Visiting Sam & El in their crazy old cabin in the woods (nicked your phrase there Sam) gave us a good lift, because unlike when we arrived in Australia we don't have a ready made social group to fall into, and really don't know that many folks out here. It's good to know if we want to see some friendly faces we can drive over to Punakaiki for some jungle cabin chillout and breakfast pizza. Charl also passed an important watershed by teaching her first full group yoga session, something she'll remember for a long long time I'd imagine.
This chapter really is about our experience of the West Coast, a region in the south island that stretches from Karamea in the North to Haas in the South. The West Coast is known as NZ's frontier country, spectacular temperate rainforest dropping down steep slopes to meet a driftwood strewn coastline where the Tasman Sea rages in. It's considered a remote area, but everything's relative, and when you've travelled through dusty little aboriginal settlements that are 350k's from their nearest neighbour in the Australian desert ,you have a different perspective on what's really remote.
It is however an extremely charming, and very relaxed part of the world. As one retired lady in Karamea took great pleasure in telling me, “nothing happens quickly around here love”. After seeing Sam & El our first stop was the small town of Hokitika, or “Hokey” as the locals call it. Home to about four thousand. We just missed out on one of the West Coast's biggest parties, the Hokitika “Wild Food Festival”. An all weekend event of bizarre and tasty organic foods, fancy dress and lots of alcoholic beverages, attended by about twenty thousand revellers. Shame we missed it but it's on the list for next year if we're here.
"Hokey"
It was also our first wedding anniversary and we treated ourselves to a rare visit to a wine bar and meal out. This was a rare treat indeed. When you're travelling on a limited budget you have to divide your expenses to essential and non-essential categories. Essential items include fuel, supermarket food shopping and vehicle maintenance. The other categories in our budget spreadsheet include Camping Fee's, Alcohol, Activities (inc. eating out) and the all encompassing “Miscellaneous” (normally clothing / camping kit or Internet expenses. Camping fees we try an avoid by free camping (increasingly difficult unfortunately) or at least avoiding expensive holiday parks (never stay in a “Top Ten” park, they are a 100%, bona fide, rip off). Alcohol we've pretty much given up, not a bad thing I guess. Activities is a difficult one because every time you turn a corner you see a sign advertising bungy jumping, rafting, skydiving, jetboating etc.. however New Zealand's national pastime is tramping (hiking) and aside from being the best way to see the backcountry it's also generally free (once you have a hut pass that is – explain later).
With the aim being to squeeze as long as possible out of our cash reserves, you tend to view your expenses in terms of time cost, so fifty bucks on a couple of pizzas and nice glasses of wine tends to be weighed against two or three nights at a campsite or half a tank of fuel. That said if we don't treat ourselves to the occasional bit of food or drink out we do go a bit crazy so to to an extent it's worth it for our sanity if nothing else, and if you can't have a treat on your wedding anniversary then when can you?
After Hokitika we followed State Highway 6 down the coastline to the small cove of Okarito. At this stage we ran into our first bad spell of weather. To be fair we'd been in New Zealand a month, and barely had to put up with more than the very occasional twenty minute sprinkling, so we were expecting it at some point soon anyway. In Okarito it poured, really poured, and the next day we decided we wouldn't be renting kayaks to explore to hidden coves of the Okarito lagoon, searching for the elusive White Heron, nor we we be partaking in the guided nature walk which often spotted the equally reclusive Brown Kiwi. We did however have just about enough time to practice our photography, taking some great moody pic's on the driftwood covered beach and searching for washed up Jade stones.
Moody scenes at Okarito beach
We then followed the road inland, towards the glacial tourism towns of Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. Here are two small towns that make a living out of the two large glaciers that rest in the their glacial valleys just minutes outside the township borders. Carparks at the glacier bases are a merry go round of tour buses that pause for ten minutes to disgorge their loads of Japanese tourists, keen to snap their photo of the glaciers (complete with neon raincoat clad fellow tourers making the “V” signs with their fingers in the foreground, of course)
Franz Josef Glacier
For the more adventurous various 'Glacier Guides' will take you up onto the glaciers for exploring and ice climbing. This is definitely something that falls into the “Activities we'd love to do but can't afford to” category, maybe we'll come back once we're earning to get the full experience here. Franz Josef has a very exclusive feel to it with lots of premium accommodation on offer. Fox is slightly more down to earth but still not a cheap place to stay for a long time. We stopped for a couple of days but the bad weather continued and we ducked out of the overnight thermal springs walk we were intending to do, the Copland Track, after the river levels became too high for us to ford the first crossing safely.
