South Island Whirlwind

Time flies on the crazy South Island.

My first stop after Nelson was the tiny town of Franz Josef, a windy 10 hour bus ride south. I showed up during the heaviest rain I've ever experienced, and that continued all darn night and well into the next day. The hostel receptionist was kind enough to remind us that much of the South Island is a rainforest, emphasis on the RAIN.

The Pancake Rocks on the West Coast of NZ

Geyser caused by huge crashing waves

Franz Josef and its sister town Fox are well known for their giant and somewhat accessible glaciers. You can take a walk to within a kilometer or so of the glacier's start, but beyond that point foot traffic is restricted because of the potential for flash flooding and ice/rock slides. However, for the ambitious traveler, several companies offer helicopter tours where they'll fly you up to the top of the glacier and walk you through some amazing ice features and caverns.

Unfortunately this helicopter tour costs about as much as you'd think (if you were thinking $300+). So, for practically the first time this trip, I didn't do something that sounded amazing purely on the basis that it cost too much damn money. Nuts, but that's travel budgeting.

With the hell tour out of the picture, I took a walk to the face of the glacier to get as close as possible for free. Still it was a beautiful walk, and and I enjoyed the first few hours of decent weather in days.

Angry looking fantail decided to pose for me

At least everything is green when it rains this much

The Franz Josef Glacier, from as close as I got to it

After a couple days in quiet Franz Josef, I hopped on another bus for an 8 hour ride to the South Island town I was most excited for: Queenstown.

Queenstown is known as the adrenalin capital of New Zealand, and the adventure sport capital of the world. It's also a great place to meet new people, have a few too many drinks, and spend boatloads of money. There were no quiet nights in that town, and there were plenty of slow mornings.  That worked out OK actually, as it also rained heavily every. single. morning.

Luckily the skies cleared for a day, and I took a hike up the hill right behind town for a look out at the aptly named local mountain range, The Remarkables.

Being a cool kid/soaking in the view

The view up top

Despite its reputation, I wound up participating in exactly zero of the crazy adrenalin sports around Queenstown this visit. Some were a bit cost prohibitive, others I've already done, and some were canceled due to the weather. I spent several of the days reading books in coffee shops around town, my new favorite trip activity. I've moved on from Neil Gaiman to J.R.R. Tolkien, because if I'm going to be walking around the mountains where Lord of the Rings was filmed, you bet your ass I'm going to be keepin an eye out for trekking hobbits with magic rings.  I managed to find some very awesome people in Queenstown as well as some loud and rowdy folk, so I'd like to think I got the full experience.

Also, no post concerning Queenstown would be complete without bringing up Fergburger. Since I arrived in this country, I've been overwhelmed by natural beauty and wonderful people, but damn if I wasn't dying for a good burger. Fergburger serves up the best burger I've had in this hemisphere by a mile. I didn't have one for every meal, but I may or may not have had at least one a day while I was in town. It certainly didn't help that their only location was about 30 steps outside my hostel.

The rest of my time in Queenstown I spent buying copious amounts of cold weather gear so that I don't freeze to death on the Milford Track, my next stop. The Milford Track is probably the most iconic NZ tramping route, a 4 day/3 night hike through the alps of Fiordland National Park that ends at the beautiful Milford Sound. The hike books up months in advance, and I was lucky to snag a ticket right before they sold out for the summer months.

Fiordland gets an apparently ridiculous amount of rainfall every year, and at the top of the mountains that translates to heavy snow. I've been properly warned of the dangers of both, and I'm thinking I'm well prepared at this point. I bought myself a sweet-looking used 80's style waterproof jacket, which I stress tested by jumping around in the shower at the hostel. I also picked up some rain pants, some polypropylene layers, and one of those neck scarf things that makes me look like a bank robber. I'm gonna look like Santa Claus, but I'd like to think I'll be as dry as possible.

I left Queenstown on Sunday and made my way to Te Anau, the closest town to the start of the Milford Track. Here I've been relaxing and stocking up on food for the trip. This time I made sure to buy real beef jerky, not those abominable Slim Jim wannabes from last time. Also, the huts on this trail are equipped with stoves, so this guy's going to be able to make himself a hot meal or 3.

I'll be heading out on the trail at midday Wednesday, and making it to Milford Sound on Saturday evening. I'll be spending the night with some folks I've met at Milford, and then returning to Te Anau this Sunday to rest up and get ready for my next adventure!

