The one where I saw The Penguin

I took 10-day trip through the south part of the Southern Island.

With me:
Another American, an Aussie, three Swiss Germans, three German Germans, a Vanuatuan Dutch, an English, and André, our Kiwi guide. Ages ranged from 18-40. We were all attractive.

We rode in a 12-seater van, pulling a trailer that was specially customized with spaces for bag storing, food storing, preparation, and serving, boot drying, other stuff doing, ...

Day 1: We met on a Sunday morning in Queenstown and immediately took off for Fjordland National Park. One nice thing: I’d volunteered to be the group banker. Which was nice, because I got a pre-printed sheet with everyone’s name so I could keep track of who’d given me money and what we’d spent and such. By referring to the list as we drove, and taking advantage of the fact that our names were listed in the order we’d signed up so couples were listed next to each other, I learned everyone’s name that first morning. (Which is unusual for me—if you recall, I made it to Day 6 of my trip to the Outback without learning any of my fellow travelers’ names.)

Our walk the first morning was a “3 hour” return at the very beginning of the Routeburn Track. The walk wasn’t that exciting, and our pace is s..l..o..w, but we wound up in a beautiful place between 5 mountain ranges. Not overly challenging, but our guide was testing us to see what the group had.

We headed off to a Gunn’s Camp, an old (miners’?) site, for the night. We made dinner, ate, and introduced ourselves in one of the cabins.

Through the week we all had our chores--I held the money and kept the books, others made sure there was always soap and water available for washing, kept the water jug filled, the van clean, stuff like that.

Each meal, there were people responsible for cooking/prep and for clean up. Our menu (and associated shopping lists) was predetermined. Breakfast was usually cereal, fruit and yogurt. The lunch spread generally included bread, meat, cheese, veggies and condiments for sandwiches. Dinners included pastas (pesto & sun-dried tomatoes, marinara sauce), rice with chicken and vegetables, fish and chips and the like.

{anchor: Day 2}: We drive down into Milford Sound to kayak. We’ve got an odd number of people (and we’re in 2-person kayaks), so I join John from New York, who’s been traveling around for a coupla weeks with two co-workers. (Angie is cute, and she calls the boys Ace and Gary.) We all shared some potato chips.

Our weather: sunny and calm most of the morning, in one of the rainiest places on earth. At one point mid-morning, our guide said “At 11:20, a breeze will come in and it will get a bit choppy, but nothing too bad.” The breeze and chop didn’t actually get there until 11:25.

We didn’t see much animal life until the end—we saw 4 seals eventually, playing or napping. But our guide convinced the other group that we’d seen a shark.

My overall impression: it’s very pretty and the scale is impressive, but I don’t need to be there for days on end. It would be neat to see it from the air, and when it’s raining and the cliffs turn to waterfalls.

Then we drove (and I slept) to Monowai. We expected rain, so instead of camping we stayed in what I can only describe as a miniature village with shacks from the 1950s. They were $15/night, and I had my own.

Day 3: The weather report was bad, so we changed our plan a bit. We walked about 7 miles in to the Green Lake Hut and dropped our gear.

The hike alternated between beech forests and low plains called Tussock Basins. (The party walks through these in The Fellowship of the Ring.) I stepped in mud up to my knee a coupla times with each foot. There was one tough ascent (I was carrying about 30 lbs), but overall it was pretty easy and the weather held off.

We took the entire 12-person hut. After dropping our gear, most of us went out for an easy ~2 hour walk up to the ridge to eat some chocolate. It’s there that we saw something I described in a bunch of postcards—a rainbow, sitting over a verdant valley with a lake on one side, mountains and forests and plains on the other. By any reasonable standard it was gorgeous, buy my response was “unhh”. New Zealand is chock full of those places, and I’d seen the something better the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that…

On the way up, Mike (a chemical engineer from Chicago and my science buddy for the week) asked if I know what “triskadicadecaphobia” is. I’m confused, but it turns out that he’d just gotten the word “triskaidekaphobia” slightly wrong. This starts a discussion in which I try to remember the word “sesquipedalianism”. But I can’t think of it, and it bothered me for days until I finally got a chance to look it up.

Day 4: We hiked out and drove east, leaving Fjordland and heading along the southern coast.

There’s a town near the coast called Tuatapere, or something like that. Population about 15, probably all in their 70s, but they had a Beth Shalom.

We stayed in a backpackers on a working sheep farm, about 4 miles from the southern point of New Zealand mainland. Our host, Justine, made us muffins.

Day 5: We visited Porpoise Bay (Curio Bay?) looking for dolphins. We didn’t see any dolphins.
We went to Slope Point, the southern tip of the South Island.
We stopped at a petrified forest. Okay, but neater than the pre-historic relics were the giant sea kelp attached to the rocks
We visited a forest and walked along the beach
We camped near another beach where there were supposed to be sea lines.

Dinner was a hangi, a traditional New Zealand dish where we buried our food in a fire pit with hot rocks. While it cooked, we headed off to see a spot where the penguins come in at night. It was pretty awesome—we saw 6 or 7 come ashore and…wander off into the woods in the sheep farm, as if they had to run to the store to pick up some milk or something. Eventually, they appeared up on the hill, where the sheep and the penguins just ignored each other. I kept thinking about how the sheep had no idea that most sheep would live their entire lives without ever seeing a penguin. So sad.

