Sydney

I've now spent 3 days in Australia and none of the animals have killed me. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

On Wednesday I caught a 7pm flight out of Auckland and by the time I made it to Sydney I was thoroughly exhausted. Though I'd like to think I did a pretty good job understanding Kiwi accents, my tired ears just weren't fully prepared for a full on Aussie drawl. Things got a bit dicey at the customs desk, when the inspector apparently asked me "Why are you visiting?" I heard a slightly garbled "Where are you staying?" and responded nonchalantly with the name of my first hostel, "Hump Backpackers." Whoops. Turns out even English speaking countries have a language barrier. But the agent got a great laugh out of that, and he hadn't stopped chuckling by the time he finished checking my bag.

I checked into my hostel and fell right to sleep. Partially that was the plan to leave me energized and refreshed for a day out in Sydney, but mostly I was just completely exhausted. Either way, smashing success! Thursday was a beautiful day for exploring, and I spent the entire day giving myself a thorough walking tour of the city.

Awesome fountain in Kings Cross

I walked through the Royal Botanical gardens, and made a great show of looking at trees, fountains, flowers, and birds. Which I'm told is what you're supposed to do in those sort of places.

I was pretty close to grilling up one of these little fellas for dinner. It's hard to find turkey here.

Sweet looking tree

I walked north through the gardens and came to a beautiful building: the Sydney Opera House! It's weird, but sometimes it's easy to forget I'm traveling somewhere so very far away from home. But then I see something so fantastic that it reminds me where I am and why I'm here, and I get a huge burst of adrenalin, some sort of traveler's high. Standing next to the Sydney Opera house was one of those moments. I proceeded to make a fool out of myself in classic tourist fashion by asking several other visitors to take a hundred very similar pictures of me.

I walked around Circular Quay to the other side of the harbor, and continued my embarrassing display of tourism.

Well I think we can all agree that's enough of that for now. Stunning building, beautiful harbor. Absolutely can't wait to see it again one day. I continued my walking tour, aided by my trusty free city map I picked up at the airport. I walked under the Harbor Bridge, and south to Darling Harbor, another picturesque wharf area packed with tourist attractions I'm too cheap to spend money on. I crossed the harbor and made my way even farther west to the Sydney Fish Market, where I stopped for an expensive but well-earned lunch.

Darling Harbor

The Fish Market was a mad house

Fountain in Darling Harbor

After the fish market, I retraced my way through the harbor and took a shortcut though the heart of Sydney to get back towards King's Cross, where I had my luggage stored. Note: stored, not where I was staying. See, I excitedly booked my flight to Sydney, then looked online and noticed that not one single hostel had room for me for 3 days. There's a massive concert called Stereosonic in Sydney this weekend, and the hostels were jam-packed. I was fortunate to find the last beds available at 3 separate hostels for each of the 3 nights I planned to spend in town.

I schlepped my gear from Kings Cross to Chinatown, and settled into the new hostel. I'll say this about Sydney's hostels, they don't hold a candle to New Zealand. While the rest of the city absolutely charmed me, the hostels give off a very New York-ish "cram as many people as you can into the space over a McDonald's" vibe. Oh well, at least it's a bed to sleep in.

I met up with my buddy Dave, who I met on my first pass though Wellington, for a few Thursday night drinks and some catching up. While I was with Dave, I got a friendly message from my next hostel. There was a problem with their booking system, and many of the reservations booked in the past few days were redundant or for beds that didn't exist. In other words, here's a refund, no room for you. Crud. Fortunately, my buddy Dave, who should be knighted for this, offered up a spot to stay at his folks house so I wouldn't have to sleep on a park bench or worse, buy a hotel room.

Day 2 in Sydney was a lot shorter than Day 1, thanks to some inclement weather. My plan for the day was to catch a train down to Bondi Junction and spend some time at Bondi Beach, Sydney's biggest beach on the south shore. The rain clouds had other ideas. Rather than force a miserable rainy beach day, I punted and spent some quality time in coffee shops watching pictures of amazing Thanksgiving food and festivities scroll across my Facebook. I'd have been a bit upset if Day 3 followed with more rain and didn't let me hit the beach, but it worked out just fine. 

At Dave's house I was treated to an amazing home-cooked meal and the chance for a proper shower, which was amazing after spending so much time in hostels. Friday night Dave and I went out for a few too many in the Newtown district of Sydney, so Saturday morning got off to a very slow start. Fortunately Dave's dad decided to be my tour guide for the day, and spent the morning whisking us around to Sydney's five south side beaches. The scenery is unbelievable, just pristine white sand bookended by sharp cliffs. 

We did the entire coast, south to north, and ended at Bondi Beach. We had lunch at an awesome restaurant called Bondi Beach Icebergs, which has an amazing view of the beach.

