Ultimately Awesome
Our time in Wanaka seems like it was ages ago. Well, it was over a week and a half ago when we were sipping beers on the sidewalk deck with the strange-but-true folks Eli and Bee and Mylene. The time between then and now has been chocker block full of adventure, let me tell you... Yes, let me tell you. Cycling out of Wanaka on a clear blue day, we passed the tell-tale signs of fall: cool breezes, clear skies, and fabulously yellow leaves on the trees lining the roads and spreading over the hillsides.
It was really great to be back on the open road. My bum was pleasantly happy to be back on the saddle, but that may have something to do with my new sky-blue bike shorts... Very saucy... Brian approves of the view from behind.
Our day's cycling took us past Cordrona ski hill area and the somewhat famous Cordrona Hotel, which is mostly famous for one poster advertisment for NZ Speights Beer where the photograph poster shows a whole wack of sheep out front of the hotel at dusk. It's a nice poster, but I'm not paying $35 for it. But, I will use your toilet, thanks.
Across the street from the hotel, there was a parking lot that had various tour buses stopping and starting with bucket-loads of tourists using the toilets and taking photos of the hotel. Wait a minute, I can't possibly be one of those tourists, even though I had the same itinerary (toilet usage and classic photo). But I really, really had to pee. Anyway, there was one big old bus carrying a full load of senior citizens, mostly females. While I was exiting the toilet room, one elderly, purple-haired lady entered and looked me up and down while saying, "My-oh-my, you look very active! So fit! Golly!" It must have been my new blue shorts that won her over, so I said thank you, and moved outside where I witnessed a number of the ladies chatting and loitering in front of the hotel (see photo below). I love how most elderly people look the same: old lady sweaters, function over fashion cross trainers, and big purses probably containing three different brands of white mints and copious squares of slightly used tissues (the ones not stuffed into the sleeve of their old lady sweaters).
We continued to ride up the gradual slopes up to Coronet Peak, the highest paved road in New Zealand (1076m)! If I can cycle up this, I can cycle up anywhere in this country! The views were stunning, and we could see all the way to Queenstown.
After succeeding in arriving at the peak with a heart rate within the average range for exercise (I surprisingly didn't die trying to get to the top, although I did manage to squeek out a few swear words directed to the gradient of the slope near the top), we celebrated with two things: First a congrats kiss...
And secondly, a fantastic lunch of champions. A welcome surprise for Brian: bagels with cream cheese, smoked salmon and hummus. Oh so delicious!
The ride down the opposite side of Coronet Peak was much more steep than the ride up, so I prepared for the chilly ride by putting on my down jacket, scarf, mitts, and pants. Believe me, it was required! The air zipping by us was so freezing cold, and my hands began to cramp up from harping on the breaks the entire 1076 metres of elevation loss down the hill. Think multiple wild switchbacks and attempts to prevent overheating of my breaks, all while keeping enough control to stop a suicidal fall to the bottom of all bottoms. Whoa.
A short hop-skip-and-a-jump to Queenstown which included a few days stay in a shitty hostel and one fantastic burger... If you go to Queenstown, you must go to a local burger joint called Fergburger. I like burgers a lot, and I mean a lot. I honestly think this was the best burger I've ever had. And I think the fact that I'm famished all the time has nothing to do with my high-prized claim.
A walk in town at night brought two lovely scenes. The first was a photo of the waterfront from my favourite tree in the Queens Park.
The second scene was a little stream flowing next to a well-lit building. The rocks in the stream looked like the spine of some extraordinary reptile when captured by my eye (and camera).
The last time I was in Queenstown, my friend Allison gave me the name and contact information for a hometown friend of hers, but we never met up, so this time I decided to make the call, and Brian and I met the official members, Mr. and Mrs. Queenstown. These two are great! Christina and Perg, a Brit-turned Kiwi who met and married a country-town Albertan. Howdy, sweet as. They asked us to come and stay with them, and within an hour of meeting us and our bikes, they let us take their new Land Rover Discovery to go grocery shopping. Wow. Thanks dudes.
In between having some fun with Christina and Perg, Brian and I spent some time gathering items for a rather quickly planned five-day backpacking trip through the Rees-Dart Track north of Queenstown. We brought a lot of dry food, a tub of peanut butter and as many socks as we have at this time. You can see in the photo below the pile of goodies we brought to ingest.
The beginning of our trip was fantastic. Beauty skies, warm, but not too warm, and an opening scene to dream about:
Our hard core hiking boots are in the trunk of my car in Nelson, NZ. So, the only remaining shoes to do the trick on this hike were our running shoes, my crocks and Brian's Burkenstocks... The first part of the track was mainly boggy and pretty wet, so we took off our running shoes and hiked in bare feet. It was actually quite nice, and I'm sure the mud had some healing qualities. The parts of the trail that weren't completely oozing with mud were really dry and soft grass, so we kept hiking in our bare feet.
