Tuesday 31 March 2009

(Almost) Four Seasons in three days

Kepler Track, Fiordland National Park
29 - 31 December 2008
Amelia and Mark

Monday
Man I hate Monday mornings. Even more so when you are meant to be on holiday and still have to get up early. This morning was made even harder by the fact that two days previous I had managed to get VERY sunburnt at Mt Cook, and it had been VERY warm overnight in our room at the Holiday Park in Te Anau, where it had stayed light until well after we were in bed and asleep.

After a quick breakfast and re-pack of the car, we were off to Safer Parking (its home for the next three days) to wait for our shuttle to collect us. Sure, we could have walked the 45-odd minutes around the lakefront to the control gates to start the track, but we figured the cost to get a ride was small enough to spare and save us some time!

Pick up was at some ungodly hour (about 8.30am), so we had to be all set, with the car parked before then. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare, and were at the control gates, ready to start the track at about 9am. It was sunny, warm and a lovely day to be enjoying the shade of the bush when carrying three days worth of stuff, plus emergency gear! (our food was a substantial portion of this weight it turned out!). The weather was not meant to stay nice for all three days though, so we enjoyed it while it lasted!

The first hour or so was a gentle wander on a track nice and wide enough for us to walk alongside each other. We got to Brod Bay in good time, and paused here for a nibble and drink before racing off again to escape the resident sandfly population (Note: NEVER camp there!!), deciding to have lunch well up the hill. We targetted getting to the Limestone Bluffs that are mentioned in the guide book, and when we got to 1pm and still hadnt reached them, we gave up and had lunch where we were. Needless to say, we found them about 20 mins further up the track, and stopped for a second lunch stop at a nice seating area alongside them with an Australian Family.


The Bluffs

Eventually we arrived at Luxmore Hut and found ourselves beds in the smaller bunkroom. I have to say that for a huge hut, it has a tiny, and poorly planned out, communual area. The kitchen is cramped, and to ensure they have seating for most people, there is a dining table in the middle of it! I guess they hoped that it would only be full in good weather when it was built, which would allow most people to sit outside. It does have quite a cool inside-outside feel to it though. "Cool" being the operative word - from the warm bunkrooms and kitchen, through the COLD hallway and toilet area... At least the loos are flush ones during the summer season!

Dinner was sweet and sour pork with pasta (since we were having pasta again the next night it saved also buying rice). Full of fresh veges and with fresh meat. Had a funny moment when I came out of the bunkroom with our dinner stuff laden in my arms, to see someone coming out of the other bunkroom with theirs - one pot and a packet of Rice Risotto. Would rather our dinner over theirs any day. In fact, I think we had the best dinner in the hut that night, and I have to say that the extra weight to carry it (and the bottle of wine to share over two nights) was SO worth it when we saw what others were eating... Lots of unhappy faces over the dehy there!

The smaller bunkroom has massive picture windows, which would be nice if it werent for the fact that daylight hours extend out to nearly midnight at that time of year down there! The photo below is of the view from the deck outside the bunkroom as we went to bed about 9.30pm... I wound up using a bandanner as a blindfold to get to sleep, while Mark hid himself deep into his sleeping bag (I would have been FAR too hot if I had too!)
From Luxmore Hut

Tuesday
We decided not to rush out the door for day two, as the weather was meant to stay reasonably fair all day, and only rain later in the afternoon. It was straight up hill to start with, and the wind was quite gusty at times (even though it was less windy than both the day before and the day after). We had both started the morning with walking poles, which soon got put back on the sides of our packs because they were getting blown around something wicked! Most depressing on this day were the bits of track where you could see what looked to be about the next two hours of track ahead of you - and there were lots of these bits!

We got to the turn-off to Mt Luxmore summit and decided that since we were here we should really go up to the top proper. The wind at the turn-off was freezing, so we rugged up in layers of warm clothes. Mark headed off like a mountain goat while I struggled up with sore Achilles tendons from the day before. I made it eventually, and was glad that I had when I saw the view from the top. We got one of the guys there to take a photo of the two of us and then headed back down to the main track.
Luxmore trig

From there it was a quick slog to the Forest Burn Shelter for lunch. The last bit down to the shelter is a steep and nasty zig zag, but the shelter has a toilet and on a nice day has a good deck to sit on and a picnic table. From there to Hanging Valley Shelter should take about 2 hours, but we were there in less than one.

