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Sat, 29 Mar 2003
Right, so I flew from Christchruch to Auckland, which was quite
uneventful. Upon getting to Auckland I checked in for the last time
to the City YHA. It was Oscar night, so I watched the whole thing on
TV. I was the only guy clapping when Michael Moore spoke out, which
felt a tad weird. The next day I took the InterCity bus down to
Taupo. I checked in to the hostel and went to do some food shopping.
I wanted to try to finish all the staples and stuff I had been
dragging all over the country. Since I had left some jasmine rice,
some dijon mustard and some local mauka honey, clearly I needed to
make chicken in a honeymustard sauce over rice. Nothing could be
easier. I could even make enough to have leftovers so that if I was
too tired to cook after doing the Tongariro Crossing, I'd still have
good food to eat. So I hit the supermarket and picked up some
chicken, some yoghurt for breakfast, a chocolate bar (always a good
idea for hiking), a box of apricot granola bars and a 750ml bottle of
spring water (to augment my own 1 liter water bottle that I always
take with me). I made dinner, ate, and pretty much went straight to
bed. I had to get up at 5:45am to make a 6:20am bus to get to the
Tongariro National Park. There was an even earlier bus, but that one
cost and extra $10.
The morning of the Crossing and I was getting nervous. Every now and
then the NZ TV news does a story on unprepared hikers getting in
trouble over the Crossing. They talk about bad weather and people
without food and people with the wrong shoes, etc. I resisted
overpreparing, which I am prone to do. I started out towards the tail
end of the group, partly because I was almost the last guy off the
bus, but also because I stopped at the first hut 20 minutes into the
walk to apply a thick layer of sunblock. Another half hour took me
through the initial flat section to Soda Springs. hen came the
Devil's Staircase. The bus driver had talked fearfully about this
before letting everyone off the bus. I had looked at the topo map,
and I know it was only 400 meters, which was less than I had done in
Katoomba, and only equivalent to two Rangitotos (I've taken to
comparing all my ascents and descents to the 45 minutes it took me to
do Rangitoto in my first week in Auckland). Still, I tend to find
steep ascents challenging. Sure, I rested a couple of times on the
way up, but I never really felt stressed in the least. I didn't pass
anyone on the climb, but everyone stopped for a long break at the top
and I just walked on through.
Then I turned a corner and saw the first crater, called creatively
enough South Crater. It was stunning. There's this sense that you
are walking in a place you were not meant to walk. And all the rocks,
from large to small to teeny, within inches of the track look
completely untouched, as if they have sat there in the exact same
position for centuries. Very spooky. But tremendously beautiful. It
was so beautiful that I felt myself grinning. That
motocycle-rider-bugs-in-teeth kind of smile. Then as I started
walking up the other side of the crater I could help myself and I
started giggling and chortling to myself. It was a great feeling.
Along the way up I met this couple of the eastern shore of Maryland,
which made for some nice company. At the top of the crater's edge,
you can now look down into the next crater: Red Crater.
From the top of this edge of the crater you start going down, at first
through some very loose volcanic rock, which just rolls right out from
under your feet. This is a little disconcerting at first, but I
quickly foudn that the best way to go down is just to let yourself
slide along and not try to control it too much. It's really just like
ice skating, except you don't need to push with your off-foot to
accelerate, you just let gravity pull you along. Then I was at the
emerald lakes, which reminded me of some of the parts of Rotorua, only
much bigger. A small descent over now-stable rock and then along the
floor of the third crater, whose name I don't recall. Another rise to
get out of this last crater, and then the world goes back to normal.
It was an easy walk to another of the huts. I got there by noon. I
had started at 8:30am, so it took me three and a half hours. I was
running at least an hour ahead of schedule. In hindsight, I wish I
had not been so concerned with how hard the Crossing might be and
slowed down and enjoyed the views more. I did take a lot of pictures,
though. I sat at the hut for an hour and played a riddle game with a
Dane sitting next to me (this guy drives up to a hotel owned by his
son, the guy realizes he is broke, the whole family is happy -
explain!). The weatehr had been gorgeous and sunny before I got to
the hut, but the sky clouded over and it got cold. I decided to walk
down the rest of the way to the car park and catch the early bus which
cost another $5 but otherwise I would have had to wait an extra hour
and I hadn't brought anythnig to read. It was one of the best days I
had on the whole trip and I hope one day I get to do it again.