At one point, Brian got tired of holding his running shoes in his hand, and asked if I could strap his shoes down on his bag. Sure, no problem......
Further down the trail, we crossed paths with one sour German fellow who told us a sad story about losing his shoe in the river and chasing after it getting himself completely soaking wet and cold, and quite visibly miserable. We both thought, "Heh, what rookie."
An hour or two later we crossed the fairly decent-sized river previously mentioned by our sour hiker, and without issue kept strolling further along back into the fields allowing our toes to enjoy the fresh air and soft ground.
Another hour went by and we stopped for a lunch break. Brian took off his pack and said, "Hmm, there's only one shoe on my pack." Oh shit. I tried to think of the last time I saw both shoes on the back of Brian's pack, but sadly I was hiking in front of him most of the time. I suspected the MIA shoe might have fallen into the decent-sized river we crossed earlier.... Uh oh. Instead of freaking out, we feasted on some salami before beginning the hunt for the missing shoe.
Two hours were spent running down the trail backtracking our steps (in our bare feet) searching for the poor missing shoe, resulting in a most certainly unhappy ending. No shoe. Oh shit, shit. It must have drowned in the river. [In the near future, I intend to write a children's book all about Rodger the river who likes to eat shoes.]
So, with three running shoes and two pairs of inappropriate hiking sandles, we continued on the trail for another four hours arriving at the campsite just as it was getting to the point where the darkness falling on us was causing me to believe that we would be putting on our headlamps to get to our destination. Phew! We made it! What a beautiful, long, and shitty shoe day. (See the solo shoe on Brian's pack below).
Two hunters were staying in the hut next to our tent, and while we were cooking dinner they offered us some steak to go with our dinner. Um.... Sure? At first I thought, "Who would bring steak on a hike? How fresh can this be?" The colour was a bit off, but not too bad, and the smell was almost not detectable, so it must not be off.... My second thought was, "I wonder what kind of steak this is?" My mind raced back to a story my friend Jamie had told me about getting invited out to hunt with some Kiwi's on the South Island a few months ago, and the blokes ended up being cannibals. Jamie survived with no fleeting hunger attempts at his fresh muscles, but the thought gave me the willies and caused me to look at the current meat situation with disgust as I fried it up in our pan. Ewe.... Also, a week earlier, I'd heard a story about some guy who cut up his girlfriend and cooked the evidence on his BBQ all week, with the police finally catching on after his neighbors complained about the stinky smell coming from the guy's balcony. I took one more sniff of the meat as it cooked, and I couldn't detect any yucky smell, so I figured we were pretty safe. Finally, after Brian and I had taken a few bites of our dinner (with skeptical hesitations), the two hunters told us that we were eating chamois, a billy-goat relative that lives here in NZ. They had shot the little animal the previous day, and were reaping the benefits pronto. They also showed us the horns from their kill. Oh, so this is actually really fresh meat. Right. Yes. Right. Excellent.
The night was cold in our tent, even though our sleeping bags zip together (woo-hoo!). I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but we found out that Brian's lefty MEC bag zips quite nicely to my righty MEC bag. How perfect, however, my heater, Brian, was not quite enough of a heater to keep me completely warm and toasty; my sleep was not entirely sound. The following morning we found out why: there was a thick layer of frost on the tent. The temperature was not anywhere close to warm, but the sky was clear. We were in for another good day.
The trail was perfectly consistent in curveyness, having a lovely gradual gradient and delightful scenery in the closing valley as we approached our first saddle.
I love taking short breaks, blowing my schnoz, eating some wasabi peas, drinking some water and taking in all of the senses of this amazing place: the smells, the sights, the feeling of the cool wind, the hot sun, hearing the birds (and my whistling nostrils), and just enjoying being there, being free, and being alive.
The trail was well marked with either orange markers or rock cairns. I like the cairns.
I took a lot of photos of cairns on this trip, and I intend to have a photo exhibit one day soon titled, "Stone Cairn Crazy."
The last bit of the hike up to the saddle was steep and downright silly. The gradient is difficult to see from the photo below, but in all honesty, my calves were on fire. Yeeeouch.
Coming over the saddle, we took in the sights of the next valley we were to wander into, and this is what we saw:
And this is what I was wearing....
And this is what we dined on...
And this is also what we dined on.... I can eat a lot. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. My brothers would be proud.
Glorious afternoon; no hard core hiking boots required here. Whew...
Super big mountains. Awesome. Reminds me of Banff, of good friends, and of good times in the outdoors.
The few bridges we crossed were really well constructed and apparently get removed each winter (at the end of April) when avalanche danger rises. We managed to squeak into the end of the season just in time so as to not have to cross this river on our own.