After dinner we took an awfully long walk through an invented path to finally find a sea lion. By the time we got there, it was too dark to see him. The walk back, over a previously existing path, was much quicker.

There was no hiking, but doing 10 small things in a day was much more exhausting than doing 1 big hike.

Day 6: We drove. Ate lunch and packed. Drove. Sprinted up a hill. Drove. I dozed off, most of the time.

Eventually, we arrived at Lake Ohau, near the Southern Alps. We hiked up about 2-3 hours to the campsite, during which Mike and I discussed googols and plexes and I tried to explain Graham’s Number. I carried lunch for the next day, for a total of 33 pounds. André said he had a surprise waiting at the top—it turned out to be a pot with a view. They’d built a toilet back in the woods—no walls, but great views of the mountains.

Day 7: A really cool hike.

We hit the bush line just above camp. As Mike said, “[I think] every state in the US is in New Zealand, too. We’re in Utah now.” We walked through desert, scrambled up rock and gravel faces, avoided the avalanches, hit the top. The weather—perfect. We had lunch on the top with incredible views of Lake Ohau, the Southern Alps, Mt Cook, Mt Tasman, etc… Came back down, broke down camp and came back to the bottom. It took all day; could have been 4 hours quicker if we’d hurried but that’s fine.

My trip down was the lightest yet—I’d had to carry lunch to the top, while most people just needed water, but without the food I only packed out about 24 pounds.

We camped for the night on some dude’s lawn. The dude was Tony, the place (Buscot Station) was weird. It’s like this stately (-looking) mansion on another sheep farm, but one that seemed to ooze Southern nobility. We were in the yard. Inside were Tony, a guy named Sam from Santa Barbara, an Israeli, an Irish guy, a Welsh~ish, and some of unidentifiable accents. Sam gave me a lot of whisky. The Israeli led…wait for it…a Havdalah service! (The ceremony to end the Jewish Sabbath.) It was my first in, like, 17 years, since my last time in youth group. Tony explained Sukkoth (the harvest festival) and Hanukkah to the Irish guy. We just missed Laura Veirs’ parents, Leslie and Val by a couple of days. It felt like the Twilight Zone, and not just because I drank a lot of whiskey.

Day 8: We drove off to Mount Cook Village for some day hikes, though first we stopped for supplies, and coffee and a bakery, in Twizel.

There was a hard walk and an easy one. I took the hard, which wasn’t that bad—something like 1200 steps up to the Sealy Tarns. From the top, great views of the Mueller and Tasman glaciers. With 20 minutes at the top, it took about 3 hours return.

Then, off to Fairlie. We stayed in rooms at a mobile home site, the Fairlie Top 10 Holiday Park. I did laundry while others cooked Christmas Eve dinner—spicy beans and rice with overcooked green veggies—spinach, broccoli, zucchini, bean sprouts, celery. The beans were too spicy for some so I finished 3 people’s dinners. Anita and Johannes made glug wine and we had a Pavlova for dessert.

Day 9: Off for our final hike, an overnighter up Woolshed Creek (by Mt Somers) to the Woolshed Creek (or maybe Pinnacles or Mt Somers) Hut. We walked up through the creek valley—a fun couple of hours of crossing back and forth as we worked our way up the valley, walking through water that hit waist level or higher at some crossings. We could have gone much faster with a smaller group.

Then we walked up to the crest(?) of the valley—we could have gone much, much, much faster with a smaller group. I got pretty frustrated, which definitely detracted from the hike. It’s kind of the nature of going on a group trip—you can’t go any faster than the slowest person, and if some people cross creeks slowly and others walk up hills slowly, the group will be even slower.

Dinner was the worst food yet, a pretty awful tuna-and-black-(Spanish)-olive-pasta. But, we had
-appetizers! Seaweed Rice Crackers w/cheeses (Brie, Camemberts, Blue)
- wine! André carted up a box.
- dessert! A cheesecake with chocolate.

Day 10: An easy hike out. We spent time cleaning the van, drying the tents, repacking all of our own stuff. Then we made our way back to Christchurch for the end.

We stopped at a bar for a beer (and to complete a survey, and have André sell us some shirts…). Then we got back to town. André drove off, to see his dad or his girlfriend or just get away from us. The rest of us had dinner together. (Most of us stayed in the same place, Linda was only two blocks away.)

Day 11, that’s when we scattered. Linda and Mike flew north. Caroline caught a ride west with Anita and Johannes. Hannah made her way to Nelson to do another trip. (And she’s in Uganda now, but I’m not sure where.) And I spent one more day in town before flying off to Sydney the next day. I walked around town, bought some gifts (cds for André (Garden State soundtrack, Laura Veirs’ Year of Meteors, Lou Reed’s Transformer), fur warmers for the Ys (penis, nipple)), sat in the awesome Botanic Gardens and wrote postcards, and had dinner at a fancy restaurant with Sascha. (Who might still have your postcards, Julie and Susan and Kate and Sarah and Mike…sorry if you never got them…)

So, sorry that was so long. If _anyone_ is still reading this and is truly a glutton, my pictures from the trip are here.

(or just Milford Sound or just Lake Ohau)

Ta,
sg