Canals, canals, canals

There's something to be said for mountains, the feeling of achievement, amazing views and interesting trails. As for canals, well, maybe not. We had two days of walking along the flat Tekapo Canal between Lake Tekapo and Twizel. Al and I rochamboed to see who should write this one, I lost. I always throw scissors, why did I throw rock?

It wasn't all terrible, we had amazing views of Mt Cook for two straight days, and perfect weather. Absolutely no clouds, just sun. No trees either and no shade for that matter. Al and I did manage to get a bit of shade next to Lake Pukaki Information Center. We were cowered against the side of the building in the bushes. Not the prettiest sight but it was shade.

Dennis

Photos:
Tekapo Canal with Toitoi
Mt Cook from the canal
Mt Cook from Lake Pukaki

Rivers to mountains 2

Photos:
Us at the top of Mt. Musgrave (2251 Meters), out highest South Island point.
Our New Years Campsite
The Two Thumb Range, looking back at Mt. Musgrave
Coal River

Rivers to mountains

Its amazing how fast an eight day section can go by, you start off with a heavy pack and slowly whittle your way through the food until you're back to a light pack. It can be challenging not to eat too much trail mix on the first days, leaving you with none for the last.

There's no shortage of variety in this section: flats, hills, tracks, roads, mountain tops, river valleys, rain, sun and even hail. We had it all. It started out with a bit of road walking and after a milkshake in Staveley, it was time to venture into Mt Somers Forest Park. I'm such a sucker for milkshakes, I figured it would be the last one for a while. Uphill, what's that? It's been a while since we've had to do any big climbs. I'm not sure what was against me, the legs or the brain but it was a bit of a difficult start. Maybe it was the weather, a bit of drizzle, followed by hail. That's enough to get you unmotivated.

Mt Somers Forest Park was an amazing place. It had all sorts of crazy rock formations. The Pinnacles Hut on our first night was in a great location, placed among the Pinnacle rocks, made me wish I'd brought my climbing shoes with me. Further on down the track there were water caves to explore. It was as if someone had a handful of enormous boulders and sprinkled them over a stream. There were all these voids and precariously balanced rocks with water running through them. It was an amazing spot to explore, nature's jungle gym.

Then it was back on the roads passing by Lake Clearwater to the mouth of the Potts River. This was the start of the big river crossing that has been in the back of our minds for quite some time. The Rangitata River drains the glaciers of the Southern Alps and runs south east to the coast. It was in the way and needed to be crossed. The river from the first channel to the last was five kilometers wide and quite braided. We counted the channels on the way across, the smallest being one meter wide, stretching up ones that were over ten meters wide. We crossed 48 channels. It didn't turn out to be as difficult as first though, most channels were knee deep with the final channel being waist deep with a bit of heavy current.

We headed up Forest Creek valley and up Neutral Creek to the Two Thumb Range. Our original plan had us following the Coal River out of the mountains. At this point I was feeling I needed a change from all the river walking and started looking for another route to explore. The landscape here is so barren and vast you can pick a ridge or valley and hike it. There are no trails but also no trees or vines to get yourself tangled up in, just tussock and wide open space. We decided we'd follow the mountain tops of the Two Thumb Range to the Richmond Range.

Our new plan looked as if it was going to be thwarted when we woke up to heavy mist. Al opened her tent door, looked out, said she couldn't see the stream we were camped next to, said maybe we should wait it out. I agreed, half asleep, without even looking, rolled over and went back to sleep. Around midday, when it hadn't improved, we started our climb for the ridge. When we reached it we left behind the clouds. Over the course of 50 meters the weather changed from no visibility to no clouds with perfect blue sky. This made our time on the mountain tops spectacular. We had incredible views of the Southern Alps. We reached our highest point in the South Island, Mt Musgrave at 2251 meters tall. We brought in the New Year at our highest campsite at 2075 meters, 360 degree views and a beautiful sunset. According to Al, all that was missing was a glass of wine. The clock struck 12, already in our sleeping bags we wished each other a happy new year, rolled over and fell asleep.