Cheers,

Jared

Abel Tasman Coast: My first Great Walk

If I had to describe my mood on Thursday morning in one word, it'd be "beyond nervous. I can use more than one word, I'm the damn narrator." It was about 6:30 in the morning, and I was waiting for the shuttle to pick me up and take me away to Marahau, where I'd be starting my next adventure: the Abel Tasman Coast Track.

The track is supposedly one of the most beautiful walks in the world. I feel like I'm being repetitive, describing everything I see and do in New Zealand as "one of the (superlative adjective of praise) (place/activity)  in the world," but bear with me please. Anyway, the Great Walks are among the most tourist friendly, with occasional toilet facilities, huts for hikers not fond of camping, and treated drinking water in some places. To top it off,  Abel Tasman is in the sunniest part of New Zealand, and the weather has been excellent for the past week or so.

So why nervous? Because as much as I like to think I enjoy a good hike, I haven't actually been properly backpacking in at least a decade. Basically early high school was the point at which being a teenager reared its ugly head and I stopped "having the time" to go on hiking trips with my dad. So besides having to buy all my gear for this trip, I also lacked any sort of experience in taking a trip like this as a responsible adult.

Pre Hike:

On Wednesday, I did my last prep for the trip, which involved buying food and making a last ditch run through an outdoor equipment store. Luckily I was able to find a small locally-owned store with one of those fabled old guys who works there and knows everything about anything. I tried on a goofy sun hat, which amazingly fit me (size XL-XXL). I made an offhand comment about how ridiculous I looked, and put the hat down. In proper old guy form, he said "You know, when I hike, I don't care how I look. I care about what's comfortable, and what works." You bet your ass I bought that hat.

Buying food was another challenge. Despite the huts along the way, the hike has no cooking facilities, and I have no camping stove. So, no hot food for me this trip. My menu for the trip goes as follows: 

1) Breakfast (x2): One Square Meal bar. Sort of meal replacement, basically a Clif bar. Got one in cranberry and one in chocolate flavor because Mom's not here to stop me from eating chocolate for breakfast.

2) Lunch (x3): Beef jerky, crackers, and cheese, with the cheapest trail mix I could find in the grocery store. Also an apple. Side note: the grocery store here is called Countdown, which seems like a silly name for a grocery store. However, I heard that they are owned by Safeway, which is also a silly name for a grocery store, so maybe it's a corporate policy.

3) Dinner (x2): Protein bar, beef jerky, and crackers. I never claimed to be a traveling gourmet. I did buy myself a bar of chocolate to ease the pain of the other foods I was putting into my body.

Oh, and another thing. There's been a chest cold going around the hostels down here, and at this point I was (I hoped) on the tail end of it. I'd been hacking up my lungs for the last few days, and was hoping that a regimen of Vitamin C, Mucinex, and a few days of sobriety would clear it up. It seemed to be working, but I was still a little under the weather at hike time.

The Plan:

A shuttle bus would pick me up from my hostel at 7, and take me to Marahau, where I would catch the water taxi to Totoranui, 40 or so kilometers north. Over the next 3 days, I'd walk back to Marahau where the bus would take me back to Nelson. At night, I would sleep in my brand spankin' new Hennessy Hammock, which my mother thinks looks like a chrysalis. She's not a fan, but I think it's pretty cool.

Day 1:

The shuttle picked me up, and took me to the water taxi. I got my first bad sign when the taxi guide lifted my bag, and grunted "Whoa, that's heavy." Way to go, me. Anyway, the taxi took us out to Split Apple rock, which would have been a pretty cool looking boulder sticking out of the water, except it broke clean down the middle and looks even cooler.

The driver then steered us 15 minutes up the coast, past several huge hills and beautiful bays, and pulled us into a cove. We're here, I thought, and mentally prepared myself for what looked like a long walk. "This is Anchorage Hut, the last hut on your journey," he said. Crap, so all that walking was one damn day. Turns out 40 km even looks like a long way. No turning back now though.

The water taxi took us into a bay so we could see the seals, who were pretty awesome

Eventually we got to Totoranui, where we unloaded onto the beach. By this point I'd introduced myself into a trio of Canadians doing the hike at the same pace as me, and as I've become used to this trip, I invited myself along on their family trip.

Getting dropped off.

We set out, and walked a damn long way. The first day was 17.7km, almost half the overall trip. That's a long way to go with 100% of the trip's food on your back. But the track was, as advertised, jaw-dropping pretty.

Totoranui

Travel Buddies

Gratuitous beach shot

We eventually made it to Awaroa tidal crossing, which had been a giant bay when our water taxi had taken us by earlier. By about lunchtime the bay emptied, and was absolutely covered in seashells which we unceremoniously stomped across through ankle deep water to reach the trail on the other side. It's worth noting that at lunchtime I realized 2 things about my food situation:

1) I had forgotten the cheese to go with my beef jerky and crackers.

