The Routeburn

It felt good to be back in Queenstown, but we weren't staying long.  We had paid for a shuttle to take us to the beginning of the Routeburn track early the next morning.  Backpacks stuffed to the brim with food, clothes, sleeping bags, water, and everything else you need for a 4 day hike, we set off on our next adventure.

I hurt my knee that one early morning in Mount Cook, twisting it on a large rock that had unexpectedly given away.  It still felt on the weaker side, but this was our last chance to do this infamous trek, and I wanted to make it work.  

The beginning was surreal.  A thin path through ancient forest teeming with bird life.  The first thing I noticed was just that, how much life there was there.  Even the trees were often completely covered in mosses, ferns, and even small plants.   

It was life stacked upon life.  Everywhere you looked, touched, and even stepped, was covered in something very much alive.  

There were beautiful waterfalls and crystal, blue rivers that were crossed on thin, wobbly, cable bridges that only could take a few people at a time.  They were strong, but the sway and bounce they made when you were crossing gave you that lift you get in your stomach when you're suddenly falling.  

We stopped near the end of that first days hike for a rest and ate a snack.  But when I got back up, my knee practically seized.  It felt as if I had just torn something the way it became unbendably stiff with frequent, sharp pains.  I couldn't believe how bad it hurt.  After trying to go up a small hill I practically fell.  It was pretty much apparent that I would have to turn back as I could barely bend it.   Mariel insisted on going back with me. I knew she had waited a long time for this hike and tried to convince her otherwise, but she made it clear we were going back together.  It was my fault and a hard thing to swallow..  

Mariel any more cool and understanding, but I was the total opposite.  This sucked.  There wasn't ever even a major injury.  Just a slip, and a twist that somehow added up to THIS!  The voice in my head was ranting, boiling over with sheer frustration.  I just wanted to do this god damn hike! I just couldn't accept it...

In a flash, I decided I wasn't having it.  I was at least doing the first leg of this hike, even if I had to drag myself there.  I'd turn around the next day, but I wasn't going back empty handed.  I started hiking, limping up the hill the best I could.  The more I tried, the more it hurt.  Mariel was yelling at me to come back.  It hurt, bad, but the more it hurt, the more flexible my knee became, and soon I was walking on it!  

I eventually found a walking stick, and full of anger and determination, I lugged myself up the hill the hour and a half or so to the Routeburn Falls Hut.

That night I started talking to a really cool German guy named Tim.  He mentioned he was a musician and was hoping to make a future out of it.  He put his earphones in my ears and I have to say, I wasn't expecting much, but I was actually blown away!  I'm gonna put it on the site next week, so you all can hear what I'm talking about. 

I took a bunch of Ibuprofen before I went to sleep that night as to try and get the swelling down.  Lying in my bunk I was a little bummed, but glad that I was able to see at least this part of the Great Walk.  

Waking up the next morning, my knee felt totally fine... To this minute I have no idea how or why.  It ached a little but nowhere near the amount of the day before.  I ended up meeting an American guy who was studying to be a doctor as well as a lady who had had more than her share of knee injuries, and after a check out, they both agreed that it was okay for me to continue on.

(Photo of the Week)

They told me to just take it slow and use the walking stick as much as possible.  Tim even insisted on carrying some of our food for us to take some of the weight.  Good on ya Tim!

Between my bum knee and my ridiculous need to always take photos, it was painstaking slow (especially for poor Mariel), but I was just too happy to be moving on.  We'd make it to the next hut before dark.  Besides that, what was the hurry?  Anyway, something good came from it.  Due to my extreme slowness, we were the only ones able to see the series of glacial lakes that bordered the trail.  The fog that plagued the walkers earlier that morning had lifted by the time we got there.  What luck!

The walk that day stayed high up on the mountain with a steep drop of to our right.  The varieties of plants that bordered the trail were unbelievable for how high up we were.  I had no idea there would be so many plants thriving this high up the mountain.  