Not too shabby.

After lunch we went down for a swim at the beach, and I managed to gt a petty good start on my first Australian sunburn! Stoked for that.

Bondi

Lifeguarding

Once I was good and crispy, we headed out again for a bit more Sydney sightseeing, and then we hurried back to their house to pack my bag and head to the airport. I caught the 7pm flight to the Gold Coast, and I'm now relaxing in a place called Surfer's Paradise. The vibe around here seems like sort of a Vegas/Miami for drunk high schoolers, which explains why I'm sitting here typing this up instead of socializing, I hope.

Another crazy day starts soon. I have no plan and I'm fine with that. Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks back home, see you guys soon!

Cheers,

Jared

Outward Bound

24 hours from now I'll be on a plane bound for Sydney, Australia. Out of Auckland, out of New Zealand, a country I've come to appreciate and even love over the past 2.5 months. I wanted to write a retrospective, to list all the life lessons I've learned, all the fascinating phrases I've picked up and used, but for some reason I can't write that right now. Maybe later. Maybe never, but that's an awful long time.

The good folks at the Aussie Department of Immigration and Border Protection (which is mildly ironic when you think of the country as a former prison colony) decided to grant me a tourist visa this afternoon. I've known for weeks that I'd like to extend my trip into a brief Aussie foray, and I've been quietly googling my way through other people's itineraries, scoping for ideas. So I booked a flight immediately, for tomorrow evening. After all, that's part of the reason I've stuck around Auckland.

So what was the hold-up with the visa? Well government offices are typically closed on weekends, and I only applied for it on Saturday. If that surprises you, then you definitely don't know me well. How did you find my blog?

Anyhow, before I get into the new travel plans, an update on my time in Auckland as an adopted tourist! On Sunday my friend Charlotte picked me up and took me to the North Shore, a lovely bit of suburb that's across the harbor from the bustling CBD. The weather has been beautiful since I arrived, and we were able to get some beach time before the sun started to cook me through the rather lacking ozone layer.

North Shore, completely forget the name of the beach though. My bad.

Had another quiet night, a drink and some quality frozen yogurt, and made plans with a different new friend to explore one of the black sand beaches out to the west of Auckland. After all, at this point I was at the mercy of the Aussie consulate, and I figured I might as well enjoy myself as I waited for their all important yea or nay to me crossing the border of their country.

So Monday morning we took a drive out to Bethells Beach, just north of Piha, the more popular but also more crowded surfer beach. Here's a series of three pictures, showing why you should always go to the beach on Mondays while everyone else is working.

Yowza.

Auckland gets a bit of a bad rap with tourists traveling the country, and I think I know why. You get off the plane, and the shuttle dumps you in the CBD, where you find your hostel. The CBD is a business district, and though there are parties to be found, it's no Queenstown where the bars essentially spill out onto the streets. This is a fully functioning city, and I wouldn't expect a tourist to immediately catch on here any more than I'd expect a Kiwi dumped in the Tenderloin to stumble their way to 16th and Mission in SF. 

Once you meet people though, that makes all the difference. Kiwis will bend over backwards to accommodate anyone friendly, they're just wonderful like that. And I've had a much, much better time since I've been in this city and had people to show me around and sightsee. Just my 2 cents, which would be rounded out of any Kiwi transaction because their money doesn't go lower than 10 cents.

I promised you all the exciting travel bits! And I won't disappoint by omitting them. But first, a story about my flight into NZ, which I neglected to mention because I didn't want the NZ version of the INS to track me down and deport me. You see, websites are misleading. And my grand plan was to take off to NZ with a one way ticket, and come home when I was good and ready and poor. On the surface that jives with the NZ immigration website, but the big gate agent at SFO seemed differently informed, and indelicately refused to give me a boarding pass without a return ticket.

So, having just said goodbye to both my parents at the International terminal, I was faced with the option of either booking a flight home on a random day, or calling my folks and telling them to circle around the parking structure and pick me back up. I chose the former, and booked a ticket home for December 5th, next Thursday. I was given my visa, boarded my flight, flew to Auckland, checked into the hostel, had a nap and a coffee, and then canceled the return flight with 2 hours remaining on a 24-hour cancellation window. Style points for me.

So let that be a lesson for you: countries don't tend to let you travel into them without proof that you'll also be leaving. Extending that to my current situation, I know full well that Australia won't let me get my first Southern Hemisphere sunburn without a flight out. So I've booked a flight, out of Melbourne, on December 17th. To Nadi, Fiji. Where I'll be staying for a few days until I fly home to San Francisco on December 22nd, just in time for Christmas so my dear mother doesn't have to chase me around the world and take me home by force. Also, because I miss my family and friends, and I'm really looking forward to Christmas at home. But also that first reason. Love you mom!