2) Thanks to poor reading comprehension, my "beef jerky" was actually New Zealand's version of Slim Jims. Crap.

Awaroa Crossing

Stompin' sea shells in my neoprene socks. Which I brought because I overpack like a boss.

After Awaroa, we walked another few hours before we got to Onetahuti Bay, where we took some time for a mid-hike dip in the Tasman Sea. The floor of the bay was covered in starfish and sand dollars, so we had to tread lightly.

Here I am, being a little tea pot, by the Tasman Sea. By request of my travel buddies.

I made the mistake of traveling the rest of the way to Bark Bay in my board shorts. Turns out, New Zealand has sand flies, which are just as bad as mosquitoes. My legs are covered in itchy red bumps. It's a great look.

I was sore and exhausted by the time we made it to our campsite. I wished the hike was over, and thought I'd probably never go hiking again. My cold had come back with a vengeance, so I was about as miserable as I can get. I threw on some warm clothes, and went about setting up my hammock. Also, I forgot to mention this earlier: thanks to a lack of sturdy trees, I hadn't ever fully set up the hammock before taking it on this trip. Probably not ideal, but what do you know, it worked! The hammock went up on the first try, and I slept like a baby that night.

Day 2:

I woke up at 9:30 to an entirely empty campsite. Every other camper had woken up, packed up their tent, and gotten out of dodge before I even stirred. Crap. So I packed up in a rush, and went to check the hut for the Canadians, to see if my hiking buddies had waited for me. Fortunately they were still finishing breakfast, so I had my own and prepared for another day of hiking.

One of them offered me some ibuprofen, which in retrospect probably saved the rest of the hike for me. Ah, the glory of over the counter medication. My knees and my lower back no longer reminded me that I'm getting older with every step, and my right shoulder stopped aching. I powered through the second day of hiking like a champ. 12.1 km later, we made camp at Anchorage.

Gratuitous hat picture

Walking on a bridge

Damn that's one sweet looking hammock

I almost look like I know what I'm doing here

I read my book for a few hours, then played cards with the Canadians until we called it a night. Again, I slept like a baby in the hammock. It's quite nice to camp and not sleep on the hard ground. I didn't have to deal with the perennial rock that's always in the middle of your back underneath the tent floor. Five stars, hammock maker.

Day 3:

It sounds horrible, but beautiful beaches get old after a while. In this case, a while is 2 days. For the last 12.4 km, we didn't stop at any of the beaches, and only paused a couple times to marvel at the views. At this point, I had eaten the last of my food with my breakfast, and I had a handful of trail mix to get me out of the track. I set a mean pace, and covered the hike in a little over 3 hours.

As I told my Canadian buddies over he walk, I'd be parting with them at the end of the track as soon as we found a place that looked like it sold a good burger. 3 days with crappy food made a driven man out of me, and when we found a cafe a few hundred meters from the trailhead that sold burgers, I bid my hiking buddies farewell and stopped in for a burger and a beer.

I spent the rest of the day reading and resting, until the shuttle bus took me back to the hostel. I ordered a pizza, took a shower, and almost did laundry before I passed out in my bed.

So that's what my first Great Walk was like. I'm excited to say I'll be trekking my second Great Walk in 10 days, as I take on the Milford Track! For now, I'm spending a quiet day in Nelson before taking off for the Franz Josef Glacier tomorrow morning.

Cheers,

Jared

Permanence

Probably the weirdest bit about solo traveling, for me at least, is the impermanence of the people I meet.

I'd like to think that throughout my life I've done a fairly good job of cultivating a strong group of constant and wonderful friends, to the point where regardless of where I am or what I'm doing, I'm typically with someone close to me. It's not that I don't like new people, it's just I love the old ones, and I'm perfectly happy with that.

So it's weird for me that every time I move around on the road, I'm very much alone at least for the start. In Auckland, I spent a few days hardly talking to another soul until I met Tim and Blake and became friends. Four days later, I was back on my own in River Valley, until I got to know the crew there and considered them my good friends as well.

Three weeks there, and then off to Wellington, on a bus full of people I met the night before. Admittedly that made for a much nicer transition to a new city, but then the entire bus caught the ferry out of town at 7am the next day, leaving me again, alone, in a new place. Fortunately, a few friends I'd met at River Valley were traveling through Wellington this weekend as well, and I was able to briefly see some familiar, if recent, faces.