Eventually we zig-zagged our way down towards the second hut.  Hitting the tree-line, everything immediately became dark, and damp.  Spiraling branches reached out into the path like witches fingers, and everything was eerily silent.  It was truly a haunted forest, but in an indescribably good way.  It reminded me of something from The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy picked an apple and the trees became angry with her, throwing apples at her, except these trees seemed a bit friendlier. 


I was constantly expecting one of them to tap me on the shoulder, and then vanish by the time i turned around, just to let me know that my suspicions were true; we were definitely NOT alone!  

It's like that feeling you get when you're sleeping and someone enters the room.  Or when you know someone is looking at you, even though you can't see them.  I don't think I've ever felt that watched, that surrounded, without anyone actually around.  I've always had my suspicions that trees were a lot more sentient, more conscious, than we would think, and this definitely seemed to be proving that true.

Bad knee and all, we made it to the second hut.  After an unbelievably long speech by the hut warden that was 1 part safety speech, 9 parts stand up comedy routine, and 0 parts funny, we were fast asleep.

The next morning we continued the slow pace onward.  I didn't have my walking stick anymore because I broke after a, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" impression from the Lord of the Rings I performed for Mariel at the end of the previous day.  Well apparently I got a little to into it and snapped it about a third of the way down (it was very passionate...) But, my knee felt better than ever, so on we went.

The scene changed yet again as we hiked back up the otherside.  Back in the forest, we came across the coolest little waterfalls, one after the other.  Eventually arriving at a 160 meter one, where we just had to stop and take it all in.   

As we continued on, we passed by yet another unbelievably clear pool of running water.  I had no choice, I had to get down and have a drink.  The water was cool and refreshing in a way I will not try and describe.  It was the way water was meant to be drank; chalk full of all the natural minerals and electrolytes the mountains provide.  Mariel had to agree.

We made it to the final hut.  It was near a place where 3 river systems split, all from one area.  One went to the south, one went to the west, and one went to the east.  It was a sacred place for the Maori, and it was easy to understand why.  

The final day was an easy hike down to the carpark where we got picked up.  It was finally time to make our way back to Christchurch; back to the source of inevitable problems.  Between the van, the recent earthquake, and the fact that this day signified the end of Mariel's trip, and thus, the end of our trip together, it was a bit overwhelming.  Times would be different from here on out.  Tough times were inevitably ahead.  I could see it like a storm brewing in the distance, and we were heading straight for it.  I could feel my stomach turn in a soup of anxiety from the anticipation.   But there was no way out of it now...

Don't Surf in Places Named Cannibal Bay

The next stop was the Caitlins, a national park on the coast of the southwest part of the South Island.  I was real excited.  We'd only have a few days there but it was supposedly really beautiful, and with good surf!  Woohoo!  I couldn't wait to get back in the water.  This trip had a lot of unforeseens to it, and not surfing very much was definitely one of them.  Especially after lugging 4 surfboards half-way around the world.  

Trying not to stay in Invercargill again, we went one town past it into a very small town named Wyndham.  After talking briefly with the Kiwi owner we settled on a room and a price, and then we were met by his wife.  She seemed very out of place from the start, with bleached blonde hair, and outspoken demeanor (kiwi women were usually quite reserved and soft spoken), but then she began talking.

"Vwhat vwould yew lik vor breaKfisT?" she asked in the thickest Russian accent I had ever heard.  The guy mentioned that she had just come over from Russia a few months previous.  It was so thick, that if you had heard it in a movie, you would tell the actor to take it down a notch.  I actually thought she was messing with us.

She then began trying to up-sell us on everything from a better room, to a gourmet dinner.  The husband actually had to tell her to chill out, that we were travelers and trying to save money.   They were just such an odd couple.  They were the same age, but what was this woman fresh off the boat from Russia doing in a po-dunk town like this?  

When I got back to the room, it hit me.

"She's a mail-order bride!" I said to Mariel. 

"Oh, absolutely!" she laughed, as we both started doing our best Russian accents.  