Things get a lot less interesting now. I took the bus back to
Auckland the next day, and immediately went up to Orewa. Partly this
was to say goodbye to Stephen and Esther and all the people I had
becmoe friendly with there, and partly it was to collect the box of my
stuff they were keeping for me at the hostel. I decided to take a
private room instead of a dorm as a treat at the end of the trip. The
next day I said my farewells and took the bus down to Auckland. Now I
really went upscale and checked into the Rydges Hotel, a 4-star hotel
in downtown Auckland. This was using the money my aunt and uncle had
given me for this purpose before I left.
Today was a busy day. I got up early and went on a souvenir buying
spree. I must have hit every tourist shop on Queen St, trying to find
appropriate things for family and friends. Then back to the hotel to
drop everything off, and down to the Viaduct for a ride on NZL40, an
International America's Cup Class yacht, for a two hour sail on the
Hauraki Gulf. I got to do a lot of grinding, I steered through a
genaker gybe, and also briefly upwind under the #3 jib. Fairly cool.
It was actually easier to sail this boat than some 30-footers I've
raced on. After that I went up to the Sky Tower for a view of the
city at sunset, which wasn't bad at all. Then dinner and this wrap-up
posting to the blog.
Tomorrow I'll head down to the airport, pay my departure tax and fly
to Los Angeles. I'll spend two night there with Mike, a good friend
from my college days. He's got to work on Monday, but I plan on going
to Disneyland. Then on the 2nd I fly to Oakland. But I won't be
in the Bay Area for long. My friend Ken wants to sail his boat from
Mexico to Hawaii and it looks like I'll be going with him. We should
get to Hilo by the end of April. Plans become cloudy at that point,
but my friend Craig is getting married in Colorado at the end of May,
so you know I'll be there.
This has been a great adventure, and a big part of me really doesn't
want to return to the real world. It's hard to explain, but I think
I've learned a lot about myself, rediscovered parts of my personality
I had forgotten or buried, and generally feel proud and happy about
how things went. If anyone reading this gets the hankering to go and
do some traveling, I say "good on ya" and go have a blast. It's one
of the best things I've ever done.
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Fri, 28 Mar 2003
Well, let's take a short journey in the way-back machine. The date is
Monday March 3rd. I was quite lucky in that the America's Cup ended
exactly one day before my scheduled-well-in-advance and
not-at-all-changeable flight from Auckland to Christchurch. The
morning of my flight was a bit of a cock-up as I had overslept and
missed the bus I had wanted to catch out of Orewa. Fortunately I had
built-in a margin of error in my plans and only lost half an hour.
When I got to Sky City, which is also the departure point for the
shuttle bus to the airport, there was no shuttle bus. I waited and
waited. Still no bus. The taxi drivers eyed me hungrily. Then one
new driver pulls up with a screech and offers me a ride to the airport
for $6 less than the shuttle bus would have been. Overriding my
paranoia, I accept. He gets me to the airport in record time, and I
sail through check-in. After boarding the plane we are delayed on the
tarmac for both lack of fuel and for an unspecified technical detail.
Eventually we get in the air, but no one ever announced if these
problems were fixed. As we headed south, we flew just along the west
coast of the North Island, and I got an incredible view of Mt
Taranaki, which was very cool to see since it was one of my favorite
hikes. After arriving in Christchurch and taking the bus into town, I
arrive at my hostel, only to learn that my booking was not for the day
of my arrival, but the day after. I did some calling around and
discovered that pretty much every single dorm bed in the city was
take, so I booked a single at another hostel. Upon getting to that
hostel and checking in, I went to arrange transportation on the
TranzAlpine train for the following day. Turns out that train was
fully booked, too. Sigh. I booked in the same hostel for a dorm bed
the next day, and then the train the day after. A very roller-coaster
kind of day.
This left me with a full day in Christchurch that I hadn't been
counting on, and I made the most of it. I had wanted to take some
pictures of the Avon River, and I did that. I also purchased my bus
pass for travel down the west coast. I went shopping for wool socks.
That surprised me. You can't get good, cheap wool socks in New
Zealand. Go figure. You can get super expensive wool socks with all
kinds of other fibers blended in, but not the simple, scratchy kind
that I like. I was also able to run some other errands like picking
up a backpack rain-cover (Barry was going to give me one of his, but
then we both forgot) and a small sewing kit (one of my pairs of shorts
had developed a tear in the crotch seam).