After that, though, it starts all over again. An entire city of people, Wellington, and not a single one knows my name or knows anything about me. I think I've gotten pretty good at introducing myself to new folks, running down the basics of what makes me tick, and quickly figuring out who I get along with and who I don't. Maybe if I get bored of it I'll make up stories about myself, just to break up the monotony of introducing the same me over and over.

Haven't started that yet though, and I still managed to have a great time in Wellington. I spent Friday exploring Te Papa with my friend Jen. Te Papa is the largest museum in New Zealand, and quite possibly the nicest museum I've ever found myself in. Calling the building massive doesn't even do it justice, I could easily have spent several days tracing my way through the exhibits. The Maori artwork they have on display is breathtaking. As is typical with New Zealand at this point, it started dumping down rain, and I managed to get properly soaked on the way home.

Te Papa

Saturday I slept in and then met up with two more friends from River Valley, Sam and Hana, for some coffee and a nice talk about life in New Zealand. After they left, it was time for my proper introduction to Wellington: Oktoberfest. This weekend was Wellington's first time doing the event, and I'd like to think it went quite well for me. Did put a bit of a dent in my travel budget though. I went to the event with one of two guys named Dave who I shared a hostel room with this week.

After another night "on the piss" as the Kiwis call it (which is just one of the many useful phrases I'll be bringing home), I was due for some quiet time. I'd just finished reading Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet, and one of my other roommates offered me her copy of The Graveyard Book, another Gaiman story. It's more of a children's book, sure, but I absolutely loved it and wound up going through it in a day and a half. There was definitely something fantastic about reading a book before bed, waking up, reading over breakfast, and spending a Monday reading in a coffee shop. Simple pleasures and all, but I've wanted to do that for a very very long time and I suppose I just needed to find the right book. Hoping to keep the momentum going, I spent the afternoon combing through three used bookstores, and tracked down a copy of Gaiman's American Gods, which I'll be working on for the rest of the week. Also, audience participation time, if you folks reading this have any suggestions for books I should/must read on my trip, let me know!

There's a giant umbrella on my favorite street there. So you know they know the weather sucks.

So that's Wellington for me, at least this time around. Very nice city, windy as hell. Yesterday the walls and the beds inside the hostel were shaking, and it wasn't an earthquake. Store windows shattered across the city, and at one point while I was book-hunting the wind even blew me a few feet out of my path. I woke up early this morning after far too few hours of sleep, and caught the ferry across the Cook Strait, to the South Island.

I'm writing this now from a bus that's taking me from Picton to Nelson, both on the north end of the South Island. From Nelson I'll be walking the Abel Tasman track over a few days starting Thursday. It's supposedly one of the most beautiful treks in New Zealand, and a sort of unofficial kickoff to the hiking part of my adventures. The scenery from the bus is already beautiful, and I'm sure I'll be amazed by what I see here.

But again, this means I've left my new friends behind in Wellington, and I'm back to the part where nobody knows me and I don't know anyone. I'll make new friends tonight, and probably leave them again tomorrow. After that, I'll likely never see them again. It's a weird feeling, not negative, but definitely not easy to get used to. Regardless, I've got plenty left do before I'm back to staying in one place for a while.

Cheers,

Jared

Three Weeks Later

There's no such thing as a quiet day at River Valley.

Every time I think to myself, "Hm, looks like Thursday will be a good evening for sitting down and blogging up a storm," something always comes up.

Not that that's a bad thing, but I'd love to share more with you all about the people I'm working with and the things I'm doing. And by not taking the time to update this blog regularly I've allowed a jumble of incoherent storylines and post ideas to crowd up my head. I guess the best way for me to get them all out may be to do some brief profiles on the people here, and I'll share some anecdotes for each one as well.

I'll start with a brief overview of the staff as I know it. The River Valley Lodge has been around for generations, though it's expanded greatly in the last 30 years. It's a family business, and currently there are 5 generation of the family still around. The eldest member I've met is Fatdad, whose real name is Brian. Fatdad and Mam, his wife, live up on top of the gorge over the lodge, and regularly walk down to say hi or drive out a bus full of raft folks. Their daughter Nicola runs the horse trekking program here, while her husband Brian oversees the lodge operation. Their daughter Janey runs a lot of the day to day activities, and works closely with Janelle and Morgan in reception. Janey and her fiancé Tom have two young daughters who run around the lodge during the day whenever they're not up at daycare with Mam and Fatdad. Tom is a raft guide, along with Spencer and Daniel. Miranda is the chef, who fixes up amazing meals on a daily basis, and has me about 10 lbs heavier now than when I showed up. Lastly is Georgie, the housekeeper extraordinaire, and who I've been working most closely with in my time here. Other people I've met around here are Tomo, who lives with Daniel and works nearby, and Richie, who lives with Spencer and works on the farmland up above the gorge.