The path ahead
We were going to take a longer break at Hanging Valley before attacking the downhill section of the track, but the spits of rain we started to feel put us off that idea, so off we went! The downhill from Hidden Valley Shelter to Iris Burn Hut has to be one of my most miserable memories from the entire trip, as after about 1.5 hours of straight downhill I was in considerable pain in both knees and could barely walk by the time we got to the hut. What was meant to take about 2 hours wound up taking us nearly 4 at my final pace. I do have to admit to being intensely grateful for my walking poles in this section though, as my knees would have gone sooner if it wasnt for them!

Iris Burn Hut has three bunkrooms. One massive one, with lots of dark hidey holes (great if you want to sleep in I guess), one tiny one with just four beds, which I suspect used to be the rangers room, and a large airy one with about 20 bunks upstairs. Yes. Upstairs. Guess which bunkroom we ended up in?? Can I just say how glad I was that I didnt need to get up and go the toilet in the middle of the night?? The only problem with the upstairs bunkroom is that the only windows directly above the platform bunks, which also have a low, sloping roof above them. At least the bunks werent full, so I could spread out a little and not have to kick a rafter all night!

Dinner was pasta and veges with pesto sauce and got some very envous glances from the dehy-dinner brigade, especially when we pulled out fudge for dessert!

Wednesday
Tramping out was wet. The aim for most of the day was simply to keep moving, and this was about all I managed to do. There are some very cool parts to the track through here, and it is mostly flat for the entire day. We saw a kea alongside the river at one point, but my camera wouldnt zoom in close enough to get a good photo, plus the light was dim, so it wanted to take a longer exposure, making for a blurry picture. Damn having no dSLR!!

We stopped for lunch at Moturau Hut, where the warden had a nice fire going. For lunch we had planned to have sandwiches of some description, but being so wet, we decided to cook up some of our emergency food (chicken soup), and some of our leftover food (pasta) for lunch. It wound up being remarkably good, and we decided that adding some salami would make it a great super lightweight dinner on a future tramp.

We then missioned out to Rainbow Reach for an earlier shuttle to get us back to civilisation and hot showers. We had booked for 5pm, and if the weather had been nice, even with the pain in my knees, we probably would have taken more time and used that shuttle. Instead we made it out for a 3pm ride out with the same company. In fact, we arrived at the road end in good enough time to wait for 15 minutes for the shuttle... I contemplated changing into dry clothes, but my raincoat was soaked through and the rain was still pretty torrential, so I thought I would leave that for our accommodation.
two wet trampers

We were returned to our car at Safer Parking, and Mark drove us around town looking for a place to stay. We abandoned our booked tent site in favour of a motel with a bed and private bathroom, (it was one of the only places we could see that had a vacancy sign!) meaning we could both get out of wet stuff straight away, rather than having to find and pitch a tent in the rain (it was also useful that the motel had towels, as ours were now wet from having been sat on for the journey from Safer Parking to the motel!). Having hot showers in our room and sleeping on a bed rather than an air mattress was great too, as was having ample room to put wet stuff and dry stuff without having to worry about whether they were going to get more wet from the rain!

Getting in and out of chairs and off the bed was a substantial problem for me all night (and to a lesser extent for the next couple of days), and I was so exhausted that I napped for about an hour before dinner (we took the car a whole 1km to the Moose for it. That place is still as good as I remember!), and then again from about 9pm, to be woken by and tap on the shoulder and "Happy New Years" from Mark at midnight (so much for the "we'll sit in the motel and have a couple of beers while we wait for the new year" plan from dinner time, and the "Te Anau goes off for New Years, so lets party till the small hours" plan from before we left home!).

The rain stopped briefly at midnight, so there were fireworks, which were nice. We watched them in our PJ's from the door of our motel unit. Would have been great to have had the energy to be out on the waterfront - bet there would have been some cool shots to get. They would have had a neat view from the ridge just east of Luxmore Hut too. Might have to remember that for another year...

Thursday 26 March 2009

The Ruahines Do It Better

Sunrise Hut,
20-22 March 2009
Punters: Amelia (Leader), Mark, Chris, Jodi, Jordan, Brad, Jo, Karl, Megan, Lisa, Chad, Ian
Friday arrived with a promise of good weather for most of the weekend – only a vague possibility of rain on Sunday afternoon darkening the horizon. Friday lied as it turned out, but we can forgive that as this was only a small blip on the radar of an otherwise fantastic trip.

Missioning our way north, with the group split between two vans to make maximum use of available space, we arrived in Levin for dinner at 7pm. Traffic had been astoundingly good to us! Most of us headed for fish’n’chips from the Chinese place across from KFC, and then proceeded to sit on the picnic tables on KFC’s front lawn to eat. Not bad food at a darn good price with substantial portions seemed to be the general consensus. Through the back roads to avoid Palmerston North, we whizzed past the club van in Woodville, only to be overtaken again when we had stopped for ice-creams in Dannevirke.