Our arrival time at the hut/campsite was very respectable (4:00PM), instead of nightfall like the night before.
Dinner included a package of freeze dried ground beef. It looked and smelled suspiciously like dog food when I opened the package. After adding the dog food to some cheesey pasta, it became a kind of hamburger helper of sorts and tasted like a delicacy... of the backcountry. In other words, it was edible, but I'm fairly sure we wouldn't even attempt a spoonful if we were in the comforts of home........ Where is home anyway? Everyone keeps asking us where 'home' is and we automatically answer, "Edmonton, AB" for Brian and I add "somewhere near Vancouver, BC" and "But I was also living in Banff, AB" plus "Oh, and I spent a lot of time in the Maritimes." That's quite a complicated answer, but I suppose for me it is hard to pick one spot because for the most part, I've lived in so many beautiful places that feel like they are still 'home', and also difficulty arises because I actually don't have a place I call 'home' right now. If you count the place where most of my stuff is stored as home, then I can call my parent's new house that I've never actually seen 'home'. If you ask me where my heart is, I will definitely give you the long-winded answer of all the places in Canada that I've resided and placed slow- and deep-growing roots. I guess to summarize, I don't really have a traditional home right now, unless you accept a transient NZ tent called Hubba Hubba as 'home'. Hmmm... That was rather a long-winded rant about the definition of my 'home', but I'm back on track now and will show you a lovely picture of the dog food, er, freeze dried beef. Eat up, Dee!
The final concoction of our homemade hamburger helper is shown below, with my new spoon/fork/knife poking out for fun (the spoon end is stuck in the beefy part).
Up goes the tent, down goes the food into our tummies, and shortly thereafter we hop into our cozy tent realizing that it is only 7:00PM. Good thing we brought my ipod.
******** I'm too busy packing in games of frisbee golf and eating Fergburgers to finish upating this entire blog story of our hike and the remainder of our Queenstown stay. Brian and I are heading out of town on our bikes right now and I'm not sure when the next internet site will be available, so instead of making everyone wait too long, I'll just publish what I have done up to this point and you can look at the photos below and with few hints given you can guess what the stories will be until I end up filling in the rest of the blanks later. Speaking of Fergburger..... I just had the most delicious burger called the Sweet Bambi with Thai chutney sauce and garlic mayo. "Is that deer meat, Dee?" asked Brian.
"Yep, I think so. Mmmmmm."**********
*******I'm back online again, and now sitting in an internet cafe in Te Anau (pronounced 'Tea-Anoo') where the radio is playing Rick Ashly - don't ask my how I recognized that... Not guilty. Hey, I was like ten, what did I know about cool music? Obviously nothing.... Anyhoo, I've just woken up from a lovely nap. Naps should be a requirement for all adults and children alike. The world would be a happier place, I'm sure of it. Before I take you on a journey down the explanation of the benefits of a daily dose of twenty minutes of shut-eye, I'll continue updating the rest of this blog entry with further details to mesh the stories and photos together in Dee-style.********
Hump day, or more aptly known as the third hiking day out of five, was spent going on a side trip to Cascade Saddle. It's an 8-km trek up a flat valley with glaciers and striking rock cliffs surrounding us on either side. It was beautiful, and the weather was gorgeous! While hiking the entire trip, my camera was hung over one shoulder and across my torso. So, whenever I wanted to take a picture, I just had to lift my camera up to my face by pulling on the strap and shifting the camera upwards. I took a lot of photos, and I mean one heck of a wad full of fullness of photos exploding from photo-dom. In five days, I managed to pull off over 500 photos (and that's after deleting the really crappy ones). Now you may understand why I publish so many photos here, but in in retrospect, so few! To make this topic more interesting, I got lazy about shifting the camera strap every time I wanted to take a picture, so I ended up taking quite a few 'hip shots'. I basically took the lens cap off, pointed the camera towards my desired topic without moving it from the area of my hips, and 'click' goes the shutter. I got a number of cool shots like the one below that have a nice tilt to them, but I also took some straight ones that combat the style I've got using my eye and the viewfinder. I'm a newfound fan of the hip shot, and will try to implement them into more of my photo taking sessions...
Upon arriving at the only non-frozen bit of water, a wee pond, on the side trip hike, I was pleasantly surprised to have a full code access to as many skipping rocks as my skinny, tossing arm could muster. I skipped rocks like the champion that I am. Scree is a skipper's best friend. I managed to pull off a few monkey farts too (a rock toss that I would gladly demonstrate if you ask me).