That's life for me right now. It's weird to think that after all the dreaming, planning, and doing, I've got less than 24 hours left on this gorgeous island. Seems crazy how it all flew by, but I've got so many great memories to share in the coming weeks and months, and so many to keep just for me.

I don't really want to leave. But a lot of the joy I've found on this trip has been by pushing through comfort and finding even more wonderful things. In that spirit I'm saying goodbye to New Zealand. For now. Let's just call it "See you sooner than later."

Cheers,

Jared

 

Back to the Start

The weeks when I don't have time to update the blog are always the legendary ones.

River Valley never disappoints. I was able to finagle myself a quasi-similar working arrangement to last time, and this time I even brought my own beer to save money at the bar. I spent my days helping out the 2 current slaves at their duties, and my nights hanging out and trading stories with the staff. During the day on Sunday, my last day in the valley, I was able to take a hike across the river to get a whole new perspective on the lodge.

As amazing as ever.

On my last night there the staff threw down the drinking gauntlet. Conveniently, that was also the night I broke out my new panda-face tank top, which is now pretty much my most-prized possession. We partied the night away, and the next day I hopped in a car with a few of the raft guides to leave the valley for the last time. I caught a ride with the guides to Taupo, my planned next stop, and hung out with them for the night until they had to get back to work.

I found my way to a hostel, and was put into Room 18, a room which will live in infamy. My first day was uneventful, and I called it an early night because I'd set up my last New Zealand hike for the next morning: the Tongariro Alpine Crossing!

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a shortened version of the Tongariro Alpine Circuit, another one of NZ's great walks. It's a 19km day hike across an otherworldly volcanic landscape, which includes Mount Ngauruhoe, otherwise known as Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings movies. I joined up with a crew of four other hostel guests who were heading to the trek as well. The bus to the base of the mountain picked us up from the hostel at 5:30am, and got us started at the mountain by 7am. The bus started us from the valley below Mt Doom and Mt Tongariro at 7am, just as the clouds surrounding the mountain peaks were starting to break.

A few kilometers in, the valley steepened into a rock face with an unending set of wooden steps, called the Devil's Staircase. After an exhausting hour on nature's stairmaster, we made it to the South Crater, a vast flat brown wasteland framed by Mt Doom to the South and Mt Tongariro to the North. The Ngauruhoe summit walk is more challenging, but when we made it to the trailhead the mountain's peak was still heavily covered in clouds, so we pressed on.

The ridge we hiked out of the South Crater

When we made it to the trailhead for the Tongariro summit, the clouds were finally starting to clear and we hoped they'd let us have a good view once we got there.

Hanging out on the summit of Mt Tongariro

The clouds cleared for about 15 minutes, giving us time for some great shots of the surrounding volcanoes and craters.

Then the clouds rolled back in suddenly. Let's just say visibility was temporarily reduced.

Uh, OK then

We made our way back from the summit, and continued the trek to the next crazy beautiful natural wonders: the Red Crater and the Emerald Lakes.

This crater is absolutely massive. The photo doesn't do it justice.

If I'm not making goofy faces I'm not taking pictures

Blue sky next to Emerald lake

We left the lakes and continued our walk out of the valley, and away from the main volcanic summits. After a long walk, we left the lifeless crater land for the highlands, and a valley that showed us the long way down.

The walk down was long and relatively easy on everything but my knees. We finished at 1:30pm, and waited for the bus back to the hostel.

An active volcano demonstrating how clouds are made

I spent most of the second half of the hike convincing my hiking buddies to join me for my traditional post-hike burger, which mostly consisted of all of us salivating at the prospect of a great meal. Wednesday night in the hostel was a ridiculous experience, especially considering we'd been hiking all day. I've had some awesome hostel roommates throughout this trip, but Room 18 at the Taupo Urban Retreat was out of this world. 8 people, and all of us got along and had an awesome few days together. We started drinking at 8:30, and by around 11 we were ready for a very drunken stumble to the Taupo Hot Pools, a natural hot spring that feels just like a hot tub with a waterfall.

Thursday was a day of coffee and some distracted book reading (working on The Poisonwood Bible now), capped off with a Room 18 taco feast and beer pong. We ended the night with a showing of Iron Man 3.

Friday morning I said goodbye to my new friends and caught the most unpleasant bus ride of my life to  Auckland, the city where it all started. The bus ride was not-so-fun for a few key reasons:

1. The bus was 100% full.

2. It was the hottest day of my entire NZ trip

3. The air conditioning wasn't working, because of course

So I spent 6 hours in the back row of a hot bus, wedged between a window and a very large lady, with a reclined seat in my face and the intense desire to be anywhere else in the world. All was better when I finally made it to Auckland and took a much needed nap.