We are now in Lake Tekapo enjoying a sunny rest day, heading towards Twizel tomorrow.

Dennis

Pictures:
Pinnacle Rocks by the hut
Water Caves
Dennis crossing one of the 48 Rangitata River Channels
Neutral Creek Gorge
Coming up to the ridge line out of the clouds

Merry Christmas

We've just walked over 100km in three days, hit our 3 month anniversary of the start of the hike and our 2000km mark, so we're moving along.

We left Arthurs Pass and headed back to the trails. We walked up over Lagoon Saddle and down the Harper River. It was a cool trail, really well maintained and we were walking through beech forests and along the river banks. There were some quirky huts along the way too. We had lunch on our first day at the Lagoon Saddle Hut which is a cute little A frame with only 2 beds, the pink paint job was a bit of a novelty too. We then passed by the West Harper Hut which was built in 1957 and is maintained as a historic hut, complete with dirt floor, bunks made out of raw tree trunks and canvas and an old fireplace. Its cool to see some of the different kinds of huts around and hear a bit about their history.

We had a lot of road walking this section. Its tricky getting a route south from here that doesn't have any roads without heading up over the Main Divide and having to deal with glaciers and proper mountaineering gear. It was stunning scenery though. We passed by Lake Coleridge then paralleled the Mount Hutt Range on our way to Methven. There were cool dramatic mountain ranges which were all above the tree line, wide river valleys and lots of lakes.

This was also the section of bizarre coincidences. Yesterday we decided to have lunch at some picnic tables near the Rakaia River Gorge. I was wandering over to look at the turquoise coloured river when who should I bump into but my friend Grant, who I knew from university, and his girlfriend Patsy. I'd known they were down here but its kind of hard to meet up when we're constantly moving around and not by towns most of the time. What are the chances that we both decided to have lunch at the same picnic area in all of the South Island?

It didn't end there either. We hitched a ride into Methven with Dane, who offered to have us to stay for the night. He lived in a big house with his girlfriend and another English guy, Ian. Who did his girlfriend turn out to be? Christina, who we had met when we were living in Chamonix, France. Very weird. But they are generously letting us stay at their place while they've returned to Auckland for Christmas. Its much nicer than a campground, especially seeing as everything is going to be closed tomorrow. We can cook our own Christmas dinner! Thanks guys, we really appreciate it.

Merry Christmas and we'll be back in Lake Tekapo.

Alice

Photos:
Lagoon Saddle Hut
Harper River
Us at the 2000km mark
Flax and mountains
The Rakaia River and Hutt Range

And it rained, and it rained, and it rained

We've been feeling terrible smug about the weather on our journey so far, whenever anyone asks we were always able to reply, "Oh no, we've been really lucky. We've never had to set up or take down our tents in the rain, and any time its rained during the day we've been coming into a town where we can dry out our stuff."

Not anymore. It started raining while we were camping in Hanmer Springs and it didn't really stop. Mother Nature forced us to turn back from a river crossing for the first time in our almost three months of hiking. All down the South Island people have been telling us that it hasn't rained in over a month, now it changed to heavy rain warnings and flood danger. We quickly grew accustomed to the feel of squelchy, sodden boots.

The Taramakau River, in between Harpers Pass and Aickens, was the one we were standing next to. The entire river valley was full of grey, foaming water that had some serious current. I wasn't feeling good about it, this was the kind of situation where we'd end up on the news as the latest impatient trampers who wouldn't wait a day and drowned. We had only come a few kilometres from the Kiwi Hut, our lunch stop, so we turned around and decided to give it a shot the next day. Going back to a fire, bed and a dry hut wasn't all bad.

