Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2006
SUB NOTE: HAVE ADDED PHOTOS. LOTS TO MAKE UP FOR THESE BEING THE LAST ONES. ENJOY! x
(This is a long one guys, you have been warned - New year, mad jumping, Milford and an epic walk all in one. I was going to mention that you would be rewarded your reading efforts by showing you lots of photos, but alas I've misplaced my USB wire after the last blog, so sadly there will be no more photos - which I'm actually quite sad about. I can still transfer photos to CD though with weird things known as chip readers, and will be doing so in a couple of days, so watch this space as I may be able to get some posted from CD...).
Well, once again, planet Earth has done a jig round the sun and the torment of mistakingly writing the previous year on dates and crossing it out starts all over again. Happy New Year everyone, and I hope your memories of New Year's Eve (if you have retained them...) are good ones. I don't usually bother, but this year I have decided upon an appropriate resolution - to remember people's names, a skill I'm
usually worse than hopeless at. And what better way to practise than suddenly befriending a group of people on New Year's Eve by the usual protocol: a traveller's handshake and receiving of a random name - in this case, 7 in a row. So together we did some bar hopping, fireworks watching, talked nonsense and counted in the New Year with a bang with 30,000 other revellers on the streets of Wanaka, Queenstown's smaller brother; and despite some drinking I'm proud to say I have remembered all their names. Test one achieve, and a fun New year's party was had.
Anyways, as (I would hope) is evident my now, I survived the bungee jump from the 43m Karawau Bridge. Not necessarily the tallest bungee I could do, but it's the original, where the world's first professional bungee took place back in 1988 by AJ Hackett, and the one I've been wanting to do for all my thrill-seeking life. The incredible 450ft Nevis Wire bungee with 8 seconds of freefall, will have to wait til when I next come back to NZ (which I suspect won't be too far into the future) and when I'm less poor. The 140ft Karawau
View of Queenstown
Another mountain climbedBridge may seem tame in comparison, but I assure you, standing with my toes over the edge of the bridge, my ankles bound together by the total strength of a towel, and the river grinning at me from far below, tame it was not! Unlike a parachute jump, this time it was completely up to me to make the move, a move I envisaged couldn't be toooo hard - a somwhat naïve thought in hindsight. But competing against all my brain's subconscious might to protect me, I took the plunge. What a rush! 3 seconds of free-fall, the ultimate feeling of falling and pleading for the elastic to take some effect soon, while "hey guys...the err...river is err..getting quite close now..". Bouncing up and down about 4 times, I grabbed like a wild monkey at a pole and was lowered to a boat (that incidentally overlooks the cliffs where the Pillars of the Kings were digitally superimposed on either side of the River Anduin at the end of the 'Fellowship of the Rings' for the nerds amongst you, like me). Like the skydive, an awesome experience I can't wait to repeat, despite having a blood-rushing headache for the rest of
the day.
Queenstown's population explodes during the summer months, so after a couple of 'normal' days here, I decided to head back up to the more peaceful Wanaka for New Year. This included recovering from a hangover by a friend and I visiting the "Happy Fun for all the family" Puzzling World. I know what you're thinking - it sounds horrible, but as those who know me will know, the prospect of puzzles, rooms full of illusions, and a maze to get lost in (the first of the world's makeshift mazes now hugely popular in Japan) tragically sets my fingers tingling with excitement, much to the humility of others. So don't worry, I won't dwell on the subject, but it was a pretty cool place...honestly it was.
I then hitched my way sound, 250km to Te Anau, gateway to Milford Sound and some of the best walks in the world, including the Milford, Kepler and Routeburn. Milford is probably the most popular walk in the world - much to my disappointment when trying to book in October and discovering it was already fully booked to the end of March! Well, there goes that dream for this trip.
New Year's Eve!
