Another 6 weeks have passed since we’ve been home, and I’m beginning to realize really how quickly a whole experience can start to feel like a dream. The details get a little fuzzy and “real life” gets in the way of thinking about and reflecting on our adventure all the time. Which is good, right? It’s just the way of things, or at least the way things should be. We experience something fully while we’re doing it, and then we let it go. We file it away with our fond memories, our crazy stories, our life lessons, and the things we know about ourselves. Our past experiences continue to influence us in ways that we don’t even fully realize, but they’re not at the forefront of our thoughts anymore.
But it’s also a little sad to realize that life moves on, when the things that we’re moving on from were amazing. So, before the details get a little too fuzzy, I have a few weeks of New Zealand stories still to write down. This blog was a great way to stay connected and keep you updated, but I know now that mostly I did it for me, for us. The same is true for our video compilation, which can be found here. Sure it’s fun for you to watch, to get a feel for what the hell we were up to for 5 months on the other side of the world, but it’s really for us. To watch again and again, which I’ve already done, by the way.
Anyway, my last post finished with us returning to “our room” at the Bluff Lodge after returning from Stewart Island. The next morning, we starting walking out of Bluff to try to get a hitchhike to Invercargill. Once again, we had a crazy easy time getting a ride – as soon as we got close to the edge of town we started “walk-hitching” where we just kept walking, but threw our thumbs out whenever we heard a car coming up behind. The first car we tried pulled over, and we climbed in with a mom and her sleeping baby. This is about the 4th baby I’ve ridden in the backseat with, which I think is incredible proof just how normal and safe hitch-hiking is viewed in New Zealand compared to the U.S. She said she’s always keeping her eye out for people needing rides when she heads to up to Invercargill. Once in the city, we popped in to pick up my damn glasses.
After walking a couple of miles, we started hitching. After what seemed like forever, we got picked up by a woman who said she could take us just past the next highway junction, where someone would be more willing to pick us up. We weren’t there long before we gave an excited thumbs up to a badass classic Land Cruiser coming our way, which pulled over to pick us up. The driver was a super nice guy, originally from South Africa, who is now a plumber (and a devoted Land-Cruiser caretaker) in NZ. To be honest, I couldn’t hear any of this from the back seat because the car was so loud, but this is what I picked up from Ben after. Then, with about 100 km left to Queenstown, we were picked up by a sweet older lady making her way home from the Invercargill airport. We listened to 60s music while she told us about how her home, Arrowtown (just near Queenstown), has been changing and growing so quickly, and all of her friends are moving away. So, while it kills her because the area is so gorgeous (it really is!), she’s moving closer to one of her daughters and her family in a more rural area of NZ.
Thinking back, it seemed that Ben and I had an unspoken agreement about who would be sitting in the front and the backseat when taking rides.
- If it was a single guy picking us up, Ben would sit in the front and I would sit in the back.
- If it was a single woman picking us up, I would sit in the front and Ben would sit in the back.
- UNLESS there was a baby in the backseat, in which case I would keep up the baby conversation, google eyes, and funny faces in the back seat, while he would continue to act like an adult in the front seat.
Anyway, the woman dropped us off very near the Frankton Holiday Park where we had reserved a cabin for the night. The next morning, Ben went to the Queenstown airport to pick up our rental car. We spent the day in Queenstown, did some re-supply, etc. Somewhere in the midst of the past couple of days, we had heard from our friends Andrew and Alexa, the New Yorkers who we had hiked much of the North Island with, that they were pretty close to Queenstown and were thinking about re-routing a little bit to do the Routeburn track. Our plan was to do the Routeburn track next, and we anticipated being in Queenstown about the same time, so we tried to get in touch with them about meeting up. If you recall, to get back to the Te Araroa out of Queenstown, hikers have to get around the huge lake to a remote trailhead, which can take a long day of hitchhiking (and cause hikers to become so desperate that they’ll leave prescription glasses behind JUST to not give up their hitchhike….. ring a bell?). We figured we could help them skip that stress and possible possession-losing by at least giving them a ride where they needed to go!
We were about to give up on hearing from them and just head out of town, when we got a text that day that they were a few hours from Arrowtown (the town just before Queenstown). They weren’t sure what their plan was yet, but we knew that we could at least trail-magic them and bring them beer to drink once they got off the trail. Ben and I went to the legendary Fergburger while we waited. Review: the Big Al was really… meh, actually…. while the Chief Wiggum was quite unique and delicious! Overall, overrated. I’m sure things would have been different had we made the trip to eat there while we were on trail and still had our intense hiker-hunger.
