Greenstone and Caples Tracks

As most of you know, there is world-class hiking to be had within a couple hour's drive of Queenstown. Steph had about 4 days straight off work, so we decided to try our hand at a multiple day "tramp" as it is called here. Obviously summer is high season for hiking, so many of the Great Walks are both crowded and really expensive. Most locals will tell you that some of the lesser used and well known hikes are actually better than their famous counterparts, so we decided on the Greenstone and Caples tracks, which run parallel to the famous Routeburn and can be hiked in a 64 km (40 mile) loop. Normally this would be hiked in a good 3 if not 4 nights, staying at huts along the way. This is the way to do it; taking your time and enjoying the scenery and wilderness, but of course that's not the way we were gonna do it. Steph isn't too keen on staying in the huts, since she heard they are infested with mice (very true actually), and neither of us really sleep all that well in a tent. So, why not just do the whole thing in 2 days? How bad could it be? After all, hiking is walking, and we can surely walk 30 km's a day, right? As it turns out, yes we can...

We probably should have turned right around and never started the hike, because it did not start off well. Before we could even get there, we got in a wreck. So we had picked up a hitchhiker - a German guy named Ollie that had just finished his hikes and was on his way back to his car - and were chatting with him when we came around a bend on a narrow gravel road to see another car speeding our way. I'm not sure if my natural instinct was to swerve to the right or if the bank on the right was just more favorable than the drop-off on the left, so I ended up just stopping where I was. Unfortunately where I was was too close to the bank and the other driver swerved into it, bounced off and we clipped. It wasn't all that bad really, but he was pretty adament it was all my fault and we don't have insurance, so we have no idea what will happen next. We're hoping it's just one of those things that happens and everybody goes their own way, but I'm afraid we'll be getting a call from his insurance any day now. It's a headache and I just want it to be settled.

But alas, we did start hiking, and hiking, and hiking. I will say that it was a beautiful hike - lush alpine valleys, crystal-clear rivers, open meadows (complete with cows and sheep), snow-capped mountains, a peaceful lake, and...mud.

The going was really easy most of the first day - most of it was along the Greenstone river in the shade, but there were some grueling stretches in the open meadows with the sun beating down on us. Still, at least we were dry - that was soon to change. The Greenstone and Caples rivers are some of the best fly fishing rivers around, so I made sure to bring my gear with me in case I got some time to fish. When we stopped for a break early that first day, I spotted a huge dark trout in a deep hole behind a boulder, so I whipped out my gear and tried for about 5 minutes to hook the guy, but Steph wanted to keep moving. I figured there'd me more opportunities the next day, so off we went. Towards the end of the first day we hit the muddy, marshy-like meadows, which we had no choice but to just tramp through and get our feet soaked. We had already done about 25 kms at this point, so our last 5 of the day was spent sludging through mud and generally being pretty miserable. Steph even lost her shoe in the mud at one point, which she sent me to retrieve. Regardless, we eventually made it to the McKellar Hut where we would spend our first night.

The huts, which are common throughout New Zealand, are basically nothing more than a kitchen area that is usually no more than a counter and sink, a dining area, a fire for warmth, and a bunch of bunks. We had brought the tent along, so we pitched it right outside the hut before going inside to nurse our blisters and cook dinner. There were about a dozen people staying in the hut that night - a couple families, a few others that kept to themselves, and two guys that had just hiked the same 30 km section we had. One of the guys was a Harvard grad named Ben that used to work on Wall Street but has since spent a year backpacking Australia and now New Zealand. The other guy, Viet, had sold him some gear at an outdoor shop in Dunedin and the ended up spending a week hiking and traveling together. That kind of thing seems to happen a lot in New Zealand. Anyways, everyone called it an early night and I went to bed hoping that Steph wasn't actually considering hiking the remaining 34 km's (over a mountain pass) back to the car the next day. I would wake up disappointed...

One thing I used to boost my spirits at the end of the first day was that at least we were ending our hike with mud and water instead of starting that way, as people going the other direction would. Turns out, we got to experience that after all, since our second day started with more water and a LOT more mud before going straight up a hill climbing over a maze of tree roots the whole way up. We were at least glad to be going up that way, since going down would be pretty slippery and thus dangerous. We couldn't imagine how miserable it would have been if it had been raining.

The views from the top weren't the best we've seen but they were worth the trek up.

Luckily the trip down the other side was much easier and we were mesmerized by the incredibly clear streams and lush fern-covered forest. We moved at a good pace for most of the time - except for a grueling 3 miles or so of walking almost exclusively on a network of roots that covered every bit of ground (really tough on the blisters). I kept telling myself that Steph would surely give up and we could stop at one of the huts on the way back, rest, relax, do some fishing, and hike out the next day. I still don't know what it is, but she was determined like I had never seen before. I don't know what would have convinced her to stop, and she may have been close to breaking at a few points, but we just kept going and going and going. The two guys we had met the night before had decided to complete the hike that day too, so we traded places with them many times that day and ended up hiking the last 5 miles or so with them. I can say that my feet hurt every single step I took of those 20+ miles we hiked that day, and I'm sure Steph can say the same, but we made it. Somehow. We were of course exhausted and almost delirious, but a hot shower was waiting for us at home so we jumped in and headed back. Ben and Viet couldn't resist either, and took us up on our offer to have a shower and crash on our couch.

I can say for sure that I have never been so sore in my life, and my feet still hurt 3 days later, but it was a good experience and was cool to meet some fellow travelers along the way. I doubt we'll be doing any big hikes anytime soon, but there has been talk of making a trip to the beach soon so stay tuned.

