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Published: April 30th 2006
These blogs are a real killer when they are left to long! It took me four hours yesterday just to get the pictures formated and uploaded to the sight ( and yes Fro that was time and money better spent than on my last place fantasy baseball team). It seems a shame sometimes to be sitting inside on a computer when there is so much to do, but it's gotta be done, especially with the phone rates in most places. How I'd love to have my laptop here sometimes, just so we would always be working with the same system instead of being at the mercy of internet cafes. Enough kvetching, on with the story. Dunedin as it turns out was built in a large bowl and no matter what way you leave you encounter a stiff climb. Therefore our trip out began with a lot of bike pushing instead of bike riding. It's no wonder everyone in town has large calf muscles. Once we got going we quickly got off the main highway for a quieter, more scenic costal road heading off to the Catlins region. We had a picture perfect ride all the way to Taieri Mouth were we
payed the price for our peacefull side road with 10k of gravel. Half of which was steeply uphill so it was off the bikes again and back to pushing. By the time we made the climb a thunderstorm had formed along our path in the distance, so we broke for lunch at a picnic stop hoping it would pass in front of us. This turned out to be fortunate for us because 15 min later it started to hail and we found shelter under the eaves of the outhouse. It cleared after 30 min but threatened us all the way to Milton where it opened up again just as we got to shelter. The evening turned fine and we found the domain camp where a kindly, middle-aged, surprisingly toothless man set us up with a site for the evening. A short day to Balclutha followed with a stay at one of the many excellent motor camps here that make it so easy to camp and a lovely evening visiting with the traveling retired Kiwis. By and large the people here have lived up to their reputation of being friendly, laid-back, and enjoyable. Our first day on the quiet roads of
the Catlins region was a good mix of nice scenery and hills but the weather was tending to stay sour so we were happy to get into Papatowai where we shared supper with NZ motorbikers, a couple from the U.K. and a couple from France. It was forecast to rain all night and the next day so the bikers offered us the use of their tarps to keep dry what we could. We've had so many small kindnesses. It did rain all night, but luckily it slowed enough for a period in the morning that we got the tent packed up without getting everything soaked. Forecasts were not improving so we decided before we left that we would book a room in Waikawa for a respite from the weather and then we were off. It was a cold day of wind and rain but it made it all the sweeter when we got to the cafe that was owned by the same people as the house we were staying at. After tucking into some good food we had to convince ourselves to get back out into the rain for the last 4k to our lodgings. It's funny how far 4k
can seem even though you've gone 50k already. We had the place to ourselves when we arrived and wasted no time stoking the fireplace and settling into the warmth of the cottage with a book and a cuppa tea. In the course of the night we decided this was a good place to take a break so we booked another night and enjoyed sleeping in. We filled the next day with reading and making phone calls untill the late afternoon, when the rain stopped we took off on a side trip to Curio Bay. Curio bay is home to the world's best preserved petrified forest, which can be seen at low tide. For an old science nerd it was a great chance to get on hand and knees andlook at the fossils. As we were walking out we were pleasently surprised by the appearance of a yellow eyed penguin. After watching him hop around the rocks for a while the rain forced us on our way back home. It wasn't long after returning that our company for the night Graeme and Kathy arrived. They are a couple from the south island that were spending some time holidaying in the Catlins
and they are a thoroughly entertaining couple. She was the first one to openly laugh at our pronuciation of the place names and it was great to have someone to use as a sounding board. We stayed up late talking and bid them farewell the next day with the idea that if we ever hear of jelly wrestling in Waimate, we just might go. That day was our longest distance yet and we rung up 110k on our ride to Invercargill and got to our campsite in the dark after some searching. After checking e-mail we found out we had missed a chance to hook up with some friends of a friend in Invercargill ( Erin tell them were sorry we missed them, maybe after Thailand?). A short day took us to Riverton where we spent the night sampling the wares at a pub with dire warnings from the locals of riding under the influence! A +90k day got us to Tuatapere with a stop at Gemstone beach to search for semi-precious stones in the surf. 90k more over a big hill and through some beautiful land took us out of the deep south and into Fiordland at Manapouri. Just