Ok, time to get on the train. The view was every bit as gorgeous as
promised. Though there was one drawback. There's only the one car
with a viewing platform, and some tourists can be very selfish about
where they stand. It took an admirably pushy woman to speak up and
remind people about sharing before I was able to get an unobstructed
view and some good pictures. The train was delayed getting into
Greymouth because train tracks in New Zealand are continuously welded,
which means that when they heat up, there's no where for the expanded
rails to expand and instead they tend to buckle. The solution is to
cut the speed of all the trains down to less than half of normal speed
whenever the air temperature gets over 70F or so. Once in Greymouth I
checked into the YHA there and took a long walk. The first thing I
noticed is that Greymouth isn't actually at the mouth of the Grey
River. So of course I had to walk all the way to the ocean, which
took about an hour. On the way, I had my first encounter with that
most vicious of New Zealand fauna: the sandfly.
Now I began the west coast leg of my trip. First I stopped for one
night in Hokitika. This is the Pounamu (aka greenstone or jade)
capital of New Zealand. I was able to find exactly the hei matau I
was looking for at Traditional Jade. Alas, there is now some
confusion. At the store they told me the stone was local NZ jade, but
back at the hostel, a self-proclaimed expert (Gordon the Mad Kiwi who
runs the hostel) claimed the stone was from British Columbia, Canada.
I'll have to take it to a couple of lapidaries back home if I want to
settle the question. At least I think it is pretty and I enjoy
wearing it. That's what counts, right?
Took the bus down to Franz Josef. Franz Josef is the first of two
glaciers I hiked on. The second was Fox. I did a full day hike with
Franz Josef Glacier Guiding Company. They were great. They supplied
water-proof leather boots, Ice Talonz(tm) and Gore-Tex raincoats. I
had to bring my own food and warm layers. The IceTalonz(tm) are a lot
like crampons, but their spikes are smaller and distributed all around
the sole of the boot instead of just at the instep. They are also
articulated in two places, making it quite simple to walk on the ice
without slipping and without worrying. The hike really kicked my butt
in terms of level of exertion, but it was totally worth it. On Fox
things were similar, but we had conventional crampons and no Gore-Tex
jacket. Fox glacier was just as pretty, but an easier hike,
physically. Both were quite chilly, much to my delight. Franz Josef
was a lot more popular with many more people on the glacier, while Fox
had a much more peaceful and pure feel to it. I spent two nights at
Franz Josef, and two nights at Fox, with a short bus ride in the
middle. Oh yeah, my guide at Fox was much cuter than the guide at
Franz Josef (who wasn't even female). I even asked her to dinner.
She accepted and we met at one of the three restaurants in town (Fox
is a much smaller town than Franz Josef). Dinner was pretty much a
flop, but it was better than sitting in my room and reading.
Right, back on the bus, this time to Queenstown. Not much to say
about Queenstown for me. It is a resort town with lots of
adrenalin-oriented activities. Since I had spent an extra day in
Christchurch at the start, I couldn't stay here for any exploring. I
crashed for the one night and then got up at oh-dark-thirty to take
the BBQ Bus to Milford Sound. Most people do Milford in a day: early
bus, midday boat trip, afternoon bus back. I didn't want to do it
that way. So I stayed in the Milford Lodge (the only place, really)
for two nights. I hopped on a late afternoon boat the same day I got
there. The weather was great, which is a bad thing here. Yes, you
can see the sun, but you can only see the four permanent waterfalls in
the sound. There wasn't any rain the second day, but on the morning
of the third day, which was the day I was scheduled to leave, it did
rain. I jumped right up and got on the next boat, and sure enough
there were dozens of waterfalls all along the walls of the fjord.
After the boat ride, I spent an hour at Milford Deep, which is like an
inside-out aquarium. There is an observation area about 9 meters down
which the humans go inside. Then the fish and seastars and coral and
whatnot do what they naturally do nearby and you can watch through the
windows. It is a very cool experience.
Next stop: Te Anau. Te Anau is the town that most people use as a
base for tramping (hiking). I spent a full day here to get ready for
the Kepler Track. I hired (rented) a pot, a pan, and a plastic cup.