Click HERE for the rest of the pictures from our hike!

Dunedin and Otago Peninsula

The original plan was to use Queenstown as a base to explore the other areas of the South Island, but we haven’t been able to go anywhere else in a while since we have no money (because I am a bum). Steph has also been really itching to get out of town and visit a ‘real city’ (with real shopping), so literally the minute I got some money from river surfing we loaded up and headed southeast to Dunedin. It’s about a 3 and a half our drive, and we didn’t get out of town as early as hoped, but we still opted to make a short detour to visit the Moeraki Boulders - a popular tourist destination,. Basically it’s a bunch of perfectly round boulders just sitting on the beach. We didn’t do much background research, but apparently they formed due to something with the wave cycle and they fell off the cliff as the waves eroded it away. The Maori regarded them as baskets that were on some boat that crashed nearby, with the cliffs and other natural features making up the crashed boat and other parts thereof. You’d think it would be representatives of the crashed boat and baskets, but I don’t think so. I think they are literal. Anyways, that’s all I got for you. We took our obligatory photos and were off on our way.

Dunedin is mainly known as a college town, as it is home to Otago University which is the biggest university on the South Island. The students are on break at the moment, so it was basically just us and the other tourists. Before I gave Steph the chance to do some shopping and explore the city, we spent our first afternoon doing what I had hoped to do - searching for wildlife on the Otago Peninsula. First we drove out to the tip of the peninsula where there is an albatross colony. Now I’ve never seen one, but from what I can tell an albatross is a really big seagull, so right off we weren’t all that determined to see one. We went to a lookout but all we could see were hundreds of regular-sized seagulls and lots of cormorants, and you have to pay to get better access to the actual colony, so that was it for the albatross’. We did learn one interesting factoid - albatross mate for life, with the male flying one way around the globe and the female the other, and they meet up every couple years within 2 days of each other to mate. Wicked!

Cliff with bird colonies

The real gem of the Otago Peninsula - and what we were there to see - are the penguins. There are two types - the yellow eyed and the little blue penguin - that nest on the peninsula. Of course there are business that let you pay to see the colonies, and of course we weren’t about to do that. So, we made about a 30 minute trek through some sand dunes and along the beach to get the slight chance to see a penguin. We were immediately greeted by a large seal lazing about on the beach, along with about a dozen of his friends sprawled out on the nearby rocks. The Department of Conservation has a hide to view the penguins from (apparently they are scared off if they see people waiting for them on the beach), so we waited. They said you have the best chance to spot the penguins as they come into shore in the late afternoon after a day of hunting out at sea. We were a bit early, but lucked into one little yellow-eyed penguin who must have had a good day and came home early. He hopped up on the rocks, stood there for a while (apparently to build up his energy, as I would soon found out why), then started a mind-boggling trek up the side of this cliff to wherever his nest must be. It was truly amazing to watch this little guy hop up this steep slope probably 400 feet high. We have a good video of it, which we'll post soon.

Walk down to beach and penguin colony - at the far end of the beach you can see here

Not a great picture because we were far away, but I can confirm that is a penguin!

No other penguins showed up for a while, so we took off to go to another beach where we hoped to see the little blue penguins. Unfortunately these guys don’t come in until just after dusk, and we were starving and had no place to sleep, so we didn’t bother to wait around for them to show up. Too bad, because there can be as many as 50 or 60 of them show up in one night and walk right past you to their nests. Reason enough to go back I guess.

One thing Steph and I still struggle with is missing the food from back home. We have Subway and whatever recipes we decide to make, but that’s about it. So when we found out that Dunedin has a Pizza Hut, Steph ditched my promise to have a nice dinner and we ordered the biggest pizza they make and downed the entire thing as we sat in the car outside. It was great. We still didn’t have a place to stay, though, and didn’t feel like paying to camp or stay in a hostel. One of the more popular ways to tour New Zealand is to rent a campervan and “freedom camp” - park somewhere public for the night for free. This sounded right up our alley, but we could not for the life of us find a good spot, so we slept in the back of the car in a hotel parking lot. Not the most glamorous thing ever, but it was free and we both slept reasonably well. The next morning Steph hit her groove. Starbucks first, of course. Then some walking around town to take pics and see some of the sights (shops weren’t open yet). Next we had to go see the World's Steepest Street (residential, apparently) which I can attest was really, really steep. Barely made it up there in the car. Steph refused to ride back down with me and opted to walk.

It was still early, so we headed over to the “botanic garden” expecting to wonder around a bit before going back into town. Boy were we wrong. Who would have known little Dunedin with a population of about 120,000 would have such an incredible botanical gardens? It was HUGE, really well manicured, with loads of different exhibits and gardens, and a cool aviary. We spent a good two hours walking around and seeing the place until the memory card on the camera got full (Steph loves taking pictures of flowers).

big leaf!

You should have seen the look on Steph’s face when she realized that Dunedin has an actual indoor shopping mall. I’m pretty sure the hour or so she spent wandering around that mall was the highlight of her month. She was on such a high that I was even able to talk her into driving about half of the way back to Queenstown! Sweet. Hopefully if/when I keep making money on the river, we’ll be able to make more trips in the near future. Next on our radar - an overnight hike and a trip to the beaches near Invercargill on the very south tip of the South Island. See ya soon!

For more pics from this trip, click HERE.

Happy New Year and some pics

Happy New Year everyone! As promised, here are some pics since I have the laptop working (at least temporarily).

Not a great pic, but here is my fish!

This is from the top of the Remarkables

Steph sliding down some leftover snow

Battery is about to die, see ya soon!