---- Oh dear, the radio in this internet cafe is now playing that ridiculous song "Get out of my dreams, get into my car." Oh man. This country needs some music education, or perhaps just more money for radio music rights. Dear lord.----
Onto more beautiful things: The Dart Glacier. This glacier puts both Fox Glacier and Franz Josef to shame. Why, you ask? Well, first, there are no buses at the base of this glacier, thanks to the lack of roads leading to the two day hike required to access the base of the glacier. Secondly, most of the glacier is easier to view thanks to the killer steep hike up to the Cascade Saddle, opposite the Dart Glacier. I mean, come'on folks, take a wee looksie at the photo here and tell me that it isn't completely spectacular and WAY better than any of the shots I took of Franz Josef or Fox Glacier?? (Maybe with exception of when I took shots from the plane when I went skydiving.... )
Cascade Saddle was the best spot for lunch, I must say. Clear skies ---- wait a minute, the radio is now playing a FatBoySlim tune, Praise You (I think). That's eclectic, as Brian just said. Keep it up, boys. ---- Yes, clear skies, yummy food, and views beyond belief. We were tired though, as the last steep part toward the saddle kicked us in the butt, and we were sore to begin with when we started earlier that morning. There's an option to hike fifteen minutes further along the saddle to see some waterfall, but we opted for the exit route because it was getting later and we were cold and not looking forward to hiking down the super steep part in the scree. Much later we found out that if we had hiked not even five minutes further down the saddle, we would have had a class A view of Mt. Aspiring (a famous peak). Doh. Oh well. We had pleasant views anyway...
Lunch time in gloriousness:
My artistic take on the scene while laying in the grass:
It took us fewer hours than anticipated to hike down the scree and back to our loving tent. ---- Sorry, I just can't help myself with these musical updates from the radio. Now playing: Material Girl by Madonna. Yikes, I remember a girl back in 1984 who did a lip sync to this at the YMCA's Summer Fun Club, which my brother's and my cousin Krista and I aptly named the Summer Dumb Club.----
In the tent later that night, I took a self-portrait which I quite like:
Hello, and welcome to day four. Hoser. Bob and Doug McKenzie would be proud of our speech during the hiking. Brian and I were discussing the Christmas album Bob and Doug have that somehow makes a special reappearance every year in both of our families. It's one of those albums that was meant to be played once in its entirety and then put back in the dusty holiday box for next year. I also spoke highly of my favourite Christmas album of all time: The Muppets with John Denver. So good... I'm not sure how this blog entry keeps having musical inferences interrupting the descriptions of our journey, but I like it.
I love playing with stuff on my camera and seeing what happens. This one is a definite favourite leading the viewer to believe that we are super-ultra speedy hikers:
The Dart Valley is just as beautiful as Rees Valley. Wispy clouds enhancing the appearance, and sand flies detracting from the experience:
Midafternoon naptime with sand fly shield over face:
After our nap, I was still feeling a bit groggy, a bit dirty and sweaty and just a tad on the completely icky side. Shortly thereafter, we came upon a stream, and without much thinking I began to strip down to my nothingness. Brian looked with wonder and amazement as I started to de-clothe myself, and within minutes was on the same band wagon. Mmmm! Freezing cold water for a quick scrub and wash. "I feel like a million dollars times ten!".... "I guess I feel like ten million dollars..."
Stream of shame:
Feeling fresh and new, we were back out into the valley and with a good hat tug, we kept pushing along the trail towards our last hut destination.
The trail lead us through the trees and back out into the valley and then back into the trees and vice versa and on and on, which is what I believe to have been done to keep people from getting to used to the surreal landscape surrounding us. When we entered the open valley, we were awestruck, and then when entering the forest areas, we felt lucky to be surrounded by trees and moss and everything green.
The sun escaped beyond the mountains before we arrived at our campsite for the evening. Once that sun goes down, the temperature is quick to follow. Toque, scarf, mitts and warmer layers were invaluable.
The hut next to our campsite had some candles burning as we were writing in our journals. I couldn't help but capture this candle wax all curled up in a spiral. Spirals are my favourite shape.
We managed, somehow, to get on the go and hiking by 9:00 AM, which is the earliest we've been on the trail, and also earlier than we've ever been on the road while cycling. That's pretty sad, but that's beside the point. What do we get for being up and at'em early? Boggy-ass bog:
The sun hadn't warmed up the valley floor yet, so we were immersed in boggy areas, which are hard enough to tramp around without getting our shoes wet. But, to add water to a mud-patch, the dew hadn't dried up from the morning yet, and the tall grass was hanging over the small single track trail. ---- Oh man, Rod Stewart is singing on the radio now, and it's one I don't recognize that appears to be called Still the Same, but I know it's good old Rod. You're still the same, Rod. Yuck. Oh great, followed by a little Lyonell Ritchie. Double Yuck.---- Our pants from the knees down were soaking by 9:05 AM, and our feet were not saved from the excessive moisture. Wet feet from boggy-ass bog:
Here's a not-so-good example of a hip shot, but I had to laugh and keep it anyhow:
The valley continued to morph into a system of fluid motion starting with a mesh of small streams and forged into a big, jet-boat applicable River with a capital 'R'.
