I'M AT: Te Anau YHA, replete with a real stroke of luck, as the room is just amazing, part of a shared house with its own garden, modern, beautiful and peaceful - AND the guy undercharged me, so I'm not paying any more than I would have done for a dusty dorm.
The Kepler Track is one of New Zealand's nine Great Walks.
The Great Walks pass spectacular scenery, but can get full up with trampers, meaning overnight accommodation is tricky to come by. This fact, combined with my unwillingness to drag a sleeping bag and stove up a thousand metres of mud and bracken, lead me to attempt just a one-day walk, via water taxi, up to Mount Luxmore.
The Kiwis here organise a couple of races each year - the Kepler Challenge, during which entrants race round the whole track in less than four hours (bear in mind that the DOC recommend taking several DAYS to do this hike); and the Luxmore Grunt, where competitors just race up to Mount Luxmore and back. It takes them under two hours. I've got pretty fit doing all this hiking, but it still took about six hours there and back, and we didn't quite get all the way up to the summit, as we ran out of time.
The only thing I can offer in defence of my pride is that the racers probably don't stop to take quite as many photos as me.
Anyway. A description. The first couple of hours is a steady, steep climb from Brod Bay beach, menaced by sandflies, up into a beech forest. From the branches hang delicate strands of Old Man's Beard, a lime-green moss that dangles in sharp contrast to the deeper green of the beech leaves. This kind of forest is typical of Southland, which is a Very Wet Place, covered in lush green from the pines and podocarps. The keas enjoy themselves, dancing amongst the trailmix that hikers leave behind. The Dept of Conservation (DOC) ensures that the track is uniformly excellent, scattering grey gravel over mud puddles, and building small bridges over torrential channels. I've developed a massive respect for the work of the DOC here. Fair play gentlemen!
So, after you emerge from the treeline, at a thousand metres or so, wiping sweat from the eyes, you're hit with previously-conceealed views of lakes Te Anau and Manapouri, deep pools of blue. Boats touring the lakes look absolutely tiny, rippling the reflections of the massive Kepler Mountain Range with their shimmering wakes. And you cross the alpine landscape, mercifully level, to reach Luxmore Hut, where sweet water drips from chrome taps.
A side trip - and the hardest bit of the Grunt, I should imagine - takes you to the summit of the Mount, about four hundred metres higher than the hut. And whilst this isn't high enough for the altitude to affect you, your ears pop, and your eyes pop, and your legs snap, and your lens crackles. And you thank God that you bought the same wide-angled camera to replace the one you lost in Nelson, as it eats views of the blue-black mountains.
From there, it's down, down, down, back to the flying devils of the beach, back through the forest which, strangely, seems to take longer on the way back, even though you're coasting by now, and bounding down, tops of the thighs burning.
On the way back, the proud and friendly guy driving the water taxi told us in friendly detail all about the races, and it was easy to ignore the moss-like hairs tumbling out of his friendly snout. And then he offered to ferry us back for free the next day, at the same time, if we wanted to go to the beach for the afternoon, as I guess we seemed friendly to him, too.
But today, the thought of walking on tired legs drove me instead to sit down in here and limit the punishment only to the tips of my typing fingers.
Wednesday 24 January 2007
Friday 19 January 2007
NEW ZEALAND: Deep inside the cold animal
I'M AT: Rainforest Retreat, Franz Josef Village, where they seem to have used all the wooden slats off the bottom of the bunks to make the walls, and where pushbutton showers are a luxury; and Matterhorn South, Wanaka, which is alpine-style and pretty cool - all the cooler for having the number two seed in Saturday's triathlon staying there.
So, there are something like 180 glaciers growing or shrinking their way down and up the mountains they call the Southern Alps. I walked on one of them, and to another, and the latter was cheaper, warmer and far better.
The Franz Josef Glacier is named after a Hapsburg Emperor, and is currently growing by roughly one metre a day. It's a dirty slab of white pinched between some sharp steeps, and for 130 dollars you can get yourself nice and cold and wet walking up it. The guiding company were excellent, very well organised, and distributed our little bags with iron claws on them, for strapping onto the boot. And from there we were off, slushing up a staircase that had to be iceaxed clean frequently, to give us a nice surface on which to grip.