On Friday night Lisa, my friend from Queenstown and an Auckland native, had invited me to a flat-warming party for her coworkers in order to show me that Auckland wasn't quite so drab as it seemed my first time through. Myth dispelled. I spent a fun night drinking and chatting in a room where I was probably the least educated person, as everyone else was a lawyer. I also played more than my fair share of beer pong, and had an excellent time in general. I'll say this for Auckland, the locals are a ton of fun once you get to know them.

Which brings us to today, Saturday. I woke up and walked outside, face to face with Auckland's Civic Theater, which is showing the Broadway musical Wicked. One of my Room 18 folks had informed me that a couple hours before every show the box office has a raffle for a small supply of $35 tickets. I showed up and threw in my name. I didn't win.

However, the raffle was for up to 2 tickets, and me being alone I only entered for 1. At the end of the raffle, the lady in charge realized they had only one ticket left, and wanted to know if anyone in the crowd was looking for just a single ticket. In the middle of a whole bunch of grumpy looking couples, there's me with my hand up. Yup, the only one. So I got the $35 ticket anyway!

Awesome!

First row, I was basically in the orchestra pit

Wicked was fantastic. I've been listening to the soundtrack for years, and it was nice to finally put an order to the songs and a face to the voices. Glenda stole the show with an incredible performance, and the whole cast was amazing. That's money well spent on one of my last few days in New Zealand.

Whaaaaaa? My last few days in New Zealand? Yeah. More to come on that in a couple days once I've got everything sorted!

Cheers,

Jared

How's that for a cliffhanger? (Bad puns are my life)

Completing the Loop

Holy moly, this trip is moving fast now. Well, by that I guess I mean I'm moving quite fast, but it sometimes feels like the trip itself is doing the driving. Hope you guys are ready for a very long post.

Post-Milford Track went exactly as I would have predicted, with me being a waste of space for approximately 48 hours. I guess it's not very healthy to stress your body for a few days and follow that up by binging on meat pies. The third day, my last day in Te Anau, I decided to push my luck and go for another hike.

Ho-hum, just Te Anau being scenic

The Kepler track, another Great Walk, was under avalanche warning just like the Milford track, so rather than foot the bill for another helicopter ride, I decided to do most of the walk in 1 day with a minimal pack. From what I had heard, the track offered an entirely different terrain, as well as some absolutely unbeatable alpine views. I caught a shuttle to the edge of town, and set off to the start of the track. For about 5 km the track is flat through a forested area, before boom, mountain. Straight uphill for another 8 km, which is damn exhausting. I was very happy to be doing the walk with only a daypack, as the folks I passed carrying giant backpacks looked tired. I speed hiked my way up the hill, and broke through the tree-line into a view out of the movies.

Just unbelievable 360* mountain views, for a couple more km before I reached the next hut for a sheltered lunch of probably the worst snack bars I've ever had the misfortune of purchasing. After a quick lunch, it was time to head back down. Turns out walking down a mountain is pretty tricky as well, and I managed to twist my left knee a wee bit on one of the steep bits, which wasn't too comfortable for the rest of the way. Anyhow, I made it back to civilization, and congratulated myself for 28km/6 hours walk with another pie. Honestly, I would stop doing that to myself if I could. So, so good.

Next on the plan was the Rakiura track, on Stewart Island, the southernmost bit of NZ. However, that bit about the busted knee got me worried, so I decided not to push my luck and I took a break from hiking. Unfortunately, I had already purchased my bus ticket to Invercargill, NZ's southernmost city, so I figured I might as well show up and check it out. There's got to be something fun to do, right? Had anyone warned me about that town and I would have gladly eaten the cost of the bus ticket.

So, Invercargill. I've been blessed to travel in an amazing country, where I could honestly say that I've enjoyed every town, city, and wilderness I'd visited. Not so much, Invercargill. For an introduction, take a look at Tripadvisor. The #2 activity in town is scenic flights to Stewart Island, a way out of town. The #4 activity is visiting the information center. The #6 is the historic water tower. Not inspiring, but altogether there wasn't anything un-wholesome about the town itself so I really can't knock it for that.

No, what really made the experience was my hostel. I would have been almost disappointed if I'd gone the entire trip without a creepy hostel experience. Problem solved! The tiny backpackers hostel I stayed at was owned and operated by a guy named Sparky. His house, which had been converted into the hostel, was on the outskirts of town, about 20 minutes walk. The doorway is covered in notices informing guests what can and cannot be worn or brought inside the premises, and informing the police that they are unwelcome to search the premises. The interior decorative theme could best be described as accumulated clutter, with nearly every surface and wall covered in, well, stuff. Several of the walls were adorned with pictures. Oh that's nice, you say, what were the pictures of? Sparky. All the pictures were of him.