We were REALLY speedy walking out the last day. I kept us going strong and fast to make it to the end of the track in time for our pick up:
The end of the trail was less than pretty. One little bridge opening up to a field, a parking lot, a few stinky toilets, and some uninvited black, tiny visitors.
Our total garbage for five days of food was pretty impressive in my books:
The black, tiny uninvited visitors were a pain in the arse. A complete sand fly nightmare was there waiting for our bus too:
We covered up in all of our clothing to 1) prevent cooling of the core, and 2) to stop the incessant bites from the little black bastards. In the meantime, we got a great couple shot. Yay!
Back in Queenstown with Perg and Christina, we did Dee's three dream "B's": a Bath, a Beer, and a Burger. The bath was stupendous, the beer tasted like a piece of heaven, and the burger went down in history.
After sleeping in until past 11:00AM (a completely new experience for Brian), we were hammin' it up at the disc golf course with Perg and Christina:
A little lesson going on for Christina with the assistance of Mr. Disc Golf himself, Perg (a.k.a. "I shot two under par, but no one was there to see me"..... Mmm-hmmm...)
Deester given'er:
Christina:
Now although we may look good in the photos above, for some reason, Christina and I got progressively worse over the three days we spent playing disc golf. While the scores kept getting higher and higher, the curses kept flying further and further. Potty mouth. I should really keep control over that.
A walk in town at night brought two lovely scenes. The first was a photo of the waterfront from my favourite tree in the Queens Park.
The second scene was a little stream flowing next to a well-lit building. The rocks in the stream looked like the spine of some extraordinary reptile when captured by my eye (and camera).
The last time I was in Queenstown, my friend Allison gave me the name and contact information for a hometown friend of hers, but we never met up, so this time I decided to make the call, and Brian and I met the official members, Mr. and Mrs. Queenstown. These two are great! Christina and Perg, a Brit-turned Kiwi who met and married a country-town Albertan. Howdy, sweet as. They asked us to come and stay with them, and within an hour of meeting us and our bikes, they let us take their new Land Rover Discovery to go grocery shopping. Wow. Thanks dudes.
In between having some fun with Christina and Perg, Brian and I spent some time gathering items for a rather quickly planned five-day backpacking trip through the Rees-Dart Track north of Queenstown. We brought a lot of dry food, a tub of peanut butter and as many socks as we have at this time. You can see in the photo below the pile of goodies we brought to ingest.
The beginning of our trip was fantastic. Beauty skies, warm, but not too warm, and an opening scene to dream about:
Our hard core hiking boots are in the trunk of my car in Nelson, NZ. So, the only remaining shoes to do the trick on this hike were our running shoes, my crocks and Brian's Burkenstocks... The first part of the track was mainly boggy and pretty wet, so we took off our running shoes and hiked in bare feet. It was actually quite nice, and I'm sure the mud had some healing qualities. The parts of the trail that weren't completely oozing with mud were really dry and soft grass, so we kept hiking in our bare feet.
At one point, Brian got tired of holding his running shoes in his hand, and asked if I could strap his shoes down on his bag. Sure, no problem......
Further down the trail, we crossed paths with one sour German fellow who told us a sad story about losing his shoe in the river and chasing after it getting himself completely soaking wet and cold, and quite visibly miserable. We both thought, "Heh, what rookie."
An hour or two later we crossed the fairly decent-sized river previously mentioned by our sour hiker, and without issue kept strolling further along back into the fields allowing our toes to enjoy the fresh air and soft ground.
Another hour went by and we stopped for a lunch break. Brian took off his pack and said, "Hmm, there's only one shoe on my pack." Oh shit. I tried to think of the last time I saw both shoes on the back of Brian's pack, but sadly I was hiking in front of him most of the time. I suspected the MIA shoe might have fallen into the decent-sized river we crossed earlier.... Uh oh. Instead of freaking out, we feasted on some salami before beginning the hunt for the missing shoe.
Two hours were spent running down the trail backtracking our steps (in our bare feet) searching for the poor missing shoe, resulting in a most certainly unhappy ending. No shoe. Oh shit, shit. It must have drowned in the river. [In the near future, I intend to write a children's book all about Rodger the river who likes to eat shoes.]
So, with three running shoes and two pairs of inappropriate hiking sandles, we continued on the trail for another four hours arriving at the campsite just as it was getting to the point where the darkness falling on us was causing me to believe that we would be putting on our headlamps to get to our destination. Phew! We made it! What a beautiful, long, and shitty shoe day. (See the solo shoe on Brian's pack below).