I bought lots of non-perishable food. I sorted out my stuff to see
what could easily be left behind in a locker. I experimented with a
freeze-dried meal for lunch, which came out alright, so I bought three
more for my dinners while on the Track.
Right! Onward and upward. Day 1 on the Kepler Track was wonderful.
I set a personal record for my longest hike with full pack (18km). I
met some very cool people while walking. The first half was all flat,
along the lakeside and then through the bush (forest). After a brief
food stop at Brod Bay, I began the ascent. Several very tough hours
later I burst back out into the sunshine - I had made it up to the
alpine section above the bushline (treeline). Another 45 minutes and
I was at the Luxmoore hut. They call it a hut, but it really is quite
large. There was a kitchen and social area with a dozen LPG cookers
and a half dozen picnic tables. There were two bunkrooms, with about
50 or 60 beds. The huts on these Great Walks (Kepler, Milford,
Routeburn, etc) are serious buildings. After dinner, I did a sidetrip
to see Luxmoore Cave, which was cool. I wish I had brought my camera.
Day 2 was interesting. I got a late start deliberately. Fog had
rolled in over night and I wanted to wait until it burned off before
setting out. That morning I had breakfast with Miyuki, Noelle and
Erin by virtue of sitting at the same table (it later turned out that
the four of us had a very similar walking pace and did most of the
track together or nearby each other). Since the fog still hadn't
lifted, I brought out my Aquarius
deck of cards and the four of us played for an hour or so. The fog
still hadn't lifted, but if we didn't get moving (it was 10:30 am) we
were never going to make it to the next hut before sunset. After the
first hour of walking (uphill) we made it to the Luxmoore Summit side
trail. Leaving our packs on the main trail, we took our lunches up to
the summit in the hopes that the fog would break while we were up
there. We had to wait half an hour, but that is exactly what
happened, and it was totally worth it. We took a lot of pictures as
the sun came out, and then headed back to the main trail and picked up
our packs and carried on. The next section went down a little bit,
then up again, then down again. All of this was in alpine terrain,
with fabulous views all around, especially when walking on the ridge
or saddle between two mountains. This was about when I realized my
toes really hurt. It turns out I had been developing some really bad
blisters. Noelle was a nurse, so she volunteered to help me clean
things up. Several alcohol swabs, needle punctures, antiseptic creams
and band-aids later, I was back on my feet for the final descent down
to Iris Burn hut. This turned out to be a sticky one for me. I fell
behind our little group and I violated my own policy for How to Hike.
I do best treating my body like a steam locomotive. I need to
continually (at least once an hour) thrown some non-trivial carbs down
my gullet or I am prone to bonking. The last descent was billed as an
hour and a half, and I had been doing most of the other segments
faster than the listed time. I thought I would be ok. However, my
blisters and overly-heavy pack slowed me down, and at the two hour
mark I hadn't made it to the hut, and I was out of energy. I needed
to stop and rest, which I did after stumbling and tripping and almost
falling over a couple of times. One chocolate bar, half a liter of
water and 20 minutes later I was back on my feet and good as new. I
made it to the hut in 15 minutes. Since I had no real idea how much
further ahead the hut was, I feel very strongly I made the right
decision to stop when I did and take care of myself.
Day 3 was a very easy day. No ups or downs, just a six hour stroll
through the bush to Moturau hut (the last one on the Kepler Track).
Kind of monotonous, but quiet and the easy trail gives you time to
think about life and plans/ideas for after New Zealand. The last hour
was painful on the feet with the blisters acting up, but I made it in
one piece. The hut was next to a very pretty lake.
For Day 4 I had really wanted to close the loop and walk all the way
back to where the track started, but my feet were in no condition for
that. I bailed out at the earliest opportunity, a place called
Rainbow Reach. I jumped on the 11am shuttle back to town, checking in
to the YHA and took a shower and doctored my feet again. At 7pm I met
up with Miyuki, Noelle and Erin. We had a couple of beers and then
went out for Chinese food, which was a lot of fun.
We're in the home stretch now. This brings us to Friday the 20th of
March. Not much to report. I just took the bus from Te Anau down to
Invercargill. Invercargill is New Zealand's southernmost city. It
doesn't really have much to recommend it, which is what all the
guidebooks say, and I can now comfortably confirm that.