Portrait of Sparky, with another photo of Sparky in the frame. Also, Sesame Street stuffed animals. There were lots of those.

My room was an 8 bed, and there was at least one other person's belongings in there, which gave me a little hope that I wouldn't have to spend the night alone sitting in the corner with a flashlight on the door. Oh, also, I almost forgot the doors. All of the doors had locks, and of course we had keys to our rooms. However, every door had a working skeleton keyhole, which could lock or unlock any room from either side of the door. So that's fun.

Lastly, there were the rules. The TV/DVD player had a sign on it saying that only hostel staff were to operate it. As did the phone. "Hostel staff" was just Sparky, as far as I saw. Also, I was informed of the no knuckle cracking policy by Sparky when I checked in. He caught me starting to crack my knuckles subconsciously and pointed it out to me. Yikes.

So, all that added up to my decision to only spend one night in Invercargill. I caught a morning bus to my next stop, Dunedin. Now, pronunciation of Dunedin is how you can tell how long someone's been in New Zealand. You're probably thinking it's pronounced doon-din. Maybe even dunadin, or something like that. Nope, it's da-NEE-din. OK then, moving on. That town is actually awesome. It's a college town, and I was there smack in the middle of exam season. The city had a really awesome vibe, as well as a Cadbury's chocolate factory and the Speights Brewery.

Speights is essentially a little less crafty than Sam Adams and a little less watery than Budweiser. It's a fine middle ground. Still, delicious, and easily my favorite mass-produced and widely-accessible beer in this county. So having no friends in the city, I did the only thing I could: brewery tour. The tour was an hour explanation of the history of beer, and how beer is made, not exactly groundbreaking stuff. But at the end, the holy grail: 30 minutes alone in a room with 6 taps of different Speights varietals, with encouragement to try everything and pour as much as you please. The tour was only $22 (thanks for the discount, USC Student ID!) and I'd like to think the brewery lost a fair bit of money on me. In the tasting room I met four traveling Germans, and they invited me along to go watch some live music in a bar nearby. That was great, and the Germans were nice, but the more they had to drink the more they started speaking only in German. Once I couldn't follow much of the conversation, I excused myself, went back to the hostel, and booked myself onward to Christchurch the next day.

Christchurch is a tough story. As you may know, the city was hit hard by massive earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, and the recovery is still very much ongoing. Christchurch was the second most populous city in NZ at the time of the earthquakes, but it has slipped into 3rd as the aftermath of the quakes has driven away many residents and hampered tourism. The city originally had a charming English vibe, from what I've heard, but all that has changed with the quakes. The bell tower of the cathedral at the city center used to be the top attraction, as it would afford travelers scenic views of the city in all directions. Now, the bell tower fell into rubble and he cathedral itself is shuttered and fenced off.

Christchurch in a picture: Earthquake-shattered beauty, with a side of ubiquitous shipping containers and colorful local artwork.

The rebuilding efforts are making definite progress. ReStart, the new city center, is a collection of shops made out of repurposed shipping containers, and it's really quoted cool. There are clothing stores, book stores, food shops, banks, and souvenir shops all in brightly painted metal boxes. But outside the CBD, where the focus has been, progress is still slow. Entire office buildings are fenced off and the windows are dark and empty. City blocks of open gravel, where buildings either fell or were torn down and cleared away. On the walk to my hostel is a broken hotel where a banner celebrating a New Zealand Tourism Distinction Award still flies outside. It was rough to be there, because you can feel the city wanting to thrive, wanting to be recovered from the quakes and go about a normal summer. But it's not there yet, and there's a long way left to go.

The next morning I caught a bus to Nelson. Yep, my first return visit to a town! With my birthday coming up, I wanted to be somewhere I knew it would be sunny, and somewhere I knew people. My friend Julie had settled in Nelson for a bit, so after I spent a day laying in the sun we made plans to gather a crew and go wine tasting on my birthday.

Riding bikes. Wearing helmets because safety first.

We caught a ride to Blenheim, about 2 hours from Nelson, and the heart of Marlborough, New Zealand's wine country. The five of us rented bikes, and rode around to different local wineries. I've never been much of a fan of white wine, but damn is it good here. After a very boozy afternoon, we returned the bikes and parted ways with 2 of our group who were continuing further south. Oh, also they were the ones with the car. Which meant it was time for another episode of your favorite new show: Hitchhiking with Jared!

Turns out it's a lot easier to catch a ride with 2 girls than as a group of 3 guys. Who'd have thunk.

I made a critical planning error on the trip, and failed to bring any sort of jacket. It was about 6:30pm by the time we started trying to hitch a ride, and windy. I'm not a smart man when it comes to weather preparedness, apparently. But then we got picked up by a dude named Nigel, who took us 40 minutes out of his way, all the way back to our hostel. Hitchhiking success!