Cheers to everyone! Next time (a phrase, like most travellers, I'm growing used to saying). Hitching was slow for the first hour, until a cyclist kindly mentioned I was standing on the wrong road out of town, which will explain the laughter I was getting from some of the vehicles; an easy mistake to make I assured my red-cheeked self, when both roads out of town head in roughly the same direction (la la la). But switching roads, I got a lift within 30 minutes - so getting in a car with three cool peeps, Led Zeppelin blaring out the car stereo, we drove through the beautiful terrain to Te Anau.
After some mental to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to book myself onto one of the day tours to Milford Sound, and amazingly pleased I did; the natural world at its best, not just at Milford but for the 100km road trip there too, one of the most scenic road trips I've ever been on. The coach was unique too, by having a see-through roof, commentary (which was shouting out more names than even my resolution can remember), and no Japanese tourists on board. After driving through glacial terrain, bush rainforest, mountain
valleys etc, we boarded a ferry, the only way to see Milford Sound really. Supposedly the ferry was quite busy, but I wouldn't know as I found a spot up top at the front and just stubbornly sat there for the entire 2-hour trip out to Tasman Sea and back in. It really is awe-inspiring (yeh, I've found an adjective I haven't used yet) - there aren't many places one can see entire mountains, like Mitre Peak, ascending right from the sea to the clouds, plus all the mountains had a fresh new beautiful topping of icing sugar from the previous day. This is possibly why Rudyard Kipling described Milford Sound as the 8th Wonder of the Natural World. I was also pretty lucky in that it didn't rain at all, this being one of the wettest places on the planet; 3 times as much as Singapore and over 6 times that of London - 6500mm. Absolutely superb and a day trip I'd recommend to anyone visiting NZ.
Finally, to complete my stay in Te Anau, I decided to do a 'small' day walk on some of the Kepler Track. Time has run out unfortunately so I was disappointed
I couldn't do the entire track over 3 to 4 days, as I had originally intended. Nevertheless, I thought I would do a small taster, just to the top of the Luxmore Mountain and back down. But on walking up, my legs carried me quicker than I thought they would - woo! All these physical activities these last few weeks have not been in vain. And thus it was on the walk up that the now well-known to you 'Simon's seed of stupid ideas' was planted - "I wonder if I could walk this in a day?" - But it wasn't a complete spur of the moment decision, more of a spur of a half-hour decision as I sat with trusty blue calculator in hand, working out realistic estimates of how long it would talk me. The answer was 11pm, so I just kept going..and going..and.. Walking over the Kepler Mountains was fun - my final major taste of snow in the form af an all-out blizzard on the mountain pass which was thus apparantly closed, although a number of trampers and myself never saw the sign. Walking through deep snow I descended the other side into beautiful old moss-covered
forests and valleys for the remainder of the walk. I must admit, the last few hours were a real struggle when I began to realise the idiocy of my idea, legs just moving as if on a motor you can't switch off, needing a torch for the final hour (which thankfully I bought with me, using it for a cave earlier), and getting to the hostel at midnight, with the hugest grin across my face.
One of New Zealand's 9 Great Walks, 60kms, in one day. I still can't believe it. But it was worth it just to see the look on people's faces when I told them what I'd just done. And that's that - another story to tell the grandchildren. Unfortunately, because of the blizzard there was no views of the mountains but the track was still really beautiful. My ankles have still to forgive me though, and will take time to de-bruise, so I'm walking round like a cripple at the moment. This may well be my last blog I write in New Zealand, as I'm currently in Edinburgh..well, Dunedin (Gaelic for Edinburgh) and then on to Christchurch to fly. However, I refuse to conclude from
err.....yes!
I love this photo!! this country just yet, as there's two more big things left to do - saying 'hello' to penguins and crashing a plane.
So until then, Happy New Year. Sorry for the long blog, and sorry there's no photos, but please check back in a couple of days as I will try and transfer some from CD - and some are really quite fine! Bye bye.. x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.178s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 24; qc: 92; dbt: 0.0988s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Willo
non-member comment
thats incredible!
wow by my calculations thats a walk of 37.282 271 534 miles! Thats a really amazing effort for such a fat bastard! enjoy borneo!