Eventually arriving at the road end, we somehow had managed to arrive last, which was ok apart from the fact it meant that the hut was full with everyone else before we got there, and somewhere just out of Dannevirke it had started RAINING (remember I told you that Friday lied? Well, that was its biggest one). Of course, this did lead to a vague concern as to what the weather would do for the rest of the weekend, as well as how some easy trampers would cope with sleeping under a tent fly for the first time given the conditions. In the end there was no real need to worry. We spread out everywhere – some on the floor in the kitchen, some on the floor in the bunkrooms (one enterprising group member managed to be in the right place at the right time to get an offer of an ACTUAL bunk!!), two in the woodshed and the rest happily cocooned under the very middle of the two flys we had put up.

We needn’t have worried about the weather either, as the rain stopped quite early in the night (early being the operative word, given we didn’t arrive and get to bed till nearly 1am!). Saturday morning dawned with massive clear blue skies and the promise of quite a bit of warmth to come. We hung about the hut for a while, letting the tents dry as much as possible before packing them, and eventually headed off up the hill about 9.30am.

Triplex Hut

The pace was slow to the point of being snail-like at times, but this also provided some great opportunities for conversation, and the rare chance to see a Morepork perched in a tree, sleepily watching us watch it.

Morepork

Morning tea was had at the track junction, where a large seat makes for a fantastic rest spot. Chocolate duly came out of packs and was shared around, with Chris reminding Jodi that the chocolate she was sharing was half his (her reply was that that was the half she was sharing out!). Continuing up the hill with anticipations of lunch in the sunshine, we came across a whole series of cool signs that Norsewear had erected with information about the flora and fauna of the area, as well as some of its history. Very neat, and rather useful “pause” stops!

Before too long we had arrived at the top of the hill and the hut. Its fantastic how the hut really hides from you until you are basically right on top of it – no teasing sightings from a distance making you think it might be closer than it is! With a generous deck area and multiple entranceways, this hut would be a welcome haven in bad weather from any direction.

Packs and boots came off, bunks were chosen, a brew went on and lunches came out. The tent flies were ingeniously attached to the deck of the hut to continue drying.

Sunrise Hut

Some members of the group headed off towards where Craigs group were spending the night and got about an hour along the track before deciding to come back. The rest of us made do with exploring the area immediately around the hut, including the short scramble behind the hut to an awesome vista of the inner ranges. Eventually someone decided it was afternoon tea, and Chris and Jodi pulled out crackers with nice cheese and dip to eat them with. Needless to say, they are welcome on any easy trip any of us take again in the future.

It was, however, starting to cloud over a little, and get somewhat cold. Having said goodbye to John, who had driven in to join us for a daywalk, we moved inside and pulled out a couple of decks of cards to play last card. Fresh camp cooked bread was produced (and devoured) as a precursor to dinner, which was prepared and demolished in pretty quick succession (for the record, it was Sweet & Sour Pork on Rice). Having cooked, I managed to avoid doing dishes (Bonus!), and so instead got a half hour reprieve before starting to prepare dessert. People were still quite full from dinner, so the chocolate “self-caking sauce” (cheers Chris) that we didn’t manage to consume was wrapped back up in anticipation of possibly being someones breakfast in the morning (it duly was).

Stargazers went for a wander outside before bed, and were rewarded with one of THE most stunning views of the Southern Cross and Milky Way I have ever seen. There were no clouds anywhere to ruin the view (at least to begin with) and it was simply awe-inspiring.

Bed ensued not long after, and I think a lot of people fell asleep very quickly and very deeply after what had probably been an average to poor Friday nights sleep. It rained overnight (quite heavily some have reported), but cleared beautifully for everyone to get up at 6.15 to watch the developing sunrise. Most people went back to bed as the sun came fully up for another couple of hours sleep. It was great and a very nice treat.

Dawn breaking

Light breaks through

Light shines on them

Once we all finally started getting up and organized, there wasn’t a lot of time wasted. Making our way down the hill at our own pace, with nice long stops for the back markers to catch up, we were still back at Triplex Hut for lunch at noon. After a break in the sunshine eating as much as possible of what was left of our food, it was back to the van so we didn’t miss other groups to steal spare spaces in their vans, and after a bit of a wait, we all headed home. Our van seemed to be on a sugar high, as we made a decent attempt at eating all of Karl’s lollies (which he had cunningly hidden until after dessert on Saturday night), and played multiple rounds of twenty questions (“Am I bigger than the van?” “Did we see one this weekend?”) before arriving back in Wellington and going our own ways again. All in all, not a bad trip, and much better weather than the last one I went on (into the Tararuas!)