Regular iceaxeing was a big part of the day, as it goes, and it's not often you can say that. Our guide Blair was all surfer-dude and wielded his big iceaxe like a bear, tearing new flats for us to traverse. And we got in a lot of walking, up over ledges, holding onto ropes, and down the sides of ice slides, edging our way and falling heavily on each foot to prevent slipping. I almost came a cropper at one point, spreadeagled above a churning potion of cold, but, thanks to the kind shove of an Israeli gentleman, who became increasingly obsessed with his iceaxe as the day went on, I escaped with only the dramatic whoosh of collapsing ice below me.
So, the ice is a deep, rich blue up the glacier, far different to the rock-strewn muck of the lower slopes. And we had to squeeze through a very, very tight corridor to progress, a squeeze which took ages, and left us wet and shivering. So we had a nibble of lunch, and eventually the feeling was welcomed back into the toes.
Overall, we walked for about 5 hours on the ice, up and down and through and round, and came back down a different path, to the side, and then onto rock, and then down, down again, through corridors, a maze of ice, and then we were done. It was interesting to see the churn of ice that close, and certainly different, but at the final count not all that enthralling.
Near Wanaka, though - in Mount Aspiring National Park, a place of deep, stunning, lush, wonder - there's a much less well-known beast, the Rob Roy Glacier, named, at a guess, after Rob Roy. And to get to it you need to walk through a thick forest of beech, by the rush and splash of the meltwater river. Now and again, through the trees, you glimpse a snicket of white, and all around are butterflies, and dandelions, and moths, and a parrot called a kea, with its thick green neck, cheeky, would nick your food, like a flying monkey.
After about an hour of the walk, the view opens up and you see the stunning, heartbreaking sight of the glacier, high up on the mountain, its terminal face hundreds of feet above, in a broad valley of meadow and rock, scree and pine. All down the wet rock opposite tumble waterfalls of melt, and now and again, the rumble of a collapsing cave, deep inside the cold animal.
The scale is immense, and the glacier is curled and cracked, linen white and pastel blue, and speckled by dappled shadow.
It's one of the best hikes I've ever done, and to crown it all, I was shuttled there and back by a clearly quite-mad Kiwi called Brenda, who interrupted the niceties of gentle conversation with a long monologue about her troubled teenage years, her lies, and her redemption in Wanaka.
She's one cold animal that this soul won't be melting.
So, there are something like 180 glaciers growing or shrinking their way down and up the mountains they call the Southern Alps. I walked on one of them, and to another, and the latter was cheaper, warmer and far better.
The Franz Josef Glacier is named after a Hapsburg Emperor, and is currently growing by roughly one metre a day. It's a dirty slab of white pinched between some sharp steeps, and for 130 dollars you can get yourself nice and cold and wet walking up it. The guiding company were excellent, very well organised, and distributed our little bags with iron claws on them, for strapping onto the boot. And from there we were off, slushing up a staircase that had to be iceaxed clean frequently, to give us a nice surface on which to grip.
Regular iceaxeing was a big part of the day, as it goes, and it's not often you can say that. Our guide Blair was all surfer-dude and wielded his big iceaxe like a bear, tearing new flats for us to traverse. And we got in a lot of walking, up over ledges, holding onto ropes, and down the sides of ice slides, edging our way and falling heavily on each foot to prevent slipping. I almost came a cropper at one point, spreadeagled above a churning potion of cold, but, thanks to the kind shove of an Israeli gentleman, who became increasingly obsessed with his iceaxe as the day went on, I escaped with only the dramatic whoosh of collapsing ice below me.
So, the ice is a deep, rich blue up the glacier, far different to the rock-strewn muck of the lower slopes. And we had to squeeze through a very, very tight corridor to progress, a squeeze which took ages, and left us wet and shivering. So we had a nibble of lunch, and eventually the feeling was welcomed back into the toes.
Overall, we walked for about 5 hours on the ice, up and down and through and round, and came back down a different path, to the side, and then onto rock, and then down, down again, through corridors, a maze of ice, and then we were done. It was interesting to see the churn of ice that close, and certainly different, but at the final count not all that enthralling.