The Caitlins were undoubtedly beautiful, but I have to say it was a bit overshadowed by the magnificence the Milford Sound seemed to boast.  It did have some gorgeous little bays, including this one with an ultra-photogenic lighthouse.

We went to "slope point", which is the southernmost part of the South Island, dead inbetween the Equator and the Antarctic.  

It seemed fitting that the land "sloped" out into the ocean, like a long finger jutting out from the land.  

Of course it wouldn't be New Zealand without its share of gorgeous little waterfalls.  There were two main ones.  One of which we checked out late in the evening of our last night.  We had decided to treat ourselves and stayed in a small cabin in the National Park's only Holiday Park.  

Early the next morning we hiked up to the other waterfall.  It was hard to leave the warmth of our cozy beds (bed) and heated room, but once we got there I was happy to take advantage of the good light and absence of crowds.  

We had to leave that day and I still hadn't surfed.  It had been cold, windy, and flat the previous days, and I just had to get in the water before we left.  A quick right hand turn led us down a long dirt road that turned into a bay called Cannibal Bay, due to the skeletons they found on the beach when the first westerners arrived.  

I have actually had some inner debate on what I'm about to tell you all next, as the experience has become quite personal to me, and writing about it on the internet seems to take away from it in some way.  But after some thought, I've decided it was a good idea to write about it.

It was a pretty good sized day, definitely overhead.  It was glassy with a slight rain falling, and cold, clear water.  It wasn't that great, but I hadn't surfed in so long, paddling into a few sounded like a good idea.  I put on my wetsuit and paddled out, slowly getting used to the low water temps.   A set came.  I caught one, it was a screamer but it ended up closing out quite quickly and forcing me to go straight.  Not ideal, but it felt so good just to be out there.  On the paddle back out, I got caught by a wave that was quite a bit bigger than anything I had seen so far that day.  It broke right in front of me, leaving me wrestling my surfboard underneath the surface for a bit longer than what was comfortable, and made me question myself out there as it was clear it had been awhile.  I remember saying to myself, 

"That was a worst case scenario.  You're all good."  

Nothing was going to happen that would be any worse than that, and that was a comfortable feeling.  I sat up on my board out the back of the breakwater and waited for another set.  Just then something caught the corner of my eye, and immediately had all of my attention on alert.  There was no mistaking what it was, and a bolt of fear ran through me the like of which I haven't felt in quite a while.  A large, dark outline slowly swam beneath the surface, and was coming in my direction.  There was no doubt about it, it was a shark, and it was big, about 10 feet long.  I immediately pulled my feet up and watched him as he swam underneath me, paused for a bit, and then made a slow but sure circle around me.  I stared intently at the ominous shape.  

I know a little about sharks, and I knew that most likely he was at least coming up for a real close inspection.  I stayed ready, hands on the rails of my board in order to try and get my surfboard inbetween us.  My heart was pounding in my chest, alarms going off silently in my head.  I lost him underneath me for a second, and searched diligently until I saw him again, just off to my right.  But, he didn't come up.  He just paused again, as if to think about me for a while, about what I can only guess.  He then slowly turned, and headed away from me, out towards sea.  

"please be a wave, please be a wave, please be a wave," I whispered outloud.

Flat.  I very slowly started to paddle in, sticking my face in the water and looking behind me every few strokes, knowing that seeing the shark coming back, and with speed and intent was a very real possibility.  I tried to paddle smooth and slow.  Sharks love splashes and movement.  I didn't want to tempt him, wherever he was.  Stroke by stroke, I paddled to the beach, and before I knew it, I was there. 

Surfboard under my arm, and heart pumping fast, I was in somewhat disbelief at what I had just witnessed, like after a car crash or something.  We drove to Queenstown from there, and I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole way there.  I just kept replaying it in my head, over and over and over again, in some sort of quiet disbelief.  