For completion, I had to go the last little bit south. I took a
round-trip bus as far south as possible, to the small town of Bluff.
Bluff has a maritime museum, where I spent an hour and a half or so.
Then I walked to the southernmost point on the South Island. They
have a signpost there, much like the one at Cape Reinga, so I got
another tourist to take my picture next to it. I still had an hour to
kill before the bus took my back to Invercargill. Looking around, I
stopped a bar across the road: The Drunken Sailor. It was fate. I
went in and had a pint of beer. Then I walked back to the main part
of town and waited for the bus. This was actually more painful than
it might sound. You see, there had recently been a fire at the
P&O warehouse. But they couldn't clean it up because of a risk of
exposure to asbestos. So all the food (especially fish) was sitting
there rotting. For days. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the
place stank. Businesses were closed on account of no one was shopping
and the shopkeepers were on the verge of barfing all the time. Not
fun.
I took the bus from Invercargill up to Dunedin. Dunedin had a nice
"feel" to me. Reminded me a lot of Baltimore, actually. It is New
Zealand's 4th largest city. While in Dunedin, I went to the Otago
Museum to see a collection of extremely good nature photographs. I
also went to Cadbury World. Alas, it was late in the day and none of
the machines were in action at that time, but they did give out a lot
of sample chocolates. Yum! It's a good thing I've got some
self-control or I could have easily made myself sick that night.
This brings us to the last full day on the South Island. On my way to
the bus station I stopped for a snack at the Bronx Bagel Company.
Made me homesick. They even had a real "Medium Brown Bag" tacked up
on the wall, along with a subway map and other memorabilia of New
York. I checked in to the hostel in Christchurch and then went to
meet Peter Tuffley (Chris' dad) for dinner. We had pizza and beer.
After he left, I watched Australia rack up an amazing 359-for-2 in
their inning of the cricket world cup final. I didn't find out until
the next morning that India had failed to chase that down, making
Australia the winner. No big surprise there.
Stay tuned to this channel for another update, detailing my last week
in New Zealand. Also, look for the Golden Kiwi awards, coming soon to
this blog.
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Sun, 23 Mar 2003
This is coming to you from Christchurch, NZ on the South Island.
I have had quite a lot of fun these past three weeks. I hope to
upload a lot of pictures in about 3 or 4 days and also give lots
of details. Here are the highlights. TranzAlpine train from
Christchurch to Greymouth. Bus from Greymouth to Queenstown, stopping
in Hokitika for jade, and Franz Josef and Fox glaciers for full day
hikes. Two boat rides in Milford Sound. 3+ days on the Kepler Track
(with lots of blisters). Bus to Invercargill and Bluff, at the southern
tip of the South Island. Bus to Dunedin and free chocolate at Cadbury
World.
Tomorrow I fly to Auckland. Then I intend to go down to Taupo to do the
Tongariro Crossing. Then back to Auckland for a final souvenir buying
spree before flying to LA on March 30th. I want to do Disneyland on April
1st and then I'll be back in the bay area on April 2nd. After that -
who knows?
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Sat, 01 Mar 2003
Yes, the America's Cup is over. Alinghi has won in a 5-0 sweep. Team
NZ again suffered gear failure, this time probably due to human error
as the spinnaker pole broke toward the end of the 2nd run. As far as
the rest of my trip is concerned, everything else is gravy.
Speaking of everything else, I can now follow through with my original
plan of flying to Christchurch tomorrow and then taking the
TransAlpine railway the day after. I then plan to hop down the west
coast of the South Island, starting in Greymouth and then stopping in
Hokitika (I want to buy a greenstone hei
matau for myself). Then I'll proceed to Franz Josef and Fox
glaciers for some chilly hiking. Things get a little more fuzzy after
that. I'll go to Queenstown, Te Anau and Milford, but I don't know
the order or what exactly I'll do in those places.
Today's race wasn't terribly exciting. Alinghi nailed the start
again, getting a half a boatlength advantage over Team NZ right from
the start. By the first mark, Alinghi was ahead by 20 seconds. That
didn't change much over the next few legs, as Alinghi gave a textbook
course on how to preserve a lead in a match race. When Team NZ broke
their spinnaker pole, it only cost them two boatlengths, but that took
them from just barely within striking range to really having no hope
left at all.
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