What a difference a day makes. It was like a whole different scene when we walked back to the valley the next day. I was surprised, it sounded like it had kept raining throughout the night but there was less than half of the water of the previous day, and it was clear rather than ominous grey. The crossing still wasn't easy. We ended up having to walk about a kilometre or two upstream from the hut where it was braided enough to cross safely, and the water was still up to the hip belts of our packs.

We thought the easy part of our day was over at this point, but there was another tributary river that we had to negotiate. The downside with this one, the Otehake River, was that we had to go upstream a way to find a safe crossing spot, but this meant that also put us upstream of a cliff band that we then had to climb up and bushwack past fallen trees, rotting logs and all sorts of other foliage before we could get back to the riverbank. Four hours had gone by, and we were only about one and a half kilometres, as the crow flies, from the hut we'd stayed in the night before. Gibb joined us for the flattest section, but one with the most challenging rivers so far. A little different from a day in the office in Philadelphia.

On more established trails, or less volatile rivers, DOC (NZ's Department of Conservation) puts up suspension or swing bridges which makes the whole river crossing process a little easier. Back in May, when we were planning our route, we noticed there was a walkwire marked on the map over Cameron Stream. Dennis got very excited about this and even marked it on our Memory Map software with a skull and crossbones as something to look out for. A walkwire is a single wire to walk on with two higher wires for your hands, as opposed to the other bridges that have a base for you to walk on and wire mesh on the sides up to the cable handrails. We'd been thinking about this walkwire for a while because it seems that often things like this get taken out in favour of a 'safer' alternative. To our delight, the walkwire was still there. I actually found it more stable that some of the swingbriges we'd been over. It's awesome that there are still things like walkwires around, don't take them out DOC. It was fun.

We're having a rest day in Arthur's Pass at the moment. I've been suffering from a mild stomach bug for the last few days which tends to sap my fun and energy levels. Because of this we opted yesterday to walk the road section from Aicken to Arthur's Pass rather than the trail up a river valley over Goat Pass. We're normally unimpressed to be back on the roads but this was the coolest road section yet. The dramatic mountain scenery (we're close to the Southern Alps) and the crazy, steep road that was originally built back in 1864 helped take my mind off my not so good stomach.

We've got a big section coming up next, 265km to Lake Tekapo. Everyone has been asking what we are doing for Christmas, we'll be between Methven and Mt Somers somewhere. I don't imagine there'll be room in our packs for a ham or Christmas turkey so make sure you all eat a little extra for us, and have a Merry Christmas wherever you are. It also looks like we'll be rocking out our New Year on the top of the Two Thumb range on a mountainous spot somewhere so have a drink for us too.

Alice

Photos:
Rainbow after the rain
Dennis on the walkwire
Gibb crossing one of the many rivers
Alice, silhouetted with the Taramakau River
Sunset on our last night

A day in the life, part two - Hut Life

Hut Life

We thought it was time for another installment of our everyday life series. This time its about life in backcountry huts. New Zealand has a system of backcountry huts through a lot of the trails here, especially in the South Island. There are different categories of huts, some are free, others are $5-10 a night. They also come in varying sizes. We've stayed in everything from a 2 bed to a 34 bed hut. We've got an annual pass which makes it easier because we don't have to buy tickets when we're in towns. They're mainly pretty basic - bunks with a table and benches and often a water tank, but they are far superior to our tents. There have been so many down in the South Island that we've only spent two nights in our tents since arriving here two weeks ago.

The joy of having a hut is the 'modern day' comforts they provide. For example, we can write in our journals and eat dinner sitting at a table or on a bench rather than perched on a rock or branch, we can get water straight from a rainwater tank instead of crouching by a stream filtering it, fireplaces to dry our wet gear and, best of all, we can escape the sand flies.

Theres often things to read too, people leave books and magazines that they've finished with that we devour when we can. The other day Dennis was reading a National Geographic from 1983 about 'new' satellite technology. They're normally a little more up to date than that.