Back at the hostel, my friend Heather made me an awesome birthday card and bought me candles, while Julie bought me a chocolate cake. They lit the candles in the hostel kitchen, and the entire hostel sang to me. I didn't expect much from a birthday on the road in a foreign country, but I was completely blown away by all this. People are the best.

The girls working on my awesome cake!

I spent another day in Nelson after my birthday, then caught the ferry to Wellington. This ends my time on the South Island, at least for this trip. On the trip back to Wellington I sat and played cards with an awesome family from Hawaii, who basically adopted me for the ferry ride. It was really nice to get out of a hostel dynamic for a change and back to family style living, at least for a few hours.

I think I'll say that so far, Wellington has been my favorite of NZ's cities, though I'm holding out hope for my return trip through Auckland. I love any city with more than one used bookstore on a single block. I spent another day reading in the same cafe as last time, drinking unhealthy amounts of tea and altogether having an amazing time.

Which brings me to today. I've left Wellington again, northward bound on an Intercity bus. Taihape, or Tai-happening, as it's affectionately called by the locals, is my next stop. I'm spending the weekend at River Valley, and I'm totally stoked to see the old crew again.

That's all for this time folks, but if past experience is any indicator, it's going to be an eventful weekend.

Cheers,

Jared

The Milford Track

Whew. I'm tired now. I'm finally back from the Milford Track, a 33.5 mile trek of unadulterated natural awesome, and I'd love it if you'd humor me by reading my take on the experience.

Pre-Hike:

I read about this hike sometime in the Spring, when the idea of leaving everything and flying off to New Zealand was still just a quiet "what if/why the hell not?" thought. From what the internet would tell me, it's the ultimate New Zealand walking experience, giving an equal dose of alpine ridges and dense rainforest. Since it's classified as a Great Walk bookings are limited to 40 people per day during the walkable months. I would sit at work, on the really bad days, and look up plane tickets to Auckland, and booking availability on the Milford Track. When I bought the plane ticket, I almost booked the track as well. But of course I didn't, both because I didn't know my full itinerary, and I may have a wee bit of an issue with procrastination.

I monitored the track availability over the next weeks and months, and felt very calm as I watched the ticket numbers dwindle. If I just kept an eye on things, I knew I'd be able to book close to the event itself, and then I'd have the best grip on timing. I got to River Valley, and proceeded to completely forget about checking the website. On a quiet night a couple weeks later, I remembered, and scrambled to check the booking availability. Only one spot left, for all of October and November. Craaaap. So yeah, I booked it on the spot, and that's the event that's shaped the last month or so of my trip, just trying to reach Te Anau in time for the walk and not miss anything major.

Fast forward to Tuesday, and I was much less nervous than before Abel Tasman. I'd read tons of reviews on the hike, and the experience of doing a 3 day hike eased my overactive sense of panic. I'd added some new rain clothes to my repertoire, and had enough beef jerky to last til the apocalypse stuffed into my somehow ridiculously heavy pack. All set.

Wednesday:

At a grand total of 5km, Day 1 of the hike is basically the warmup. It's akin to the salad course at fancy restaurants, where it's one bit of lettuce on a giant plate and you just feel bad for the dishwasher. Which isn't to say Day 1 wasn't amazingly beautiful, it absolutely was. The day started with a bus ride to Te Anau Downs, where we took off on a 1 hour boat ride to Glade Wharf, the official start of the track.

As with my other hiking experience, and my entire trip, I was solo at the start. I've discovered I'm pretty bad at being solo for long periods of time, so I continued my well practiced technique of introducing myself to people and then casually inviting myself to partake in their trip. For this trip, I met and hiked with 2 awesome Aussies who are nurses, so I was covered in case my natural clumsiness chose that moment to result in a nasty injury.

Day 1 is an easy 5 km walk through the Clinton River valley through areas of marshland and rainforest with the giant mountains always looming through the trees. At several points on the winding track the river edges right up next to it, and gives a stunning view.

On the Milford Track, it's mandatory to stay in one of the Department of Conservation huts provided. The huts are essentially giant dorms with gas stoves. This makes life much easier on trampers, who don't have to carry stoves or tents/hammocks.

Clinton Hut. Fancy, right?

When I got to the hut, I wrote myself several helpful notes to capture the experience for later reflection. My unfiltered words of wisdom from Wednesday night include:

- Pack is fucking heavy

- Contemplating eating all of the food

- Chili for dinner. Great decision

- Burned my damn hand on the pot

With that, I tucked off to an early sleep and prepared for the first real day of hiking!