So that's the rundown. I'll go more in-depth on a few people as they pop into my head.

Brian:

I have to start with Brian, because ultimately River Valley is his show. Brian is a tall man, about 50 years old, and he wears a very gruff demeanor. When his blue pickup truck rolls down the hill every day around 11, raft guides and workers scatter to find something, anything, to be busy with when Brian walks by. Brian knows every task and project going on at the Lodge, and is a fan of progress reports, and, well, progress. If he thinks you should be doing something, he lets you now in as few words as possible.

Brian asked me on one of my first days here to work on the walking track out back, the one that leads to my favorite waterfall. He wanted me to work on the surface of the track by spreading crushed glass (the Lodge's way of recycling glass bottles) along the path. Also, he wanted me to put in additional wood steps, and make sure the rope was up to snuff on the steep bit, and if not, replace it. That's about all the discussion that was involved. He pointed me in the direction of the glass pile, the lumber pile, and the tool shed. From there, it's on me to figure out how to do everything and what to use. I like that.

The benefit of working on the trail is taking breaks at the end

Despite his serious work attitude, Brian has a heart of gold, and several of the lodge staff have described him to me as the best boss they've ever had. He's light-hearted whenever he can be, and there is no one more fit to lead this band of strange personalities and always get the best out of them.

Tom:

"What are you doing this afternoon?"

"Probably chores. I've got a few loads of laundry to do still."

"Eh. Want to go kill a pig?"

*pause*

"Sure, why not?"

That's the conversation I had with Tom last Saturday in the early afternoon. He had just brought down a keg of his newest home-brewed beer, and was letting a few of us try it out. It was probably the best beer I've had since I left California, and reminded me a lot of Ballast Point Sculpin, one of my favorites. After a couple glasses he sprung the "Wanna kill a pig?" question on me, and think it's fair that I was caught a little off guard. Of course, with the spirit of the trip in mind, I agreed. A few more beers and we were off.

It was a cold and blustery day up above the gorge, which Tom and several other people described as "Not great pig-killing weather." I didn't know there was such a thing as good pig-killing weather, but I'm led to believe it exists. We were joined for the afternoon by Tom's neighbor John, who's a farmer as well. There's a lot that goes in to killing a pig, and it includes a lot of knife sharpening, a bathtub, and a gun. I'll leave out the details from here out of consideration for my younger or more squeamish readers; anyone who wants the full story can hear it when I'm back. Suffice to say, I felt very far from my normal life that day, in an interesting but kind of wonderful way. 

Also, I figure if I'm going to enjoy pork and bacon, I'd better be able to stomach where they come from. On a side note, bacon from the pig I helped kill should be coming back this week and Tom's promised to let me try some.

Tom's a good raft guide, and a cool guy to have a few drinks with. He's one of the only people I've found on this island who likes their beer as hoppy as I do. He's a big sports fan as well, and I've enjoyed explaining to him a lot of the rules to football (which they helpfully call gridiron to avoid confusion with soccer). One of the hardest bits for Kiwis to understand about football is that there are entirely different teams for offense and defense. Still working on that one, but we may stream some Monday or Tuesday NFL action around here so I can give a crash course.

On a final note, Tom and Brian were the two biggest fans of Emirates Team New Zealand in the Americas Cup. When I showed up here, Oracle Team USA was down 8-1 and it was mostly playful teasing about such a big country getting dominated by a small but prideful nation. At about 8-3, one of them mentioned that I wouldn't want to be around here if there was some sort of miracle and Team USA came back. I commented that if something like that happened the only sign of my presence here would be a cloud of dust receding up the hill away from the lodge. At about 8-5 Brian stopped talking to me about the races, and I avoided the two of them whenever possible in the mornings. 8-6, and Brian stopped talking to me altogether, while Tom was mostly venting about how he was absolutely certain Team USA was going to win it now. 8-8, I didn't say a word, and neither did they. I very seriously contemplated packing my bag though. 9-8, and I still haven't mentioned it to either of them. Likewise, neither of them have broached the subject with me. I get the feeling this is the way things are going to stay.

That's all for this update. I've got plenty more to write, and hopefully I can find the time to fit it all in while the memories are fresh. I'll likely be leaving River Valley this Thursday headed toward Wellington, and I should have more time for updates then.

Cheers, and I hope you all are well back home.

Jared