Two hunters were staying in the hut next to our tent, and while we were cooking dinner they offered us some steak to go with our dinner. Um.... Sure? At first I thought, "Who would bring steak on a hike? How fresh can this be?" The colour was a bit off, but not too bad, and the smell was almost not detectable, so it must not be off.... My second thought was, "I wonder what kind of steak this is?" My mind raced back to a story my friend Jamie had told me about getting invited out to hunt with some Kiwi's on the South Island a few months ago, and the blokes ended up being cannibals. Jamie survived with no fleeting hunger attempts at his fresh muscles, but the thought gave me the willies and caused me to look at the current meat situation with disgust as I fried it up in our pan. Ewe.... Also, a week earlier, I'd heard a story about some guy who cut up his girlfriend and cooked the evidence on his BBQ all week, with the police finally catching on after his neighbors complained about the stinky smell coming from the guy's balcony. I took one more sniff of the meat as it cooked, and I couldn't detect any yucky smell, so I figured we were pretty safe. Finally, after Brian and I had taken a few bites of our dinner (with skeptical hesitations), the two hunters told us that we were eating chamois, a billy-goat relative that lives here in NZ. They had shot the little animal the previous day, and were reaping the benefits pronto. They also showed us the horns from their kill. Oh, so this is actually really fresh meat. Right. Yes. Right. Excellent.
The night was cold in our tent, even though our sleeping bags zip together (woo-hoo!). I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but we found out that Brian's lefty MEC bag zips quite nicely to my righty MEC bag. How perfect, however, my heater, Brian, was not quite enough of a heater to keep me completely warm and toasty; my sleep was not entirely sound. The following morning we found out why: there was a thick layer of frost on the tent. The temperature was not anywhere close to warm, but the sky was clear. We were in for another good day.
The trail was perfectly consistent in curveyness, having a lovely gradual gradient and delightful scenery in the closing valley as we approached our first saddle.
I love taking short breaks, blowing my schnoz, eating some wasabi peas, drinking some water and taking in all of the senses of this amazing place: the smells, the sights, the feeling of the cool wind, the hot sun, hearing the birds (and my whistling nostrils), and just enjoying being there, being free, and being alive.
The trail was well marked with either orange markers or rock cairns. I like the cairns.
I took a lot of photos of cairns on this trip, and I intend to have a photo exhibit one day soon titled, "Stone Cairn Crazy."
The last bit of the hike up to the saddle was steep and downright silly. The gradient is difficult to see from the photo below, but in all honesty, my calves were on fire. Yeeeouch.
Coming over the saddle, we took in the sights of the next valley we were to wander into, and this is what we saw:
And this is what I was wearing....
And this is what we dined on...
And this is also what we dined on.... I can eat a lot. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. My brothers would be proud.
Glorious afternoon; no hard core hiking boots required here. Whew...
Super big mountains. Awesome. Reminds me of Banff, of good friends, and of good times in the outdoors.
The few bridges we crossed were really well constructed and apparently get removed each winter (at the end of April) when avalanche danger rises. We managed to squeak into the end of the season just in time so as to not have to cross this river on our own.
Our arrival time at the hut/campsite was very respectable (4:00PM), instead of nightfall like the night before.
Dinner included a package of freeze dried ground beef. It looked and smelled suspiciously like dog food when I opened the package. After adding the dog food to some cheesey pasta, it became a kind of hamburger helper of sorts and tasted like a delicacy... of the backcountry. In other words, it was edible, but I'm fairly sure we wouldn't even attempt a spoonful if we were in the comforts of home........ Where is home anyway? Everyone keeps asking us where 'home' is and we automatically answer, "Edmonton, AB" for Brian and I add "somewhere near Vancouver, BC" and "But I was also living in Banff, AB" plus "Oh, and I spent a lot of time in the Maritimes." That's quite a complicated answer, but I suppose for me it is hard to pick one spot because for the most part, I've lived in so many beautiful places that feel like they are still 'home', and also difficulty arises because I actually don't have a place I call 'home' right now. If you count the place where most of my stuff is stored as home, then I can call my parent's new house that I've never actually seen 'home'. If you ask me where my heart is, I will definitely give you the long-winded answer of all the places in Canada that I've resided and placed slow- and deep-growing roots. I guess to summarize, I don't really have a traditional home right now, unless you accept a transient NZ tent called Hubba Hubba as 'home'. Hmmm... That was rather a long-winded rant about the definition of my 'home', but I'm back on track now and will show you a lovely picture of the dog food, er, freeze dried beef. Eat up, Dee!
The final concoction of our homemade hamburger helper is shown below, with my new spoon/fork/knife poking out for fun (the spoon end is stuck in the beefy part).