Around 5pm, Ben drove us (on the right side of the car and the left side of the road) to Arrowtown, and were able to welcome Alexa and Andrew back to civilization after the intense Motatapu track. We all peer-pressured each other and found a compromise – Ben and I would stay in town one more night so they could resupply in the morning, then we’d all drive out to the Routeburn trailhead the next day to hike the 30km Great Walk together. And instead of starting really early and doing the whole thing in one day, we decided to split it into two days. Since it’s a Great Walk, the huts and campsites are often booked months in advance, but we somehow stumbled upon one vacant campsite about halfway through the track. We celebrated with bourbon and beer, and exchanged stories from the South Island.
The next day we ran a few errands and drove out to the remote Routeburn trailhead (via Glenorchy where we stopped for dumplings!) and started hiking by about 2 pm. The Great Walk tracks are pretty well-maintained and easy going, so we knew we could do it quickly. But they also cater the trail, lodging, and marketing/planning suggestions so that almost anyone with moderate fitness can do it. The 20-some km that we planned to do that day was estimated to take 2 days, or about 10 hours of hiking. But we knew ourselves better.
We spent a few minutes at the first “hut” (aka hotel, mansion) to take in how the “other half” lives. Once we continued on we started running into a few hiking tour groups coming in from the other direction, and one of the apparent hiking guides asked where we were headed and commented that we were getting a late start. Alexa confidently stated that “well, we’ve been hiking the TA, so…. ” to which the hiking guide quickly responded “oh yeah – you’ll be right!”
Mountain Valley
It was at this point, when we reached the mountain valley, that the scenery became REALLY incredible. Truly truly a Great Walk. And because of our slightly late start, we caught the start of sunset while up there. The mountains looked like they were on fire!
Lake Harris
We walked at a pretty good clip to make sure we got to our campsite before dark, and we had a pretty steep, rocky descent down to the beautiful Mackenzie Lake. We had to use our headlamps for the last 20 minutes or so of the walk and walked right by the Mackenzie luxury hut to the Mackenzie Lake campground. We ran into the warden on our way in, and he was surprised to see us arriving so late. He point us to the last open campground, and we were disappointed to realize that it was a little rocky patch with a sort of small square platform in the middle. We certainly couldn’t fit two tents on it, and even if they were on their own, Alexa and Andrew’s Zpacks tent would hardly work because it needs to be staked up. So, we looked up at the cold, clear night sky, and decided to cowboy camp. We lined up our sleeping pads and sleeping bags side by side along the platform and just slept under the stars. We figured that if it did start to rain, we could make a break for the eating shelter and sleep under there.
It turned out to be the perfect clear, chilly, peaceful night to sleep under the amazing Southern sky.
Sunrise at Lake Mackenzie
We woke up in the morning and found that we only had a few kilometers left along the Routeburn track before we broke off to the Greenstone track to take us to the Greenstone hut, which is on the Te Araroa. It was a pleasant walk, and it was SO good to walk with our friends again. Also, we crossed the highest swing bridge that I think I had encountered in New Zealand.
Earland Falls
We arrived to the Greenstone hut before dinnertime, and as we approached, we saw piles of shoes on the deck and surprised faces turning and staring at us from out the window. As we got closer, we realized just how full the hut was, and we walked right on by without even looking in to set up our tents in the little camping area behind the hut. The hut warden came to check our passes and said that there were already people sleeping on the floor in the hut, and it was incredibly hot in there with a fire going and multiple bodies cooking their dinners, so we’d probably be much more comfortable outside. He warned us to keep our food inside, however, because there were some really fat and friendly possums in the surrounding trees. We cooked our dinner on the porch, chatted with a few friendly hikers who also just needed to get out of that hut for a bit, then went to bed. We were visited by a fat, friendly possum even though we didn’t have food — Ben swears that twice, a possum came up under the rainfly and just laid down next to him, almost cuddling with him through the tent.
The next day we parted ways with our friends, but not before hatching a plan to meet up again in about 5 days in Te Anau. We planned to rent an AirBnB and hoped that our friend Simon would be finished with the trail by then and could join us as well. It would take about that long for Alexa and Andrew to get to that point in the trail, so it was perfect. They continued on the Te Araroa and we headed back to the Greenstone carpark. This was kind of a fun 11km hike because we had already done it a few weeks earlier. A few differences, though: it was in reverse, in the daylight instead of twilight, and I could SEE. (This was the section that I stubbornly did without my contacts after I had lost my glasses.) We arrived to the carpark by noon, where Ben changed into his running gear and put on his hydration pack and ran the 30 kilometers to the Routeburn carpark, while I hung out, watched the packs, and read The Two Towers. A few hours later, I saw our little red rental pulling up. We camped that night at a drive-in DOC campsite and rested our bodies before starting our next little adventure the next day.
Another fun realization: when I start reflecting and telling stories about New Zealand, I revert back to the words/lingo they use there. In my head, it’s so natural and obvious that we walked from the Routeburn carpark to the Greenstone carpark. Now that I’m back home, I’ve reverted back to “parking lot”, but apparently that’s only when I’m talking about parking lots here. The ones in New Zealand are carparks, obviously. 🙂
tramps, treks, and travels 