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Published: March 9th 2005
It’s a complicated and incomprehensive title this time? I know, but there’s a story behind it, don’t worry… Tuesday morning we head out from Murchison to a village named St. Arnaud, for my first tramp (which is a hike of more then 1 day) - the 2 days Angelus hut trek in Nelson lakes national park. Based on our previous luck (mainly Erez’s), we trusted to have a good weather. There are 3 ways to go to the hut, so you choose one to go up and one to go down. We chose the most difficult one to go up the 1000m between us and the hut (well, I didn’t choose but I also didn’t carry the big bag with 2 sleeping bags, cooking stuff and food for 2 days… so who was I to decide?). We had a 3 hours nice stroll on the lake side and another hour in the valley, then 3 hours of a “intermediate effort” climb through the bush, walking next to a stream with numerous small waterfalls. It was marvelous - a picnic by the stream, filling our bottle directly from it, the water was so tasty. And then, just when you are “a bit”
tired after 7 hours walking, the real climb starts, similar to Avalanche Peak that we did a few days ago, climbing with both feet and hands. And if it is not hard enough, the weather changed and it rained quiet heavily. We reached the hut next to small Angelus Lake tired and wet, but with a big smile on the face… I made it!
Our dinner wasn’t bad - a soup, instant couscous with freshly cooked potatoes and carrots, and chocolate chip cookies.
We woke up to find ourselves in the middle of the clouds, seeing nothing. The views from the top (the hut is at 1600m altitude, and we climb 200m more in the morning) are supposed to be remarkable but we didn’t really see them. We walked through the Robert Ridge track down, walking on the saddle, scary wind, rain in the first hour… it sounds bad but it is a kind of an experience too, I can’t complain. And then, after about 3 hours, the clouds decided to go… and then we saw the beautiful views of the valleys on both sides of the track. Indeed, they were beautiful!
Back in our car, we dove to
This is just part of the climb!!
See the end of the mountain? Well, it's not the end, we climbed higher than that!Kaikura. Those who were in NZ might have noticed our zig-zagging, but in the beginning we were about to skip Kaikura hearing that it’s not worth it, but then we heard differently and changed our mind. We changed it for 2 reasons: the whale watching cruises and the excellent sea food there… And so the luxurious part starts: the things I dreamt about while walking in the rain in wet shoes: the Jacuzzi in the backpacker… it’s great to remember it even now when I write, and dinner in the best restaurant in town: the White Morph.
I must describe this dinner to you, even if I become hungry thinking about it… I started with Paua Ravioli. Yes, the same Paua shell that I love buying the jewelry made from it, has a tasty meat inside. The Ravioli was served inside the shell, it was beautiful as much as it was tasty. Erez started with a salad of Rocket, smoked hare (similar to a rabbit), caramelized nuts and some other things I don’t remember. Delicious. For mains, I took the specialty: a crayfish. It was gooooood. Erez took venison (which is a deer or similar) with onion marmalade and
polenta. I think it was even better then the crayfish, made exactly the right red color inside, great tastes. The NZ red wine (Cabarnet Merlot) wasn’t bad too. The desserts were sweet and good. Easily my best dinner in NZ, but there wasn’t really any competition (well, for 154 NZ$ for 2 we can eat a whole week usually…)
And after such a great meal, we finished the day in our shared backpacker’s room, in our sleeping bags… Isn’t the world funny sometimes?
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