Up goes the tent, down goes the food into our tummies, and shortly thereafter we hop into our cozy tent realizing that it is only 7:00PM. Good thing we brought my ipod.
******** I'm too busy packing in games of frisbee golf and eating Fergburgers to finish upating this entire blog story of our hike and the remainder of our Queenstown stay. Brian and I are heading out of town on our bikes right now and I'm not sure when the next internet site will be available, so instead of making everyone wait too long, I'll just publish what I have done up to this point and you can look at the photos below and with few hints given you can guess what the stories will be until I end up filling in the rest of the blanks later. Speaking of Fergburger..... I just had the most delicious burger called the Sweet Bambi with Thai chutney sauce and garlic mayo. "Is that deer meat, Dee?" asked Brian.
"Yep, I think so. Mmmmmm."**********
*******I'm back online again, and now sitting in an internet cafe in Te Anau (pronounced 'Tea-Anoo') where the radio is playing Rick Ashly - don't ask my how I recognized that... Not guilty. Hey, I was like ten, what did I know about cool music? Obviously nothing.... Anyhoo, I've just woken up from a lovely nap. Naps should be a requirement for all adults and children alike. The world would be a happier place, I'm sure of it. Before I take you on a journey down the explanation of the benefits of a daily dose of twenty minutes of shut-eye, I'll continue updating the rest of this blog entry with further details to mesh the stories and photos together in Dee-style.********
Hump day, or more aptly known as the third hiking day out of five, was spent going on a side trip to Cascade Saddle. It's an 8-km trek up a flat valley with glaciers and striking rock cliffs surrounding us on either side. It was beautiful, and the weather was gorgeous! While hiking the entire trip, my camera was hung over one shoulder and across my torso. So, whenever I wanted to take a picture, I just had to lift my camera up to my face by pulling on the strap and shifting the camera upwards. I took a lot of photos, and I mean one heck of a wad full of fullness of photos exploding from photo-dom. In five days, I managed to pull off over 500 photos (and that's after deleting the really crappy ones). Now you may understand why I publish so many photos here, but in in retrospect, so few! To make this topic more interesting, I got lazy about shifting the camera strap every time I wanted to take a picture, so I ended up taking quite a few 'hip shots'. I basically took the lens cap off, pointed the camera towards my desired topic without moving it from the area of my hips, and 'click' goes the shutter. I got a number of cool shots like the one below that have a nice tilt to them, but I also took some straight ones that combat the style I've got using my eye and the viewfinder. I'm a newfound fan of the hip shot, and will try to implement them into more of my photo taking sessions...
Upon arriving at the only non-frozen bit of water, a wee pond, on the side trip hike, I was pleasantly surprised to have a full code access to as many skipping rocks as my skinny, tossing arm could muster. I skipped rocks like the champion that I am. Scree is a skipper's best friend. I managed to pull off a few monkey farts too (a rock toss that I would gladly demonstrate if you ask me).
---- Oh dear, the radio in this internet cafe is now playing that ridiculous song "Get out of my dreams, get into my car." Oh man. This country needs some music education, or perhaps just more money for radio music rights. Dear lord.----
Onto more beautiful things: The Dart Glacier. This glacier puts both Fox Glacier and Franz Josef to shame. Why, you ask? Well, first, there are no buses at the base of this glacier, thanks to the lack of roads leading to the two day hike required to access the base of the glacier. Secondly, most of the glacier is easier to view thanks to the killer steep hike up to the Cascade Saddle, opposite the Dart Glacier. I mean, come'on folks, take a wee looksie at the photo here and tell me that it isn't completely spectacular and WAY better than any of the shots I took of Franz Josef or Fox Glacier?? (Maybe with exception of when I took shots from the plane when I went skydiving.... )
Cascade Saddle was the best spot for lunch, I must say. Clear skies ---- wait a minute, the radio is now playing a FatBoySlim tune, Praise You (I think). That's eclectic, as Brian just said. Keep it up, boys. ---- Yes, clear skies, yummy food, and views beyond belief. We were tired though, as the last steep part toward the saddle kicked us in the butt, and we were sore to begin with when we started earlier that morning. There's an option to hike fifteen minutes further along the saddle to see some waterfall, but we opted for the exit route because it was getting later and we were cold and not looking forward to hiking down the super steep part in the scree. Much later we found out that if we had hiked not even five minutes further down the saddle, we would have had a class A view of Mt. Aspiring (a famous peak). Doh. Oh well. We had pleasant views anyway...
