Milford Track Part 1

I met Ken Baugh in Queenstown to get ready for the longest trek I walked on this trip, the Milford track. This is supposed to be the "finest walk in the world." That is a bold statement and given some of the wild, remote locations I have visited, I was highly skeptical that such a thing could exist in New Zealand. Maybe, I thought, the finest walk of commonly visited places, but surely not of all the world. I was to see for myself.

Ken and I had a couple of days here and set out one morning to hike Ben Lomond, a mountain on the edge of town. It started raining as soon as we started and became a deluge. Two hours later we were done slogging through mud and ended up at a lakeside bar drinking Bloody Marys. This is civilized training, after all.

Eventually we got going. We were on a guided trek. We had to choose this instead of going as "indies" because the few slots allowed per year fill up a year in advance. Even the more expensive guided groups fill up fast. This is one of the most popular treks in the world, after all. I was grateful for the limited numbers on the trail after the Tongariro experience. Also, this is a highly protected environment, there is no camping along the way. All hikers stay in lodges.

We loaded up on a bus (50 of us) and headed back to Te Anau. There you transfer to a ferry that takes you across the lake to the trailhead. From there you walk 20 minutes to the first lodge, an easy day.

Here we were on the edge of a great alpine rainforest, about to spend the next three days in total sensory immersion. The relentless rain forms dramatic waterfalls down the steep mountainsides around you as shown below. This was the beginning.

Some of the hundreds of waterfalls on the Milford track

Ken and me in Queenstown getting some last minute training for the trek

Fiordlands

I was headed north toward Queenstown, a busy, upscale tourist town that has about every tourist activity imaginable. It's situated between a humongous lake and mountains. Skiing in winter, and in summer mtn biking, hiking, helicopter tours, bus tours and every water sport imaginable. Like a super-Vail, it's small airport has direct international flights.

I had a night to spare before my Queenstown reservations (which you have to book months in advance this time of year), so I randomly picked the town of Te Anau. It too was situated on a very large lake. Many of the "great walks" of New Zealand start or pass through here. I walked for a couple of hours on one of these tracks along the lake, which is also called Te Anau. New Zealand is notorious for naming towns after geographic features. Te Anau is a lake and a town. Also true for Mt. Cook, Fox Glacier, etc. Remember National Park?

Anyway, nice little place. Lots of hikers would pass through and almost all of them had expressions of exhaustion, like they had been in a week-long battle. If you saw them, you'd probably be turned off any idea of hiking here. Ironic that they appeared so unhappy after what for many is the dream of a lifetime.

My first glimpse of the Southern alps just outside Te Anau

Land's End

Continuing my drive south from Christchurch, I headed to Dunedin for the night. It was a long drive through flat, rural countryside. The mountains to the west were not visible and this was the only stretch where you had a long, straight highway. Every so often I would cross a wide river basin on a narrow bridge with no shoulder or walkway. Lots of bike riders follow this road and it seems extremely dangerous to me on this bridges, some of which are at least a mile long.

From Dunedin I drove to Bluff, where they say you are in the southernmost settlement in New Zealand... But not really, there is a town on Stewart Island just south of here. Anyway, it's as far south as you can drive. I stayed at this cool little place called Lands End B&B, the last place at the end of the southernmost road.

The next day I was up early to hike a few miles around to the southern tip of New Zealand and was swarmed by biting sand flies, common here but unheard of in Colorado. Like mosquitos, they are tiny and leave itchy welts. The all-natural bug repellent I bought worked very well once I put it on. I got to the southernmost point on the South Island and walked out to the top of the sea cliff to take the pic below. There were climbing anchors here, you can toprope the south point of New Zealand, it turns out.

I then climbed the short hike up to the bluff where some of the hike is in a bush tunnel as shown below. 

A good day and a milestone, I had driven almost the entire length of this country. Next, I headed toward the Southern Alps.

Sitting on the southernmost rock point of the South Island. Stewart Island in the background.

Trail into the dark!

Drive From Hell

My exploration of the North Island of New Zealand was done. I had to leave Lake Okataina early in the morning to catch the afternoon ferry in Wellington. I had underestimated the difficulty of driving here when I made my reservations months before from Boulder and this day I had a 7 hour drive to get to the ferry that would take me to the South Island. With a lot of concentration on the drive I was able to get to the terminal with a little time to spare.

After driving on, they get going right away. I got a beer and hung out on the top deck for most of the three and a half hour ride. It was actually quite pleasant, they even had the a theater playing the new Star Wars movie. I arrived in the town of Picton on the South Island and found my hotel, twelve hours after leaving Okataina.

The next day I was antsy to get a hike in and found a, out of the way beach about two hours south of Picton. There was a mountain overlooking the ocean nearby but it had no track up it. I climbed it anyway, with only minor bushwhacking. It was kind of cool to hike off the standard tourist areas and I was rewarded with a great view (below) when the mist cleared on the summit.