Thursday:

Thursday was a cold morning, but shockingly, the skies were clear. Maybe I should explain why that's shocking. Fiordland is the wettest part of New Zealand, a very wet country. From the Department of Conservation website, they get around 7 meters (23 feet) of rainfall every year on 200 rainy days. For reference, Mobile, AL, the wettest city in the US (assuming an article I found on Google from 2007 is correct), receives about 5.5 feet per year. It rains a whole damn lot down here, so waking up to a clear day on the Milford Track is a bit like Christmas.

We took off from the hut at 7:30AM, with a 16.5km day ahead. The weather played along masterfully, and I've never seen views quite like I did on that walk. The crazy thing about the Milford Track, and Fiordland in general, is how steep the mountains rise on either side of the valley. Sheer cliffs 1000 meters high on either side, with snowy peaks and massive, cascading waterfalls running down the sides into the rainforest at the bottom. Sometimes the forest is so thick you lose track of the scale, but every so often you break through into a clearing and get a beautiful reminder

The Prairie, a brief clearing in the track

Rainforest

The track began to alternate between cleared flat areas of short brush, and dense, ancient, moss-covered trees. After a while, we figured we were into the 50-something avalanche paths that sweep across the Milford Track. You see, having giant rock walls with massive snowy peaks hanging over a deep valley is a good recipe for some very powerful avalanches. Fortunately there area signposts at a lot of the clearing which tell hikers to get a move on because there's a reason there aren't any tall trees left where they're walking.

Stopping on the wrong side of the No Stopping, Avalanche sign because I live life on the edge

A few hours into our hike, while it was still a bit cold, our spirits were high. We'd covered over half of the distance, and we hadn't even stopped for lunch yet. We pressed on, and got our first look at the Mackinnon Pass, part of our third day's hike.

Yowza.

That's also about when we got our first inkling that the weather was about to take a not so mild turn. See if you can tell what's different in the next picture.

Gonna need to consult an expert, but yeah that looks like a spot of rain coming on.

What followed was a set of poorly made decisions. First, we came to the last marked shelter before the hut, with about 6 kilometers to go. We decided we all weren't hungry enough yet, and we'd stop in a bit. Mistake 1. Then, though I put on my waterproof pack cover, I figured a bit of drizzle wasn't worth getting out my new rain gear, like my waterproof jacket or rain pants. If it started raining harder I'd throw them on, but who wants to be the guy dressed for a blizzard in a fine mist? That guy isn't cool at all. Mistake 2 and 3. I'd like to say skipping lunch precipitated the rest of my questionable decision making, but I should know better.

We walked on for a while through the drizzle, as the track started gaining altitude and the rain very slowly intensified. I say "very slowly," because in my compromised state I managed to transition perfectly from "this rain isn't hard enough to put on waterproof gear" into "well this gear is already soaking wet, might as well save the waterproof stuff for tomorrow." Mistake 4.

Several rocky avalanches came down in the spring, and the DOC teams were still working to clear the areas. The result was several very dodgy bits where we had to climb over rocks that covered the trail. Still, if anything, the rainforest became even more beautiful in the rain.

More rainforest!

NZ has pretty trails, huh?

After walking a few km in the rain, once I started passing patches of snow on the ground, I finally had the lightbulb moment that maybe my jacket that was soaking up the rain wasn't the ideal clothing for this situation. I put on my rain jacket about two hours too late to actually make a difference, but I'll give myself a solid B for effort. Now I'm no map maker, but I have a serious issue believing that the distance I covered in the rain that day was only 6km. Seemed to be about 6 miles, but that may be related to how damn cold I was, standing there like an idiot, soaking wet.

Finally I made it to Mintaro Hut, the stop after day 2, and proceeded to shed my wet clothing everywhere. The first thing I noticed about the hut was that it, like me, and everything else around, was freezing cold. There was a tiny fire in a woodburning stove we could light, and we did. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this was the worst fireplace ever. After 2 hours, I could put my hand on top of the metal lid of the stove, and hold it there for a while. It was barely warm to the touch. Not ideal, as I'd just soaked through my only pair of hiking pants, and my fleece jacket which would have been nice to have as a warm layer that night.

I went to bed around 8:30 that night, as the rain came pouring down. I also jotted down some helpful notes in my book, just like before:

- Well that was different. And by different I mean wet.

- Clouds rolled in from Mackinnon Pass.

- Stupidly decided not to put on waterproof jacket. Way to go.

- Freeze dried beef hotpot for dinner

- Not as good as the chili

- I would kill for a coffee

That may offer you a little insight into my mental state after a rough day. So you may wonder how it was sleeping in the huts. Night 2 was a wee bit rough. I got the bottom bunk, which was awesome at the time, because big man fall hard. Nobody took the top bunk over me, so in a bout of genius, I took the mattress off the top bunk and leaned it up over the glass door to the outside, in an attempt to keep in as much warmth as possible. All was good, until about 3AM, when the skylight over my head sprung a leak.