as we were setting up camp a British couple that we had run into a couple of times in the south came over to offer congratulations on the time we were making. A local band was the entertainment for the evening and seeing as it was easter holidays their was some lively activity in the campsite. You'll never see as many people in gumboots! We took the next day off and tried our hand at rowing on the river ( frustrating ) and did a little hiking to a scenic outlook that didn't exist. After settling on a schedule for the next two weeks we booked a kayak trip to Doubtful sound and made the short trip to Te Anau. Made an attempt to do the blog in Te Anau but nobody offered internet service with a USB port so no luck. We luckily found a cheap raincoat for me and I finally put to rest my struggle to get the one I bought on E-bay two months ago over here. Little did I know that i would rip the coat the next morning! We met up with our fellow kayakers that night for a briefing and went home to
prepare for a early morning departure. Up at 5 and in the van on the road back to Manapouri at 6, onto the boat and across Lake Manapouri, out of the boat and back into another van for the hour drive overland to Doubtful Sound. You get the idea that this place is a little remote. The only reason their is a road is because of the Hydro power station on Lake Manapouri. Utilizing natural lake levels the power station takes advantage of the elevation diference between the lake (178m)and Doubtful sound (sea level) 10k away. They sunk turbines 220m into the mountain and bored out 10k of tail race tunnels to Doubtful sound. The sounds of Fiordland are not really sounds at all but fiords created during ice ages when glaciers scoured the granite and gneiss mountains creating deep u shaped valleys with verticle sides which later filled with water as sea levels rose. It rains so much in Fiordland (+6m/yr) that there is a 3 to 15m layer of freshwater that sits on the seawater underneath. It's wild ,remote, stunning and a great place for a kayak trip! Our crew consisted of 3 Brits, 1 German, 1 Kiwi
and Dee, our guide. We expected rain the entire trip but ended up with excellent weather. All in all a great trip with the one downside that the waterproof camera we bought broke after only 8 pics so we didn't get many good shots. Dee is on her way to Canada this summer for a year to do some guiding in B.C., good luck, maybe see you there! After returning from the kayak trip we were right off on the bikes for Milford sound thinking that maybe it would be a little redundant now that we had seen Doubtful but was it ever worth it! The road to Milford in the rain is probably one of the top five rides in the world. When it rains their are waterfalls everywhere cascading down the black rock walls and the sound of rushing water never leaves your ears. It's hard to keep eyes on the road. One of the great things about a bike is you stop whenever you want and that you are in it the whole time. It wouldn't have been nearly the same in a car. We broke it up over two days riding mostly in the afternoon to
avoid the ridiculous amount of buses going into Milford daily. Some eco-tourism operators refer to Milford sound as a sacrificial area being given over to overuse. It is a rolling road with a steady climb all the way to Homer saddle where you run into a vertical wall of granite, with the black hole of the Homer tunnel diving into the mountain at a steep grade for 1.2k with minimal lighting inside. While we waited to enter the tunnel we were entertained by a couple of Keas (mountain parrots) and the asians taking pictures of them. Thankfully during busy periods the tunnel is controlled with traffic lights operating at 15min intervals so we just waited for the cars to go ahead and jumped in after them down through the dark. The downhill that begins at the mouth of the tunnel continues steeply for 10k through hairpin turns untill in begins to lessen in steepness over the last 10k into Milford. It was a white knuckle ride down in the rain that absolutely destroyed our brakes. What a ride! We spent the night at the cosy backpackers and got on a cruise of the sound the next day in the sound.
