Highlights From Down South
April 8, 2005 General Comments Off on Highlights From Down South
Although Patrick already blogged about our trip down south with Mick, I thought I’d put up a selection of photos. The trip was my first real taste of multiple day tramping in New Zealand – we elected to go and do the Keplar track, which is about 76km for 3 days walking.
We headed down in Patrick’s boss’ BMW to Queenstown early on Tuesday morning, after Mick had arrived the previous morning. I’ve never really been a big fan of Queenstown. Sure, the scenery is pretty awesome, but there’s not much to it after that. About every 2nd shop in the town is a tourist booking office. Now Wanaka is a different place.
The next morning we started the Keplar track. The first day was pretty dull, walking a few kms around the lake, then a 2 hour slog up to Luxmore hut, for our first nights sleep. The hut slept about 65 people, shared between 2 bunkhouses. It was pretty cool to be on the mountainside, but when you have a few people snoring, like we did, during the night, you soon get tired of it.
The hardlads started off early the next morning, on what was to be the highlight of the 3 days – a walk along a ridgeline with amazing scenery. We were totally blessed with the weather, with reasonably good views during those few hours. Unfortunately at the end of the day there was a 2 hour steep decent that had us crying towards the end. Another somewhat uneventful night in the next hut, fighting the cursed sandflies, had us starting the next morning to a 40km walk out to Te Anau. Most people bail out at the swing bridge after about 20km and get the shuttle into town. We opted to walk it out, which probably did unforeseen physical damage to our bodies. Oh well, what doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt in as much pain as I did the last day. After walking the previous 2 days, and limbs aching from the 2 hour descent, we were all in agony during those 40km. Fortunately we were blessed with the weather again, with a steady downpour for most of the way. It was pretty miserable. I can do 40km easily in a day, but after reasonably solid days the previous 2 days, it was really tough going.
The day after, we limped around Milford for the day, seeing the awesome dolphins riding in the wave of our cruise ship, and the underwater observatory.
Before long, the week was over, and Mick headed off to Australia on the next leg of his short holiday. I quickly caught up with my brother and his wife over dinner before he headed home too.
Back to a somewhat normal life again – only except that I’ve been catching up a bit with Larry who’s over in NZ waiting for his Australian visa to come through, and looking forward to Domhnall visiting in July. Busy times.