Back at the car I had lunch and prepared for long drives over the next few days. I planned to get to the southern tip of the South Island months before a and was determined to get there. Arrived in Christchurch later that day, about two days before a big earthquake. I was glad to have missed that one.

Finally made the ferry terminal, in time

Top of unnamed, untracked coastal mountain on the northeast shore of the South Island

Lake Okatainia

I left Tokoroa on Super Bowl Sunday and arrived in Rotorua just in time for the show. I scrambled into a sports bar and there it was on TV. Only about 7 people were watching it that afternoon at 12:30, the rest were betting on dog races (I think). Of the people watching the Broncos vs Panthers game there was a Colorado guy (me) and believe it or not a guy from N. Carolina. 

I watched until just about halftime and then headed to my lodge at Lake Okataina to watch the rest. Only I couldn't. There was no TV there, the only time on this trip I wish I had one. And no internet or cell phone coverage. And even radio was hard to come by, I had to hack up a useable antenna. By that time I heard the Broncos won. Cool. 

There was no one staying at the lodge that night or the next, like the Shining or something. And that's when my credit card was frozen due to an unrelated issue. On top of that, since I lost communication with Shelly she wondered if I had been in an accident or something. Shelly figured out what must have happened and told me about all this the next day. Funny how all these events converge.

I hiked the next day on what I named the "hazard hike" because just about every stickery thing that could get you got me. Thorns, nettles and grass seed stickers. It was unbelievable but another connection with nature. In a painful way...

Trees on the hazard hike

Weird fungus growing on a dead tree stump on the Hazard Hike

Middle of Everywhere

After Taupo I drove to Rotorua to find a place to stay. I could not find a single room in this tourist town, turned out it was the last three-day summer holiday in NZ. So I drove to the middle-of-nowhere and found a great place in Tokoroa. They actually self-describe as the middle-of-everywhere, which is an excellent example of the quintessential Kiwi optimism that permeates everything here, very refreshing.

It seems everywhere you go here there is a trail. I drove around a bit in rural green hill country that looks like The Shire and found a trail on the Waikato river near a place called Whakamaru. Absolutely beautiful and only a few people in sight. I then drove back on a different route toward Tokoroa and got the pine forest pics below. Many roads here are lined with long greenways that are similar to the photos below.

The common manicured lawn and forest along many of the roads here

Taupo

After the National Park experience I headed north to Taupo, an upscale town on the Great Lake of Taupo. There I hiked on the Waikato river to Huka Falls, crossing a hot stream on the way. The hot stream is like a hot spring, except it's a stream you can soak in. Lots of thermal features here, the ground is steaming all over in random places.

One morning I climbed Mt. Tauhara, a "small" volcano outside Taupo. This was a true rainforest mountain hike: Narrow, muddy trail that went straight up the mountain. There was no view until the top, which was in cloud most of the time. At the end I was so muddy I had to go to the lake to rinse off. While washing off the layers of mud I noticed the picnic-ers on the shore running for their cars. It was pouring rain. I didn't notice because I was already soaked from the hike...

Yet another immersive rainforest experience.

The Summit

Mount Doom

Next was a visit to National Park and *the* National Park. The two days I was there were crystal clear blue sky and cool, like a Colorado summer day in the mountains. I decided to do the Tongariro traverse in the National Park, a 15 mile traverse of the volcanoes in the park. You get dropped off at one end and picked up later in the day at the other end.

The trail goes right by a volcano, Mt Ngauruhoe, which is what they used in Lord of the Rings for Mt. Doom. Plus apparently they shot most of the Orc battles on the plains around these volcanoes. So EVERYONE on the trail referred to it as Mt Doom. 

The shuttle driver admonished everyone not to climb "Mt Doom" because that where all the accidents happen. This was before I knew anything about the movie connection, so I thought, ok, I won't climb Mt doom. As a matter of fact I won't even visit Mordor, ok?

When I got to the cutoff trail, I thought, hmm, we've climbed worse scree. But,  I thought, every time we did that it was horrific. That did not stop a surprising number of absolute novices from heading up the slopes because the sign said "3 hours round trip".  Maybe they all had evil rings of power they needed to destroy...

From the side you could see that just below the top it was probably 45 degree crap scree, and the track went straight up and down. You could see people getting high on the mtn but none on the top. It's only climbed because it was used in a fictional movie, hugely famous. Oh, and to destroy evil rings of power.....

It is an active volcano area, last erupting in 2012 and it was a big eruption. There are steaming vents and sulfuric lakes where "the very air you breath is a poisonous fume." Sorry, Boromir from LOTR broke through a bit.

Ok, this is supposed to be the best one-day trek in New Zealand. I believe it, it's pretty scenic. However.... A more scenic journey is to drive up Haleakala on Maui, hike through the crater, and drive back down. There are more ecological zones, weather interactions, shorter track, and fewer people. In both cases you spend most of your time hiking through volcanic craters.