Lunch time in gloriousness:
My artistic take on the scene while laying in the grass:
It took us fewer hours than anticipated to hike down the scree and back to our loving tent. ---- Sorry, I just can't help myself with these musical updates from the radio. Now playing: Material Girl by Madonna. Yikes, I remember a girl back in 1984 who did a lip sync to this at the YMCA's Summer Fun Club, which my brother's and my cousin Krista and I aptly named the Summer Dumb Club.----
In the tent later that night, I took a self-portrait which I quite like:
Hello, and welcome to day four. Hoser. Bob and Doug McKenzie would be proud of our speech during the hiking. Brian and I were discussing the Christmas album Bob and Doug have that somehow makes a special reappearance every year in both of our families. It's one of those albums that was meant to be played once in its entirety and then put back in the dusty holiday box for next year. I also spoke highly of my favourite Christmas album of all time: The Muppets with John Denver. So good... I'm not sure how this blog entry keeps having musical inferences interrupting the descriptions of our journey, but I like it.
I love playing with stuff on my camera and seeing what happens. This one is a definite favourite leading the viewer to believe that we are super-ultra speedy hikers:
The Dart Valley is just as beautiful as Rees Valley. Wispy clouds enhancing the appearance, and sand flies detracting from the experience:
Midafternoon naptime with sand fly shield over face:
After our nap, I was still feeling a bit groggy, a bit dirty and sweaty and just a tad on the completely icky side. Shortly thereafter, we came upon a stream, and without much thinking I began to strip down to my nothingness. Brian looked with wonder and amazement as I started to de-clothe myself, and within minutes was on the same band wagon. Mmmm! Freezing cold water for a quick scrub and wash. "I feel like a million dollars times ten!".... "I guess I feel like ten million dollars..."
Stream of shame:
Feeling fresh and new, we were back out into the valley and with a good hat tug, we kept pushing along the trail towards our last hut destination.
The trail lead us through the trees and back out into the valley and then back into the trees and vice versa and on and on, which is what I believe to have been done to keep people from getting to used to the surreal landscape surrounding us. When we entered the open valley, we were awestruck, and then when entering the forest areas, we felt lucky to be surrounded by trees and moss and everything green.
The sun escaped beyond the mountains before we arrived at our campsite for the evening. Once that sun goes down, the temperature is quick to follow. Toque, scarf, mitts and warmer layers were invaluable.
The hut next to our campsite had some candles burning as we were writing in our journals. I couldn't help but capture this candle wax all curled up in a spiral. Spirals are my favourite shape.
We managed, somehow, to get on the go and hiking by 9:00 AM, which is the earliest we've been on the trail, and also earlier than we've ever been on the road while cycling. That's pretty sad, but that's beside the point. What do we get for being up and at'em early? Boggy-ass bog:
The sun hadn't warmed up the valley floor yet, so we were immersed in boggy areas, which are hard enough to tramp around without getting our shoes wet. But, to add water to a mud-patch, the dew hadn't dried up from the morning yet, and the tall grass was hanging over the small single track trail. ---- Oh man, Rod Stewart is singing on the radio now, and it's one I don't recognize that appears to be called Still the Same, but I know it's good old Rod. You're still the same, Rod. Yuck. Oh great, followed by a little Lyonell Ritchie. Double Yuck.---- Our pants from the knees down were soaking by 9:05 AM, and our feet were not saved from the excessive moisture. Wet feet from boggy-ass bog:
Here's a not-so-good example of a hip shot, but I had to laugh and keep it anyhow:
The valley continued to morph into a system of fluid motion starting with a mesh of small streams and forged into a big, jet-boat applicable River with a capital 'R'.
We were REALLY speedy walking out the last day. I kept us going strong and fast to make it to the end of the track in time for our pick up:
The end of the trail was less than pretty. One little bridge opening up to a field, a parking lot, a few stinky toilets, and some uninvited black, tiny visitors.
Our total garbage for five days of food was pretty impressive in my books:
The black, tiny uninvited visitors were a pain in the arse. A complete sand fly nightmare was there waiting for our bus too:
We covered up in all of our clothing to 1) prevent cooling of the core, and 2) to stop the incessant bites from the little black bastards. In the meantime, we got a great couple shot. Yay!
Back in Queenstown with Perg and Christina, we did Dee's three dream "B's": a Bath, a Beer, and a Burger. The bath was stupendous, the beer tasted like a piece of heaven, and the burger went down in history.
After sleeping in until past 11:00AM (a completely new experience for Brian), we were hammin' it up at the disc golf course with Perg and Christina:
A little lesson going on for Christina with the assistance of Mr. Disc Golf himself, Perg (a.k.a. "I shot two under par, but no one was there to see me"..... Mmm-hmmm...)
Deester given'er:
Christina:
Now although we may look good in the photos above, for some reason, Christina and I got progressively worse over the three days we spent playing disc golf. While the scores kept getting higher and higher, the curses kept flying further and further. Potty mouth. I should really keep control over that.
posted by Dee @ 6:46 p.m.
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