Near Wanaka, though - in Mount Aspiring National Park, a place of deep, stunning, lush, wonder - there's a much less well-known beast, the Rob Roy Glacier, named, at a guess, after Rob Roy. And to get to it you need to walk through a thick forest of beech, by the rush and splash of the meltwater river. Now and again, through the trees, you glimpse a snicket of white, and all around are butterflies, and dandelions, and moths, and a parrot called a kea, with its thick green neck, cheeky, would nick your food, like a flying monkey.
After about an hour of the walk, the view opens up and you see the stunning, heartbreaking sight of the glacier, high up on the mountain, its terminal face hundreds of feet above, in a broad valley of meadow and rock, scree and pine. All down the wet rock opposite tumble waterfalls of melt, and now and again, the rumble of a collapsing cave, deep inside the cold animal.
The scale is immense, and the glacier is curled and cracked, linen white and pastel blue, and speckled by dappled shadow.
It's one of the best hikes I've ever done, and to crown it all, I was shuttled there and back by a clearly quite-mad Kiwi called Brenda, who interrupted the niceties of gentle conversation with a long monologue about her troubled teenage years, her lies, and her redemption in Wanaka.
She's one cold animal that this soul won't be melting.
Sunday 14 January 2007
NEW ZEALAND: Crafty
I'M AT: Brian and Ann's pad in Nelson; then the All Nations Pub in Barrytown, with should really be called All Nations Pub Town, cos there's nothing else there; and two places in Hokitika, Jade capital of New Zealand - Stumpers Bar where I got a single room to get a decent kip, which somehow I managed after only two bottles of wine; and Mountain Jade Hostel, which was streaming with nibbly children.
Travelling makes you do stuff that you probably wouldn't consider doing back home.
The Nelson Bonecarver, Stephan, a naturalised German, had a great reputation, so I decided to trouble Brian and Anna for another night in their gaff so I could go to the workshop (I made them a lasagne in lieu of rent.) And what a great decision it was. Let's set aside the fact that the pendant sitting around my neck now is very simple and pretty uninspired (although people seem to like it). That's my end of the bargain. Stephan's job was simply to be everything you can ask for in a teacher - patient, inspirational, methodical, disciplined and charming.
So with hacksaw and grinder and drill and sandpaper and polishing wheel, wearing sweaty goggles, we, a group of six (three Germans, a really nice English guy already wearing a handmade bone chimp who made a prancing horse for his niece, and an American Rabbi, who stained his bone qaballah with tea to give it the look of something that Methuselah might have worn) gave form to our paper designs. And the sun shone, we had lunch together, and Stephan taught us how to drill and carve and rub, and his process was great - we should take it step by step and let the carving evolve, rather than trying to draw a perfect pendant and slacishly follow it. And it was on this basis that I decided not to drill into the thing.
Stephan also told us about the Maori traditions underlying our work, and gave us each a bag and poem desribing the shapes each of us had chosen. Mine was the koru, the spiral, symbolising regrowth and change. This was all great news, because to me it looked like a mushroom.
This experience inspired me to make another bone carving in Barrytown, but unfortunately the guy only had half a day with us, so it felt a bit rushed, and he wasn't so into the spiritual side of things. As it happened, though, my carving was more visually complete.
It didn't end there. I also made a pendant out of jade, or greenstone, as they call it here. This was also great. Steve from the Solomon Islands watched over me and an Estonian perfectionist called Hanus as we made the greenstone milky with cuts. The design this time was a fishhook. I saw something similar to the one I'd done hanging up in the shop out front, priced at 210 NZ dollars. The whole workshop, a good, long day, including materials, had only cost me 90 dollars, and I'd made it. Me.
And it was clearly Me that made my knife, also made in Barrytown over the course of a day that involved heating steel until it glowed red, bashing it into shape on an anvil, cutting, gluing, pinning and shaping a handle, then grinding, polishing and sanding the blade. My misfortune here was that I didn't listen too well during the bash bash bit so my knife is really quite unelegant. Steve - another Steve - told me it was far more useful this way, and that, typically, you could hammer nails in all day with it. Next to the scimitars and bowie knives that the others had made, it looked like a dog's dinner. Great day though. And they had a giant swing that took four people to pull on a rope to prime, and a wooden wall for hurling axes into, and some moonshine made of sugar, water and yeast that sat in a silver still until we'd polished off the bottle Seve had put by for us. They had a dog, too. Two dogs in fact, although one was quite mysterious and didn't come out oo much; and a cat and some ducks. Oh, and cockateels. I got a lift on the back of Hamish's truck, stood to salute the passers-by with my non-grasping hand as we sped up the highway.