...

*drip*

...

*splash*

Every 3 seconds. The water dripped down off the window's edge, and struck the now unguarded slat of the top bunk, and scattered into ice cold droplets that sprayed, you guessed it, right onto my face. That'll wake you up quickly and uncomfortably. Of course, it's also freezing cold, so the last thing I want to do is get out of my mummy bag. I try to roll over, and move to a different part of the bunk, so the falling water will just soak my bag and not my face. Not successful. Turns out that in a dark, quiet room, the sound of water dripping over your head can drive a man insane. After about 10 minutes I can't take it any longer, and have to make a choice: do I get up, and try to stop the leak? Or do I take off my only dry clothing and use it as a makeshift cover for the top bunk in the hope that it catches most of the water? I chose option B, because it didn't involve me getting out of bed. I wasn't too happy to put on those wet clothes in the morning, but at least I got some damn sleep after that.

Friday:

We woke up late on Friday, because the ranger instructed us to wait for her in the morning before heading out. As we knew before we took the trip, there was a significant avalanche risk during the 3rd day of the trip, when we'd be crossing snowy Mackinnon Pass. If the risk was deemed too high, they'd be flying us across the avalanche zone in a helicopter. Turns out, heavy snowfall plus a hot day with some rain meant the helicopter was a must, and I got set for my first ever helicopter ride!

Good weather for a helicopter ride!

Look mom, I'm in a helicopter!

Fortunately, it stopped snowing in time for the heli ride, and we all got ferried over the top of Mackinnon pass, to the Anderson Cascades, a set of absolutely picturesque waterfalls that follow the track down the pass. The handy thing about the heli ride was that it cut out the remaining 2.5 hour climb up the pass, so from then on the trip was mostly downhill.

At the top of the Cascades

The Anderson Cascades

I made a little snowman

We walked down from the pass, into the Arthur river valley. The walk was not strenuous, and I only slipped and fell one time. Not bad.

Seriously, so much greenery

I'm on a bridge!

When we got to Sutherland Falls, we stopped for lunch, avoiding the mistake of the previous day. Then we did the 45 minute side hike to the falls, on a track which wasn't "technically" open yet. Sutherland Falls are New Zealand's tallest waterfalls, at 580 meters high. They are incredible. I don't do words well enough to describe the amount of power generated by that much water hitting the river below, but wow.

I tried to walk behind the falls, and wound up getting demolished by sheets of water being blown off the falls. If you look closely, you can see I've finally put on my rain jacket, which is smart. If you look closer and compare with the previous picture, you can see I took off my damn rain pants, which was really, really dumb.

Wet pants are the worst pants. But still, cool waterfall.

After a couple more hours, we finished the trek to Dumpling Hut, the 3rd and final hut of the Milford Track. The last night is always the best, because you've got to eat the rest of the food to avoid carrying it all the way out. My thoughts on the night from my little book:

- What a horrible name for a hut. Now I want dumplings. Next up, Pizza Hut.

- Got jokes for days

- Only slipped and fell once

- Roast lamb freeze dry tonight. Not excited.

Dry clothes: the best thing ever. Also, yes, the beds are about 5 and a half feet long.

Saturday:

The last day is the longest day of hiking on the track, at 18km. We got up at 6AM to catch the 2PM boat from Sandfly Point, the track's official end. It was a gray and damp morning, but no rain. Have I mentioned how insanely lucky we were to get 2.5 days without rain in Fiordland? Insanity. But we took off, back through the rainforest in all our wet weather gear, eager to just get out back to civilization. At this point, I would have paid a handsome fee for a nice hot shower, so very little was going to stop me from catching the first boat out.

That's a big ol rock.

I have about 300 pictures just of this trail.

More waterfalls, because NZ isn't fair

Yeah, I'm out of captions for beautiful waterfalls

The trail, carved out of a rock face

After an exhausting but speedy 18km, we got our first view of Sandfly Point, and freedom. Now, a note on the name Sandfly Point. Sand flies are New Zealand's answer to the mosquito. They look like fruit flies, don't make that awful noise, but leave the same red, itchy welts. However, we were informed by the helpful ranger at the Dumpling Hut that Sandfly Point was named in the 1890's, and had no bearing on the actual sandfly population in the area. Not too bad he said. Turns out, that ranger is a lying liar who lies. My legs are now covered in bites, which I can't stop scratching. Wonderful.

After a 20 minute boat ride through Milford Sound, the hike was officially over. I bid farewell to my hiking buddies, and sat down for my now traditional post-hike meal of a burger and a beer. I spent the night in Milford Sound, and caught a bus back to Te Anau, where I'm now scratching my innumerable sandfly bites and working on my next adventure!

Cheers,

Jared