Let the Good Times Roll

Arriving in Queenstown, and I was immediately at home.  We ate good food in quirky restaurants, had coffees in quaint harborside cafes, and even watched street performers' shows during a city-wide fundraiser for Christchurch. This was the kind of town I knew well.  It was one of those tourist towns where many came and went, but there was a whole population of travelers who came, and just couldn't figure out how to leave.  People from all over the world, walking around somewhat aimlessly, happily confused about their travel plans, or any plans at all for that matter.  They're not sure what happened, or whats supposed to happen next, they only know that they didn't plan on staying this long, don't plan on leaving anytime soon, and can't be bothered to think about anything else. I liked these kinds of towns.  I liked Queenstown.  And I, too, began to feel the alluring draw of her siren's song.  

We were supposed to hike the Routeburn Track over the course of the next three days. but the weather became real sour, real fast  After speaking to a nice lady with no front teeth, we were able to change our plans to a later day.  Mariel mentioned going to Stuart Island instead, the southernmost point in NZ.  I knew that was the right call.  But, I have to admit, I could feel Queenstown tempting my return for hours down the road; a part of me almost searching for a reason to turn back!  

We had to stay in a town called Invercargill, which is actually even less appealing than its name.  Cold, big, empty, and everyone walks around with a chip on their shoulder.  But the next morning we were on the ferry to Stewart Island.  It was a long, bumpy trip over the next hour, and a few people became sick in the readily available "barf bags".  Even Mariel was looking a little green, but finally, we made it.  

We spent the next few days walking around secluded bays, through bird filled forests, and around natural harbors.  It was so untouched here.  The forest went right down and even into the crystal clear and brutally cold sea.  We enjoyed what was apparently some of the best weather they had had in a while.  From the insects to the birds to the trees, and especially the people, everything seemed so very happy that the sun was out.  

(4 photos!)

We explored the island, and even one next to it that was a "predator free bird sanctuary", except apparently some rats had made it on and were causing a bit of a ruccus.  The birds were almost too tame.  Apparently after a lifetime of nothing ever trying to harm them, they had become quite trusting. The birds would come right up to us, and even peck at our toes if you stood in place for too long!

 

After Stuart Island, we went on to the infamous Milford Sound.  I have to say, I wasn't that impressed from the start.  I remember thinking to myself,

"I wish I could just be blown away by this place, but I'm not…"

And just then, we rounded a corner, and I was blown away.  

It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  Dramatic, glacier carved mountains jutted high into the sky like sore thumbs.  It was truly something out of a movie.  One after another, they penetrated the deep blue sky, and then were followed by steep, river valleys with rivers flowing through them as blue as the sky.  

There was something new around every corner.  Besides being the land of a million waterfalls, the lush vegetation, azure rivers, and abundant bird and plant life made it truly a sight to be seen.  It was one of those places that was so beautiful that your mind wouldn't accept it at first.  You could look around, and recognize how much beauty there was, but it took a few days for it to actually sink in, so that you could FEEL that Beauty.

(6 Photos!  + Photo of the Week)

We were driving around, checking out waterfalls and mirrored lakes, when suddenly around a corner, the car stalled on the way down a hill.  I went to turn the key to get it started again, but nothing.  Jesus we have the worst luck in cars…  We were miles away from any cell reception, but knew of a holiday park about 7 km away which would probably have a phone.  Time to get AA back to work!  I knew it was mostly downhill, so I started to push to see if we could just coast the car to the bottom.  

(5 photos!)

Just then, a Dutch couple pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride, which we obviously did. I sat in back as the couple and Mariel began chit chatting up front while we drove on down the road.  All of a sudden, I started getting really scared.  This guy was the worst driver I had seen in a while!  And unbelievably fast!  Every few minutes we'd swerve from a car or giant pothole and then recklessly regain speed down the road.  Every time there was a close call, the couple would glance at us with a one of those surprised looks on their faces, like a "wasn't that close!" look, and laugh!!  

"I can't believe it," I remember thinking.  "After everything that's happened I'm gonna die because of a reckless Dutchman."

After multiple swerves which were inevitably followed by their wide-eyed looks of surprise and laughter, we finally made it to the holiday park.  We said our thank you's and goodbyes, and walked away.  

