After some
last-minute pre-Christmas busyness at work, including various
Christmas functions, the holidays were upon us and in the New Zealand
public sector this means 2 weeks of forced holiday, in which we only
actually have to take 3 days of leave, the rest is sponsored by the
Crown I suppose.
We had
planned to do a tramp in Fiordland and I had said to various people
that I wanted to do the Greenstone-Caples track, and invariably
people said “Or you could do the Hollyford …!!!”, so eventually
we settled on the Hollyford. There is theoretically a loop, but the
other section of the track is swampy, muddy, overgrown and less
managed and it didn't sound like a lot of fun, so instead I booked a
flight out of Martin's Bay, the endpoint.
We drove down to the
Hollyford valley in 2 days, camped at the track start and started
walking on the 24th December. The first day was long but
easy and I wondered how long before this tramp would also be turned
into a Great Walk. At the hut eventually 9 other people stayed, a
French family and a group of pack-rafters, these are people who have
an inflatable boat and they do large parts of the tramp over the
lakes and rivers. Seemed like a fun idea and we met many more
pack-rafters. One of them was German and had brought some items to
make Christmas Eve a special occasion. I was just happy to be far
away from all signs of Christmas celebrations otherwise.
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| Alabaster Hut with 2 packrafts |
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| The track wasn't really built for fat people... |
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| Or people with big packs! |
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| A sense of surefootedness was also required |
The second day the
walking became a bit more challenging as we came onto the Demon Trail
around midday. But first we saw a couple swimming in the river and as
we approached the lady called out to her partner, in Dutch, “people
coming!”, so I replied, in Dutch “Dutch people!” and she then
proceeded to tell us where we could get to the beach that they were
on. After we both had had our skinny dips in the refreshing water,
they shared some speculaas with us and we compared life stories.
These were very similar, as they were also a Dutch-German couple, and
were living in Australia, working at uni and in conservation, and
spending every Christmas doing walks. Quite funny how you meet people
in the middle of nowhere that are so similar to yourself.
In the evening we met up with another couple at the hut that one of our friends had told us about, she knew we were all doing the same tramp but in different directions so she had told me to keep an eye out for Peter and Katherine, and in the hut we met them and spent a nice evening together.
In the evening we met up with another couple at the hut that one of our friends had told us about, she knew we were all doing the same tramp but in different directions so she had told me to keep an eye out for Peter and Katherine, and in the hut we met them and spent a nice evening together.
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| Morning fog |
The third day was
hours and hours over the Demon Trail, so called because it is
completely uneven boulders, rocks, tree roots, and going steep uphill
and downhill. Basically you just spend the whole day looking at your
feet and where to put each next step, completely ignoring the views,
the forest, your partner. In a way a meditative exercise, nonetheless
not all too pleasant. We were surprised however when we reached the
hut 2 hours earlier than anticipated, and the lake shore was
surprisingly free of sandflies so I took another nice swim.
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| Chemtrails, even here?! |
The fourth day was
relatively easy again so we made it harder by crossing a river
resulting in wet boots. This was in search of a failed settlement
from 100 years ago, Jamestown, of which nothing but an old oven
remains, the rest back to thick forest. We reached Martin's Bay and
were again greeted by a pack of pack-rafters, and a swarm of
sandflies. It is a very beautiful spot, with a seal colony around the
corner, and a beautiful sunset.
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| Martin's Bay hut |
The next day we had
an extra day and decided to walk over the beach to the next bay, Big
Bay, and back. This took indeed all day and was in some ways the most
exhausting day, despite having much less to carry, and the ocean as
constant companion. It had been sunny and warm all week, which is
rather unusual for Fiordland, and on this day, being out of the
forest, we got sunburns, which Thomas proudly kept referring to as
“Fiordland sunburn” in the days to come. This was with several
layers of factor 30-50 sunscreen and hats, so it is not as if we
tried to get a sunburn either.
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| Boulder hopping to Big Bay, which is indeed quite big... |
After 5 days of
blissful sunshine, the day of our departure started raining, foggy
and grey. This was not ideal as our plane could not fly in such
conditions. We waited at the airstrip and were informed by someone
from the nearby lodge that planes could not fly yet, and that they
might send a helicopter. Some hours later 3 helicopters appeared one
after the other (or the same one three times) but each time they flew
to the lodge, not to us. Finally our small plane arrived and we were
distributed over the seats and off we were. Quite an experience in
such a small plane, the views were spectacular, amazing to see
Milford sound from the air for a change.
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| Swinging into Milford Sound |
After being
overwhelmed with the amount of people suddenly in this tourist hub,
we got onto a bus and were brought back to our car at the track
start. It had been a good tramp, but not one of the more spectacular
ones so I'm not sure why everyone kept recommending it to me, perhaps
because it is more isolated than other tramps, but it being the
holidays we still met quite some people.
After this adventure
we drove on to Queenstown where we were spending another week with an
elderly friend, Pat, who has a holiday home there. We spent some time
relaxing, eating, doing puzzles and watching tv, but also did some
more day-walks in the surroundings including up to Ben Lomond,
Queenstown's mountain.
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| Doing a puzzle with Pat, with the amazing view of the Remarkables Range |
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| Ben Lomond |
And we celebrated New Year's Eve,
including a fireworks show put on by Queenstown, which was our first
decent fireworks at New Year in New Zealand.
So these were 2
great weeks relaxing and meditating in different ways, some using
more energy than others, some being more frustrating than others (the
Amsterdam sky!!! Argh!!).
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| Unfinished sky over Amsterdam. Made me slightly homesick for the Amsterdam of the 80's, roughly the time this puzzle was produced... |