We like reading the hut books too. Every hut has a hut book to record who comes through. This information is used in search and rescue situations, but you can also write general comments as well. Some are funny but others feel it is a complaint forum too - 'track needs more boardwalk', 'times posted are too fast/too slow', 'take me back to the city to real food!'. In the Richmond Range there were books that dated back to the mid 1980s which were really interesting to read - we were preschoolers! In the more popular huts, like the ones through Nelson Lakes National Park, all the books are new from this year.

Pictures:
Alice and Dennis eating breakfast - Old Man Hut - Richmond Range
Alice outside Porters Hut - Richmond Range
Dennis writing in journal inside the Red Hills Hut - Richmond Range
Downes Hut - Wanganui River
Dennis chopping wood - Whakapapaiti Hut - Mt. Ruapehu

Speed Racers

We started off on a track on the shores of Lake Rotoiti, Destination: Lake Head Hut. Not a terribly long day, but we got a bit of a late start. Little did we know it was a huge hut, 32 bunks. It being a Friday night it was quite full. We had the pleasure of sharing the hut with 25+ people. It was a bit overwhelming, until this point we have shared huts with only 3 people. This hut was quite accessible compared to most we have been in, only three hours hike from St. Arnaud. There was even a jetty at the end of the lake which cut the actual hike down to 15 minutes. Let me tell ya, I got a bit envious off the spreads of food people were pulling out. Plus they all had huge gas stoves and lanterns. They had all the stuff that we don't carry. But its great because we come across people with pack envy. They all wonder how it is possible to carry so little, to last so long. It gets easy to cut out the excess when its all on your back. Really makes me glad that Alice and I spent so much time researching ultra light gear. We decided to have a quick look over the maps to plan out where we would be sleeping the next bunch of nights. Wait, do we have enough food? I know your thinking, didn't he just talk about how light the packs were? Yeah I did, but people with light packs sometimes don't bring enough food. oops. We underestimated by a day or so. Well, I guess we'll do a bit more each day. We ended up finishing a 6 day section in 4.5 days. We didn't cut off any of the hike time, just had a few longer days. We are backpacking machines! Completing large sections hours under the estimated signs even passing other hikers along the way. Being so far south, we are able to hike for longer, it stays light here until 9:30 at night. This means if we walk fast, don't eat lunch until 4pm, we can fit in a lot of kilometers in a day. And these were not by any means flat days. We went over two relatively high passes including Waiau Pass at 1870 meters, our highest point in the South Island so far. We even got to see snow again!! It made me feel as if I was right at home in the northern hemisphere. Pretty fun descending down fairly steep pitches in sneakers with a full pack, I got a bit wet. There were no shortage of river crossings, over 75 in this section alone. You don't get wet in all those, some you can boulder hop across. Others require gritting your teeth and walking through the icy cold snow melt water. Al and I have worked out an agreement, because she constantly has her heels taped up due to her still un-callused feet, I tend to help her get across the deeper rivers with out getting wet. How? Well 2 ways: 1.) The Pack Horse - I make three trips across, one with both the packs, a second to return to the other side and a third with al on my back. 2.) The Sack of Potatoes - I, with my full pack on, sling Al over one shoulder with her pack still on and cross. Still not sure what I get out of the arrangement? It may be hard to believe, but this section was even more stunning than the Richmond Range. The South Island seems to get better end better, except for the sand flies Well, we are now having a rest day in Hanmer Springs, even Backpacking Machines need a rest. A college friend of mine has joined us here to hike with us for a while. David Gibb, or just Gibb to most, is coming fresh from a desk job looking for a bit of a lifestyle change, we don't think that will be a problem. Al and I have decided we'll slow the pace a bit to ease him into it.

Dennis

Photos:
Mt. Travers and the Travers River
Us at Travers Saddle
Al near top of Waiau Pass with Lake Constance in the background
St. James Walkway

The Richmond Range: big mountains and naked hiking

Well, not totally naked, but almost. And no, we haven't run off to join the nudist movement but we did have to negotiate a waist high river. But more on that soon.