That's it for now, though. So don't worry too much about suspiciously pendant-shaped packages arriving around the time of your birthday.
Travelling makes you do stuff that you probably wouldn't consider doing back home.
The Nelson Bonecarver, Stephan, a naturalised German, had a great reputation, so I decided to trouble Brian and Anna for another night in their gaff so I could go to the workshop (I made them a lasagne in lieu of rent.) And what a great decision it was. Let's set aside the fact that the pendant sitting around my neck now is very simple and pretty uninspired (although people seem to like it). That's my end of the bargain. Stephan's job was simply to be everything you can ask for in a teacher - patient, inspirational, methodical, disciplined and charming.
So with hacksaw and grinder and drill and sandpaper and polishing wheel, wearing sweaty goggles, we, a group of six (three Germans, a really nice English guy already wearing a handmade bone chimp who made a prancing horse for his niece, and an American Rabbi, who stained his bone qaballah with tea to give it the look of something that Methuselah might have worn) gave form to our paper designs. And the sun shone, we had lunch together, and Stephan taught us how to drill and carve and rub, and his process was great - we should take it step by step and let the carving evolve, rather than trying to draw a perfect pendant and slacishly follow it. And it was on this basis that I decided not to drill into the thing.
Stephan also told us about the Maori traditions underlying our work, and gave us each a bag and poem desribing the shapes each of us had chosen. Mine was the koru, the spiral, symbolising regrowth and change. This was all great news, because to me it looked like a mushroom.
This experience inspired me to make another bone carving in Barrytown, but unfortunately the guy only had half a day with us, so it felt a bit rushed, and he wasn't so into the spiritual side of things. As it happened, though, my carving was more visually complete.
It didn't end there. I also made a pendant out of jade, or greenstone, as they call it here. This was also great. Steve from the Solomon Islands watched over me and an Estonian perfectionist called Hanus as we made the greenstone milky with cuts. The design this time was a fishhook. I saw something similar to the one I'd done hanging up in the shop out front, priced at 210 NZ dollars. The whole workshop, a good, long day, including materials, had only cost me 90 dollars, and I'd made it. Me.
And it was clearly Me that made my knife, also made in Barrytown over the course of a day that involved heating steel until it glowed red, bashing it into shape on an anvil, cutting, gluing, pinning and shaping a handle, then grinding, polishing and sanding the blade. My misfortune here was that I didn't listen too well during the bash bash bit so my knife is really quite unelegant. Steve - another Steve - told me it was far more useful this way, and that, typically, you could hammer nails in all day with it. Next to the scimitars and bowie knives that the others had made, it looked like a dog's dinner. Great day though. And they had a giant swing that took four people to pull on a rope to prime, and a wooden wall for hurling axes into, and some moonshine made of sugar, water and yeast that sat in a silver still until we'd polished off the bottle Seve had put by for us. They had a dog, too. Two dogs in fact, although one was quite mysterious and didn't come out oo much; and a cat and some ducks. Oh, and cockateels. I got a lift on the back of Hamish's truck, stood to salute the passers-by with my non-grasping hand as we sped up the highway.
That's it for now, though. So don't worry too much about suspiciously pendant-shaped packages arriving around the time of your birthday.
Sunday 7 January 2007
NEW ZEALAND: Dave and Jo and Lily and Brian and Anna and Jaia
I'M AT: Dave and Jo's place in Levin, a town reminiscent of scenes at the start of Blue Velvet - white picket fences, smiling children, with something dark and sinister lurking underneath the surface. That'll be the immense chocolate cake that we had to bury, then. AND, Brian and Anna's place, in Nelson, the sunniest place in New Zealand, surrounded by forested hills, with a river running through it that looked a LOT more tempting than even the drinking water back home.
Well, in some ways it's not fair, or polite, to lump my comments about two beautiful families into one post. But on the other, their lives share a lot of common ground.
