T&A

Trail + Camping = Tramping.

On one hand, you don’t have to portage a trail twice (once for your pack, and once for your canoe). On the other, you have to carry your heavy pack the entire time.

We decided to do two major tramps. The routeburn and the kepler.

We left our car on the side of the road and caught a bus from Queenstown to the start of the routeburn trail. The routeburn took us through a passing between mountains to a maximum elevation of around 1500 m. The scenery was amazing with crystal blue waterfalls everywhere you look. We arrived at our first of three huts in the early afternoon which was backed by a massive waterfall. The huts have bunkbeds (most handle 50 people), flushing toilets, and gas stoves for cooking. It does get cold at night though since the bunk rooms are not heated. Tara and I had to buy thermal underwear and thin touques (they had no idea what a toque was in the store) before we left. Fortunately, we had good weather during the crossing on the second day. On the top of the mountain you are totally exposed, and the wind easily catches your pack which makes it dangerous on the narrow paths that line the cliff faces. About 20 minutes after decending half way down the mountain and reaching our second hut, the rain started. It didn’t stop pouring for 12 hours straight. We quickly learned that beautiful green moss and rainforests equals lots of rain.

The third day was crazy. Suddenly all of the small little valleys that crossed our paths were fairly large streams. A few times we had to cross small waterfalls. At one section, the routeburn trail leads past a 100 m waterfall. This waterfall was too powerfull, and had completely flooded our route. This part of the trail had a “flood route.” Unfortunately, the “flood route” was completely flooded. We found ourselves climbing up a steep rockface that had basically turned into a waterfall itself. Needless to say, we were completely soaked. We might as well have gone swimming in all our gear. Fortunately, we also bought overpriced pack covers which kept all our gear completely dry.

The last day was fairly straightforward, and we hiked out of the other side of the mountains to catch a bus to a town called Te Anau. In Te Anau, we were able to celebrate x-mas. There were only three places open for dinner in this small town, and one was chinese. We made reservations at a cafe/restaurant and to our surprise, they were serving a delicious christmas dinner. We had melt in your mouth roast lamb which was piled on a heap of ham and turkey. The whole thing was smothered in gravy. For dessert, strawberry pavlova! Almost as good as Mrs. Postons’.

We started the kepler track on boxing day. This trail is much longer and higher than the routeburn trail. The first day is a rediculous climb of about 1000 m. You are literally climbimg trail without going even a little bit downwards for about 3 hours straight. The weather was pretty good with only a few clouds in the sky. We got to the first hut in the afternoon and found out that the weather was going to be lousy for the next day. If we left early in the morning, we would be rained on. If we left in the afternoon, we would be rained on even harder. Since we couldn’t stay, and had to cross the top of the mountains, we left early in the morning. This was the hardest hiking I have ever done. On the kepler trail, you are crossing rolling mountain peaks on the very tops of the mountains. You are completely exposed on all sides. If the weather had been good, we would have had 360 degree views of the surrounding mountain range at a height of about 1500 m. Unfortunately, we had to keep our heads low and were getting pounded by wind and rain. Luckily, we decided to rent rain pants when we were in Te Anau. However, no amount of rain protection will keep you dry after 4 hours of hiking in those conditions across mountain tops. We were thoroughly soaked and freezing cold when we reached the descent. The descent was also crazy. It consisted of 97 switchbacks that takes about 2 hours to complete. This was a very frustrating part of the walk. Thankfully, we had good weather for the last two days. Unfortunately, we were unable to take any pictures or movies crossing the top of the mountains during this tramp.

After completing the kepler track, we caught a bus back to Queenstown, picked up our car, and headed to the glaciers. We decided to do a hike up Franz Josef glacier rather than Fox glacier because Franz Josef was slightly more challenging. The glacier is unique because it is 200 m above sea level (quite low) and stretches down through rain forest. During high times of rain/snow, the glacier actually advances as fast as 5 m per day. For this hike, we had to buy a tour. The tour provided us with a guide, and all the necessary gear needed to cross the glacier (i.e. spikes for your boots, boots, rain jackets, mittens, etc…). We were lucky for that day, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We didn’t put on any rain gear at all. The glacier hiking was awesome because the guide chooses, and cuts away a path throughout the entire day. We were able to climb quite high for some spectacular views and through naturally formed, small caves. The ice in the upper regions of the glacier was aqua blue. It was amazing how hot it was on top of the glacier since it was reflecting all of the sunlight. We both got a little sun burnt, and a bit of snow blindness since we weren’t wearing sunglasses.

The last tramp we completed was the abel tasman. For this hike, we decided to only do a portion since we had our fair share of real tramping on the kepler and routeburn tracks. Since the track is so popular, there are water taxis that can drop you off at major portions of the track. We decided to get dropped off in Bark Bay, and walk back to the small town for a total of about 5 horus of walking. The abel tasman area stretches over beautiful golden beaches. We couldn’t appreciate this track as much because there were too many people and we had been spoiled by the amazing views of the other tracks we had completed previously.

After that day of hiking, we decided to go back to the North island. We’re now in Wellington and are planning another day hike through the mountains of MORDOR (Tongariro).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.