The Richmond Range. We'd been talking about this section for ages because we knew it would potentially be the most difficult section of our trip. And it was so far, but nothing we couldn't handle. We had some long days, steep climbs up loose gravelly rock faces, tired legs but also stunning views and great feelings of accomplishment. It was our favourite section yet. You need a few challenges along the way or else everything blends together.

There were so many huts through this section, we didn't use our tent the whole week. In fact, there were enough huts we could spend the night, and stop for lunch in one each day. They were also some of our favourite huts; small, cosy and in beautiful locations. I think Porter's Hut was the best - it was a tiny 4 bed hut with a door so small you had to stoop to go through it. We saw one other person the whole time we were in the Ranges. We met Graeme on our first night when we were staying at the Roebuck Hut. He knew of a shortcut up the river and over a spur that would cut out a chunk of trail. He'd never done it but someone had written an account of the unmarked route in the hut book so there were details of where to go. We were feeling adventurous so decided to give it a go.

Things didn't start off that great. We were crossing the Pelorus River right outside the hut, I slipped off a rock and submerged both my boots into the river. I'm not a big fan of walking in wet boots because of the blisters, so I had to spend the rest of the day changing socks every break. Oh well, what can you do? We continued up the river along the banks until we couldn't stay dry any longer. We changed into our 'frogs' (The Warehouse brand of crocs) and started wading. Only a minute into it the water was up to my short line, "Retreat, retreat". We stripped off our lower half of clothing and continued on. It was a pretty funny sight. Full packs, t-shirt, trekking poles and frogs. Luckily it was an isolated spot otherwise we might have scared the locals. The river never got higher than hip height so we didn't have to strip off anymore, the water was freezing.

We started up the spur just after the confluence of the Pelorus River and Mates Creek, possibly the most gorgeous spot we've come across so far. (If anyone is planning on doing this section you need to start from the Mates Creek side, there are cliffs on the Pelorus River side.) It was an easy bushwack, the trees were spaced apart and the undergrowth wasn't out of control. It was a cool feeling, we were in an isolated Range where there were very few people and the tracks weren't beaten in, and on a spur with no trail where even less people had been. Pretty incredible.

We followed the ridge line up, and up, and up. That day our elevation started at below 200m, we worked our way up to over 1500m with many saddles in between. It was pretty slow going at times, we found ourselves billygoating around cliff tops and sometimes fighting our way through small spiky trees but eventually we linked up with the trail. We were exhausted and starving at this point. We cooked up one of our emergency meals that Dennis had been carrying since Auckland. We put too much water into our instant cheese mashed potato mix so it was more a baby food type soup than potatoes but I swear nothing has ever tasted so good. I was instantly revived to head on for another two hours to Old Man's Hut. We didn't arrive there until 9:30 at night, walking down the steep track to the hut in the dark but it was worth it. We were two huts ahead of where we would have been if we'd done a big day on the trails.

The next day we continued on our uphill mission. We were above the treeline for most of the day, getting up to over 1700m in a very barren rocky landscape. We came across all types of rocks - scree fields you could run down, 'treadmill' gravel where you had to keep moving to stop sliding back down the hill, rough boulders and also lots of tussock. Our boot soles definitely wore down on this section. We'd stand on one peak and see the next one about 2km away. Then you'd look down, and down, and know that you'd have to descend 300m, then climb 400m to get to it. Our thighs got a workout that day, but it was a lot of fun.

So the big mountains, endless river valleys and stunning views kept up all week. We are already in love with the South Island, the rest of the trip has a lot to live up to. The bush is quite different and its not as muddy which is a huge novelty. But there are sandflies which form a constant buzz around you whenever you stop.