Tour buses galore at fox
The road returns to the coast to pass through the small town of Haast before curving inland again on its way to the Great Lakes and activity towns of Wanaka and Queenstown. On the way we stopped at Makarora and embarked on our first multi-day tramp, the Gillespie Pass/ Wilkin-Young Valley loop. A four day, three night trek, that takes you from a steep wooded valley up over an alpine pass of 1700m and back down a neighbouring valley before meeting a jetboat to take you back down the river to Makarora. The trek also involved a full days side trip to an alpine lake, set in a glacial moraine, and decorated with car-size icebergs and turquoise frosted waters.
At this stage it's maybe best to give you an idea of how most people go about tramping over here. Most people tramp on land owned and managed by DOC, the Department of Conservation. Most towns will have a DOC office that is often manned and provides information and supplies for walkers. DOC manage the infrastructure on these walks that includes the trails, bridges and huts. The backcountry huts vary from tiny little deer-stalker huts with four bunks and little else, to forty bunk cabins with sinks, food preparation areas and flushing toilets. The larger huts on popular routes may have a hut warden in residence who will be in radio contact with DOC and will have information on weather forecasts, potential flight outs etc. The huts are ticketed and are normally $5 per night per person for basic huts to $15 per person per night for “serviced” huts. If you tramp a lot you'll probably have a backcountry hut pass, we bought ours for $60 for six months.
Siberia Hut,a twenty bunk hut on the Wilkin-Young Track
The exceptions to this are New Zealand's “Great Walks”. The Great Walk huts are the only ones that can be booked, they're $45 per person per night, but although pricey you at least are assured you'll be in a bed not on the floor. They also will normally have gas cookers available and even in some cases have the luxury of power & lighting. This commercialisation of New Zealand's most accessible natural beauty is, I guess, inevitable whilst at the same time a little bit sad. The culture of enjoying the countryside by getting out and tramping with friends and family is longstanding in New Zealand and prevalent across all the income groups, at $45 per night the tracks are already out of the reach of a lot of people (including us!). Some of the Great Walks, post-end of April, no longer need booking and our hut passes will suffice, however snow is more than likely in May so anything with Alpine crossings would be a bit of a risk.
As the huts can get pretty crowded you can also take a tent and camp outside them for a bit more personal space. Camping passes are normally about half the price of of hut passes. Before heading off you leave a notice of intentions with the DOC office, so if you're not back by the stated date someone will come looking for you. It's a great infrastructure and when combined with the natural environment of the South Island it's easy to see why New Zealand is one of the world's premier destinations for people who like to do their exploring by foot.
As for this particular tramp that Charl and I set out on, well, it was probably one of the best experiences that we've had together. It was tough – Day 1 was about 27km over nine hours (Probably carrying close to 20 kilo's each in our packs), Day 2 was 12km, 900m vertical climb, 8 hours. The scenery at the base of the valley was very “Lord of the Rings”, the views from Gillespie Pass stunning and the the iceberg strewn Lake Crucible up there as one of the top natural sights we've seen. The first hut we stayed at, Young Hut, was deserted when we got there which meant the first thing I had to do after a nine hour hike was go out to the woodshed to chop some wood and get a fire going (hut etiquette). As it turned out we were the only people there until at nine thirty a Ukranian guy called Pavel turned up out of the dark and rain. This guy was covering serious distances and had caned through what took us nine hours in five.
Tough work slogging up 900m to Gillespies Pass, the Wilkin Valley spreadout below
On the fourth day we met a jetboat to take us out. It was $75 but by that fourth day I'd have paid twice that not to have to walk the remaining 26km out, having twisted my ankle going up to Lake Crucible the day before. Jetboats work on sucking up and expelling water through a jet at the back, allowing them to opertate in New Zeleands shallow rivers. It's a good, old fashioned “scream if you want to go faster “, “watch out for that cow wading across the river” type experience. When we have some good internet I'll stick some video up.
It's probably difficult for a lot of people out there to comprehend what we get from multi-day tramping like this. It's hard work, your legs and shoulders ache, your feet inevitably blister or rub. You can't wash properly and food rations consist of noodles, porridge and cheese on crackers. You get wet and it's not always easy to dry out. During the night the temperature often drops severely in the mountains leaving you shivering in your sleeping bag.
Icy Waters of Lake Crucible
The hardship is part of the challenge though, you're so hungry that noodles and porridge taste like gourmet food. You won't hear the sound of a car for four days, you get to see scenery you just can't access from the road unless you've got the bucks for scenic flights etc. The stars (and Milky Way) are amazing (provided you can see them), you get in some great photography practice and you get to meet a whole variety of weird and wonderful people out in the mountain huts.
In many ways it's not too different to our 4x4 exploits, and whereas in Oz the great 4x4 tracks were key factors in deciding our direction from now on in New Zealand we'll be lead by the many tramps that we're keen to embark upon whilst our money lasts.
Full Pic's: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=210903&id=681815399&l=4358571baa
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