here is hard to capture, but these photos make an attempt:

https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6001165159615058097

We're enjoying this area so much we decided to do another trek, and are headed off on the Kepler Track tomorrow. This time rain is in the forecast, but we're hoping for some clear spells and more great views.

New Zealand: an introduction in three acts

Disclaimer: this blog post is about a week out of date due in part to NZ's limited internet and because we just wrapped up the 4-day Milford Track. But more about all that later on...

We arrived in Christchurch about two weeks ago, tired and a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of adventuring that NZ offers. Vibrant urban centers, rich history, stunning coastlines, and mountains so epic that The Lord of the Rings needs very little CGI for its alpine and forest scenes (apart from the flying Nazgul, of course). Hiking, kayaking, beer drinking, and adventuring abound. There's just so much to do, and we only had nine weeks in which to do it...

We had six days before picking up our camper van, so we spent a few days in Christchurch. It's a cool little city, but was demolished in 2010 and 2011 by two severe earthquakes. There's rubble and construction everywhere, and the locals have turned tragedy into opportunity by repurposing empty lots into public spaces, pop-up art installations, temporary eateries and bars (see photo below of one of these "gap fillers") and an outdoor mall made of shipping containers. It was inspiring to see the urban renewal. Here are a few pics from our wandering:

https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6000847626366181345

Next we headed to Akaroa for two nights, which is a small port town originally settled by the French and still retaining some of that vibe. We stayed in a true backpackers hostel for the first time in a while, and in a dorm at that (breaking several of our travel rules), but the place was friendly and had the best wi-fi we've found in NZ, where the internet is notoriously slow and doled out in 100mb increments (usually $2/10 minutes or $5 for 100 mb, which equates to about 20 photos at full resolution, so appreciate these galleries, people!). We rented kayaks and spent 8 hours paddling in search of dolphins (no luck), hiked 800m (2,500 ft) straight up the local mountain, ate some great French-style cheeses and charcuterie, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Here's a link to the photos:  

https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6000883051597741857

After Akaroa we had one more night in Christchurch, by which point Brook was nursing a pretty decent cold. Undeterred, we grabbed falafel, lamb burgers and a few local beers before picking up our camper van the next morning (on April 1). 

We headed over to Mt. Cook, and lucked out with two bluebird days. It's a stunning mountain (New Zealand's highest), and is surrounded by many other stunning peaks, glaciers, lakes, and alpine scenery. We got in 3 day hikes over 2 days, camping at the foot of a glacier that we could hear groaning and cracking at night under brilliantly clear skies. With the Milky Way stretching out to infinity above and the mountains looming below, it was an inspiring place. Here's a link to the photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6000884398754604657

So that was our first week or so in NZ, more or less, and it was awesome. 

We headed down to Wanaka next, where we stopped in at a DOC office (that's Department of Conservation; not to be confused with the Dartmouth Outing Club, but close) where we snagged a last-minute opening on the Milford Track (in Fijordland, southern NZ), which is billed as "the world's finest walk." Because you stay in space-limited huts, most people book that hike 6-12 months out, so we felt pretty fortunate. We cancelled our booking for the Kepler track (which is also very cool) and did the 4-day Milford  instead. We finished a day ago, and loved it so much we re-booked the Kepler track hike to begin on Sunday. More on those hikes later. In the meantime, we're grabbing a couple of days of downtime in Te Anau to do mundane things like laundry and blogging...