Just then the Dutchman slammed on the gas in reverse.  

"Watch out!" I yelled, as a Chinese man taking a photo literally came within inches of getting hit.  He stared at them in utter shock at what almost happened.  In fact, if I hadn't said anything, I'm pretty positive he would have been hit.  

The Dutchmen, equally surprised to see him there, apologized to the guy, looked over at us with that same surprised grin on their faces, and sped off again down the road.

We went into the office and asked to use the phone.  The old lady on the other side of the desk was just all too pleased to tell us,  

"Na, there ain't a phone around here for miles!" the lady said with a smile on her face.  

This kiwi guy behind us said he knew a bit about cars, and could have a look, and even offered to drive us back.  

"Which one is it?" he asked.

"It's the one with the AA on the sides," I replied. 

He gave me a funny look…. The AA cars were the ones that came out to fix broken down cars.

"It's a loaner," I said.  

We finally arrived and popped the hood.  After a few minutes, he saw that one of the battery leads was breaking off.  A couple of adjustments with a wrench and screw driver, and VROOM!  it fired right up!  After many thanks, off we went.  

We drove to another place, and hiked up to see yet another amazing waterfall.  It was 4 or 5 hundred feet up, and just amazing.   We came back down, got in the car, and went to start it, but the click click click of the engine was a dead give away.  No battery.  Apparently the battery hadn't gotten enough juice from the last time we drove it.  There was a boat launch close by, and a boat being hauled out, so I walked down and asked the guy if we could get our battery jumped on his way out.  

"Yup, sure.  But I'm pretty sure the leads are under that," he pointed back to the boat.

I looked over to see a giant deer carcass in the back of the boat.

"If you don't mind helpin' us lift him up we could get 'em out."

I said I would help, but admittedly was really not looking forward to it.  

"No, here they are" his friend said from the truck.  

I was only too relieved to see him holding the jumper cables.  

"Did you shoot that from the boat?" I asked half laughing.

"Sure did!" he replied.  

Haha! I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of a couple of kiwi guys going down the river with beers and a rifle, hunting from their boat.  Apparently New Zealand has red necks too!

I got a ride back to our car hanging on to the back of the boat, a look of shock on Mariel's face as I arrived hanging on near a giant deer carcass.  

"Haha!  You're in a AA car!", the guy laughed.  

"It's a loaner," I said, shrugging and smiling.  

We hooked up the jumpers, and she started right up.  

We did an amazing overnight cruise through Milford Sound soon after that, and it was so nice to be out on the water, and get the views that you just can't get from land.  Plus, we were able to get up close and personal to the 500+ foot waterfalls that came crashing into the sea!  Very cool… 

 Dolphins followed the boat around the harbor, the food was actually quite good, and Mariel and I were even lucky enough to get our own room.  We were even allowed to take the kayaks out of the back, but the hordes of sand flies were absolutely unreal, and sent everyone back to the main boat in no time.

Finally, it was time to go.  On our way out of Milford, we stopped and waited our turn at the infamous tunnel that connects Milford Sound to the outside world.  It was about a mile long, and was unbelievably creepy as it looked as if it had been chiseled out by hand, with jagged rocks pointing in every direction, and water continually dripping down the sides of the walls down onto the road.  

As we were idling there, the engine started to get really really hot.  I knew that we were super low on oil, but there had been no place to buy any for so long.  I decided to turn the engine off while we waited, just in case, and let it cool down for a while.  The light turned green so I gave the key a turn.. but nothing.  A few more tries, but no, nothing.  I sighed.  God damn AA car…  

(5 photos!)

I hitchhiked to the other side of the tunnel to use the emergency phone and called the operator.  I asked her to call AA for me and tell them to bring some oil, but that it was probably just the battery lead.  

"And what kind of car should they be looking for sir?" asked the lady on the other end.

I sighed,  

"It's the one with the AA logo on the side." 

"You mean its an AA car?" She asked.

"No, well... its a loaner…" 

I couldn't help but smile.