EIGHT GET WET

(AKA: TOTARA FLATS THAT WASN’T)

Powell Hut, Tararua Forest ParkDate: 27 February – 1 March 2009
People: Amelia (Leader), Joel, Lilian, Anna, Victoria, Mark, Barbara, Deborah.

Friday night at the railway station there were some concerned faces (in the other group at least) during discussion of the weather report for the weekend – wet, windy and generally not very nice. Being hardy souls, we all decided that the weather report had changed so many times in the last 8 hours that it was pretty much irrelevant, so we piled into the GUTLESS WONDER (aka the diesel, automatic, rental van) and headed off to the Wairarapa.

Arriving in Carterton at a respectable 7pm (having left Wellington ON TIME for once), an announcement was made that good kebabs were here, fish n chips down the road, each to their own, see you in about half an hour… Half an hour later we had barely managed to all order at Istanbul, and by the time we had all eaten and were looking at heading off, it was nearly 8. Sent Victoria and Mark off to find Joel who was watching the cricket at the pub and got back on the road.

But it was OK, since it was only a short drive on to the road end, and after running in to the caretaker who informed us that it actually costs money to sleep at the Holdsworth road end, some people headed off to Donnelly flat and others camped out in the shelter at the road end anyway, deciding that staying dry in the morning was more important. It wasn’t a bad choice, as it started raining at about 6.15am and it was lovely to continue lying in bed, listening to the rain, knowing that there were flush toilets just there, and we didn’t have to get wet getting organized to go.

Pulling out the map as we worked through breakfast, a discussion was held on likely issues on our intended route – including unbridged streams and the fact that if the weather cleared (which was looking more unlikely) there wasn’t anything to go look at from Totara Flats. So we decided to head up the hill to Powell for the night instead, hoping for the weather to clear to allow us a short stroll up to the trig. Talking to another group at the lodge, we found that it was probably the right decision, as one of their group had gone in to Totara Flats in bad weather and been stuck at the hut because of uncrossable streams in the past.

So up the hill we trudged, into ever worsening weather. The wind was blowing DIRECTLY in the door of Mountain House, meaning it really provided no shelter at all. So, we had a really quick stop for food and water and got moving again. Up towards Powell it got challenging at times with the wind trying to blow us all off the hill, and the clouds making sure we couldn’t see where we would fall if we did. Eventually the hut appeared in front of us, lashed by rain and the verandah offering no shelter for taking off wet gear, so all the wet gear went inside instead, where it dripped into huge puddles in the doorway.

Thankfully the old gas heater that had been broken on my last overnight visit to Powell had been replaced by a coal fire and plenty of coal to burn, so once we were all in dry clothes, it was time to get the fire lit and a billy of water on for hot drinks to go with lunch. We were all still vaguely hopeful that the weather would improve – mainly so we didn’t have to go down to the toilets in wet gear and nasty weather – but it steadfastly refused to get any better, so we were confined to the hut all afternoon. Naps and reading ensued before dinner at a reasonable time and dessert as the light faded. At some stage a report came in that the door had half come off one toilet, meaning there was only ONE toilet available - which caused a couple of short queues during the evening of people waiting inside for the person ahead to come back. Everyone wandered off to bed, only to be woken at about 2am by a member of another party loudly complaining about the members of a third playing with the fire and quietly talking. None of us had heard any of the noise though, so we don’t know what she was going on about!

Sunday morning was a lazy affair for everyone in the hut. The larger other group had originally planned to head over to Jumbo, but the weather had changed that plan on Saturday, when the plan had been changed to East Holdsworth if the weather cleared, which it didn’t. The couple who had still (apparently) been up at 2am had consumed rather a large amount of wine, and were still only just stirring from their bunks at about 8.30. We had a relaxed breakfast, pack up and clean up and headed out of the hut about 9.30am. With only about three hours walking ahead, followed by lunch in Carterton, we were in no hurry. Most of us had put back on at least some wet gear from Saturday before leaving, so the cold wind and slow pace down hill was a tad miserable. Once we got to Mountain House (out of the wind and into improving weather) we all went at our own pace, stopping a couple of times along the way to make sure everyone was still there. The further down the hill we got the warmer it was, and the less clothes people coming in the opposite direction were wearing. We started to feel a bit silly and overdressed!

Back to the van, changed into dry clothes and off to Carterton for yummy lunch and a beer at the White Swan, collecting an extra from the other group along the way, follwed by a stop at Schoc chocolates before leaving town and we were back in what was actually quite a sunny, warm Wellington (well, comparably) early enough to get the van back to the rental company before it closed!