It was a good chance to cover the entire sound and we got out into the Tasman sea where the waves were up. Standing at the front of the boat if you jumped at the right time the boat would fall away into the trough of the wave under you giving you more hang time than Mike. Tragically though the fun lasted only a short time as sissy boy had another battle with sea-sickness. I'm not a puker yet though. As part of the plan we caught a shuttle back to Te Anau from Milford as opposed to attempting the 20k climb up through the tunnel. Also we had booked onto the Kepler Track, one of N.Z.'s great walks, for the next day. After some hurried preparation we got our excess gear into storage and walked out of Te Anau with our packs on for the start of the Kepler track. The Kepler Track takes you 67k through the Kepler mountains between Te Anau and Manapouri with a day spent walking the ridges above the treeline, which provides spectacular views. For more info check out
Kepler Track. You stay in huts along the track that are maintained by the Department of
Conservation, which require booking in the summer. The track is busy and you have to accept that it won't always be peacefull, so when we caught up to a large group half-way through the first day it didn't bother me that much, but boy would that change! They had stopped for a break so we stopped for a quick chat and then moved on. Well of course they decided to pick up right on our heels and made quite a racket. We outpaced the main part of the pack to regain some solitude for the push uphill. Coming out of the trees spirits were high with the views and the hard work. We came to the first hut of the tramp, The Luxmore, which consists of bunkrooms and a kitchen/dining area and settled in. Soon enough the pack filtered in and the volume in the hut went continuously higher, especially as the wine went down. Now usually I'm not one to complain about a little noise and a little drinking, but the antics of one particular dutch dude were really starting to grate. We gave up on the kitchen and headed to the bunkrooms to find that out of 40
beds to choose from they had chose to surround ours! And just guess who was right above us, that's right the dutchman who from here on out will be refered to as" the clod". We had to laugh at first and things went well until they all rolled in from the kitchen for bed. The clod had taken it upon himself to polish off what was supposed to be a three night supply of wine all in the first night and therefor was quite drunk. After about 30 min of childish gibbering the rest of the group finally got the clod to shut up and go to sleep. Whew, that was over now we can get some sleep, right? Wrong. We awoke about an hour later to an ominous gurgling/spitting sound coming from above. It didn't really sink in until we started hearing the sound of drips landing on our bed just above our heads, what had happened. Of course the acrid smell of used red wine soon confirmed the worst, the clod had puked in the bunk above us. The bunks we were in were large enough for four people, so at first we just moved to the other
end of the bed and tried to sleep. Soon though for one reason or another it started dripping again, but this time further down the bed. Well that was it for that bed. We got all our stuff together in the dark and moved to the other end of the bunkroom. Not much sleep after that, we were to mad. To think that this was the first of three nights we would be spending with them! Needless to say he was a little subdued in the morning. After that night we tried our best to avoid them but some of them must have felt bad because they made an effort to be nice.In the end they were all nice people, even the clod, but what a first impression! It was about 5hrs a day hiking with the worst of it being the downhill sections. By the end we were stiff as a board and even today, four days later, my calves aren't all right. Back in Te Anau we hid out at our lodge but wouldn't you know it the clod appeared! Apparently they couldn't get served at the bar because another of the group was too loaded! What a
gang. He left with a promise to stop by for a beer if he ever makes it to Canada. I said sure I live at 235 10th St. Weyburn SK, 842-3485, come stay anytime! Seeing as our legs were not going to be operational for a while we decided to grab the shuttle into Queenstown, which brings us up to date. I know your probably as tired of reading this as we are of being at the computer so we'll leave you with a few shout outs.
* thanks for the yahtze Kirsten and Scott, it comes in handy
*thanks Jeff for the updates from work, your Atlas now buddy
*Heubner thanks for the e-mail finally
*Lisa we look forward to some baby pics! Best wishes
* no beer yet Kevin
*thanks Lamy for the Ipod it's been great
* Linda did I win?
*thanks everyone for the comments, it makes the work worth it!
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Aunt Debbie
non-member comment
What an experience!
Hi Guys! We've been keeping up with your travels. The pictures are fantastic and journal entries interesting - not boring. What a great way to keep track of everything and keep us all updated. Will continue to check in on your progress. My ears perked up when I heard the word kayak. Have fun, take care and enjoy this wonderful, lifetime experience! P.S. Must admit Brett, it took me a few minutes to figure out who the guy with the beard was!