Dave and Jo did an awful lot of research, and, I should think, spent an awful lot of money moving out here. It's a gamble, albeit a calculated one, that certainly looks like it's paying off - they're blissfully contented and happy, and pleased and eager to explore their new home. They took the coincidence of my arrival to try out a couple of walks in the local forests, and we had fun walking through the streaming mud. And, a very proud moment for me, one that perhaps Jo and Dave don't realise quite how priviledged I felt to be part of, was when I was given Lily in her sling to carry through the forest for the walk back. I felt really ridiculously proud and content, and I could concentrate on her, and look after her. I was with the Hattams for New Year, so we drank to 2007 with a bottle of toasty bubbles, and tried our best not to miss the chimes of Big Ben too much.
Brian and Anna, on the other hand, are really here by accident. Jaia was a surprise that arrived when the trees they were picking were pouring with apples, and since then they've both had to adjust very, very quickly to having a baby. But they, too, seem also blissfully happy, and this is in spite of Jaia's attempts to scream like she's being knifed every five minutes. They've made a conscious decision to carry on exploring the country, where Jaia and work will allow, and Anna went kayaking and jetboating with Jaia and her visiting sister, Lisa, in the short time that I was with them all.
Whilst they were doing so, Brian, Jaia and me scooted off to the Nelson Lakes NP, and we walked the wee thing up over dusty mud and tree roots, and she was quiet, so quiet all afternoon. The Nelson Lakes, accessed from the tiny town of St Alda, are very beautiful - grantie bulks heaving down into turquoise waters. Brian told me all about their time in New Zealand as we walked.
Jaia's eight months younger than Lily, and it's apparent to me that babies don't become interesting until they start reacting to you, start smiling and saying stuff. Jaia's too young to do that right now. I should imagine that there's a peaceable time, when they're around 12 to 18 months, and before they can properly articulate demands, when everything's sweet and golden and beautiful. Both families have this to look forward to.
And, despite being aware of the fact that this post is not very amusing, or deep, or interesting, I really do wish them all the bloody best, they're all such positive and happy people, and they deserve all the luck in the world.
But remember, lads, to spare a bit of time for the Guinness, eh? I won't always be there to remind you to raise a glass now and again.
Well, in some ways it's not fair, or polite, to lump my comments about two beautiful families into one post. But on the other, their lives share a lot of common ground.
Dave and Jo did an awful lot of research, and, I should think, spent an awful lot of money moving out here. It's a gamble, albeit a calculated one, that certainly looks like it's paying off - they're blissfully contented and happy, and pleased and eager to explore their new home. They took the coincidence of my arrival to try out a couple of walks in the local forests, and we had fun walking through the streaming mud. And, a very proud moment for me, one that perhaps Jo and Dave don't realise quite how priviledged I felt to be part of, was when I was given Lily in her sling to carry through the forest for the walk back. I felt really ridiculously proud and content, and I could concentrate on her, and look after her. I was with the Hattams for New Year, so we drank to 2007 with a bottle of toasty bubbles, and tried our best not to miss the chimes of Big Ben too much.
Brian and Anna, on the other hand, are really here by accident. Jaia was a surprise that arrived when the trees they were picking were pouring with apples, and since then they've both had to adjust very, very quickly to having a baby. But they, too, seem also blissfully happy, and this is in spite of Jaia's attempts to scream like she's being knifed every five minutes. They've made a conscious decision to carry on exploring the country, where Jaia and work will allow, and Anna went kayaking and jetboating with Jaia and her visiting sister, Lisa, in the short time that I was with them all.
Whilst they were doing so, Brian, Jaia and me scooted off to the Nelson Lakes NP, and we walked the wee thing up over dusty mud and tree roots, and she was quiet, so quiet all afternoon. The Nelson Lakes, accessed from the tiny town of St Alda, are very beautiful - grantie bulks heaving down into turquoise waters. Brian told me all about their time in New Zealand as we walked.
Jaia's eight months younger than Lily, and it's apparent to me that babies don't become interesting until they start reacting to you, start smiling and saying stuff. Jaia's too young to do that right now. I should imagine that there's a peaceable time, when they're around 12 to 18 months, and before they can properly articulate demands, when everything's sweet and golden and beautiful. Both families have this to look forward to.
And, despite being aware of the fact that this post is not very amusing, or deep, or interesting, I really do wish them all the bloody best, they're all such positive and happy people, and they deserve all the luck in the world.
But remember, lads, to spare a bit of time for the Guinness, eh? I won't always be there to remind you to raise a glass now and again.
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