Dennis had his first equipment casualty this section. He slipped off a rock about a metre high onto more rocks. I looked around to see him lying on his side on the rocks and instantly had visions of a broken something and me running out to get help. He was fine, his trekking pole was not. It snapped as he fell. We've become big advocates of trekking poles, they make the uphills easier and take a lot of the stress off your body. He didn't like one pole, he was like a bird with a wounded wing, not knowing what to do with his other arm. Luckily we've found a replacement end for him which we should have by the next town.

Well, I've been rambling so I'll leave this here. We're enjoying staying with Jean and Chris Richards in St Arnaud at the moment. Thank you so much for having us.

Alice

Photos:
Alice wading into the Pelorus River
Bushwack ridge
Us on the summit of Mt. Rintoul
Dennis on the summit of Mt. Ellis
Maitland Creek River Valley

The South Island, the first 2 days

So we've finally made it to the South Island. We started our nine day section with our heaviest packs yet, mine weighed 18.4kg and Dennis' weighed 20.8kg. They felt fine though, not nearly the insane burden that I was imagining it to be. We must be getting in shape!

We had a bit of a rough ferry ride from Wellington to Picton, Dennis spent half the time wandering around the windy decks trying to focus on keeping his breakfast down but we made it in one piece. We actually ended up having one of our longest days distance wise that day, making it 37km to Havelock and we didn't even start until 12:30. It was the promise of really good fish and chips at the Havelock Hotel for dinner that kept us motivated. We knew the kitchen was open until 8:30, we made it soon after 7.

It helped that the scenery was amazing, we were walking along a coastal road looking at the islands of the Sounds all afternoon. It was weird thinking that we were soon to be leaving the coast, and wouldn't come back to it until the bottom of the island, just before the finish.

We spent our second road day walking along the Pelorus River, a beautiful river that we actually followed right into the bush in the Richmond Range. It was probably the clearest river I've seen, with deep emerald green pools, waterfalls and cool boulders and rock canyons. We treated ourselves to an ice-cream at Pelorus Bridge, our last bit of civilisation before heading into the wilderness for a week... or so we thought.

On our way to the trailhead we met an American couple who lived at the end of the road, and another family who were staying with them. After chatting for a while about what we were doing we were offered a place to stay for the night. A comfy bed sounded way better than our tent so we accepted. And it got better, it wasn't just a comfy bed, it was a comfy bed in a treehouse! The treehouse was so cool, it was a big room way up in the air with huge tree branches coming through the middle of the room and a stairway leading up to it. Thank you so much to Dennis and Sharon Capell for your generous hospitality. We had a great evening with you all.

Alice

Photos:
Sounds with ferry
Capell family tree stump
Coolest tree house ever
Pelorus River

Tramping with Project K

Today Dennis and I met up with the 12 Project K participants from St Bernard's College in Lower Hutt to do a tramp around the Wellington hills. We started from Days Bay, near Eastbourne, and walked up the Main Ridge Track to the Wainuiomata Lookout. From there were headed over to the firebreak roads, then on to Hayward's Reserve and finished up at the Hutt Valley Tramping Club.

We really enjoyed seeing the programme up close. The boys were on their second day of the programme and all did really well, keeping up a good pace and achieving their goal of 'finishing the tramp with a positive attitude'. We're very jealous of their upcoming 3 week outdoor wilderness camp filled with tramping, abseiling, rafting, climbing and ropes courses.

It was great to get a better understanding of how Project K works. The 14 month programme costs around $4000 per participant, none of which is funded by the student. For these boys, they will have their community challenge in January and will then be paired up with a mentor who they will meet one-on-one with for a year, focusing on goal setting, confidence building and leadership.

This is a very worthwhile programme. After one day we could see the enthusiasm of the participants, and how dedicated and well organised the facilitators were. There are still plenty of shoes to be added to our donation shoe pile, so don't be shy about showing your support.

Alice and Dennis

Photos:
The tramping group at Wainuiomata Lookout with a view over Wellington Harbour
Debriefing at the end of the day at the Hutt Valley Tramping Club