At the end it really reminded me of Longs Peak: A famous mountain that everyone climbs whether they should or not, and extremely long.

Ngauruhoe, or "Mt. Doom" as the vast majority of westerners call it.

Summit of Tongariro. Mt. Doom and the snow encrusted Ruapehu in the background.

Mangaokewa Scenic Reserve

Next stop was Te Kuiti. Not quite to the volcano area, but much closer. This was a small town on one of the main "highways" running through the country. Keep in mind, a major route here is a narrow, two lane road. I have yet to see anything close to a major highway here. Even in Auckland they are relatively small in comparison to the US highways. 4 lanes here is pretty heavy duty.

That night in my room the building shook and rattled a couple times. I thought it was the big trucks going by but no, it was an earthquake. Turns out, very common around here, maybe even more than California. I survived. As did everyone else....

The next day I did a rainforest hike in the Mangaokewa Scenic Reserve. A "reserve" here is what we would call a park, like Rocky Mountain National Park or Boulder Mountain Parks. This was an immersive rainforest, meaning you are on a narrow trail, it's shady from the dense green forest, everything is covered in moss, insects and bird sounds filling the air, and you're getting soaked from the previous night's rain. While you hike through it, you get absorbed into the thriving life surrounding you. Very beautiful. Much of NZ was deforested by the aboriginal Maori and then British for farms and ranches, which still looks beautiful but not close to the original state. 

The Mangaokewa reserve is an example of where, like everywhere in the world, they are recognizing and trying to preserve what remains of the primordial environment: Though it appears to be enormous from the limited view of the pathway, It is just a sliver of the original forest that was saved essentially at the last moment. Like the whales that seemed infinitely numerous and are now so rare in places that they awe tourists, so go the forests today. There is a desperate worldwide effort to save these places and animals, who knows if it will work. 

So there. Enough of that.

That afternoon I drove to my lodge in National Park. That isn't a grammar error (as I know are frequent in these posts). I was headed to a national park (Tongariro), and the *town* just outside the national park is called National Park. Seriously.. Next.

The primordial rainforest as it existed before human inhabitation of New Zealand

River Walk

I also did a river walk in Kerikeri, really a trail walk. There's a waterfall at the start and the ocean at the finish. I went early in the morning but still got cooked by the time I finished at 10:30 am. I then drove a few hours to a beach campground in Uretiti.

Cook, right? Well, this is the redneck car camping photo previously posted. Campground held 500 people in theory, and it was pretty full on that holiday weekend. NO designated sites, you just parked and set up your tent like a first-world refugee camp. But it was pretty quiet and reasonable, just way too hot. 

That night I saw the 5 visible planets and the Southern Cross constellation. The next morning before breakfast I walked for over an hour on the long empty beach which was very peaceful.

I then drove south back through Auckland toward my next destination, the central volcanic part of the north island.

 Uretiti beach at sunrise

Waving hi to my nieces Claire and Hanna from Lake Okatania!

Whangaroa & Puketi

Eventually I escaped Auckland and drove north, an unusual direction for tourists but I wanted to check out NZ from north to south. Arrived at my lodge in Kerikeri where they greet you with a beer!

It was amazingly hot and muggy so I saved the hiking until the next morning. The hotel manager told me to check out the Whangaroa area, so I did. Right off the ocean, Lots of private land there so not a lot of hiking, though I was totally primed after being on a ship for a month.

So I drove back to a forest access and found a long track into the Puketi forest. It was around noon by that time and so much hotter. I hiked for about three hours, mainly to get the pent up demand out of my system. I was totally wiped at the end, mission accomplished. 

The photo of me below is deceptive, I was about to conk out due to the heat.

Lots of logging going on here, reminds me of Oregon.

Puketi forest conservation area

The Mangahorehore track after a couple hours of hot, sunny hiking

New Zealand!

First stop, Auckland. A big city on the ocean. I stayed on Queen Street a few blocks from the wharfs. It's known as a big shopping street, which is *exactly* what I was looking for...;)

After a couple of days traveling and  huge time zone shifts, it was extremely easy to catch a bus into downtown, way, way cheaper than a taxi, which is quite expensive. Taxis want around 80 New Zealand dollars, vs 12 for the bus. That isn't exactly as expensive as it sounds since the US dollar is so strong. The NZ dollar is worth about 67 cents. Just last year it was 1 for 1, so I'm feeling wealthy...

While I was getting off the bus I dropped my glasses case with my glasses and didn't notice until I got to the front desk. My glasses are way expensive so I was on a mission to get them back. Someone turned them in and through an improbable set of circumstances I got them back a few hours later without having to go far. Cool, nice intro to NZ.

I went on a harbor cruise and the most interesting site was where the original Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was attacked. It was docked at the wharf shown below when the French intelligence service planted a bomb on the hull and sunk it for whatever weird reason. This was in 1985 and they killed one person in the operation. I'm not sure if anyone figured out the insane motivation for this, but I remember it happening and there it was.

Spent a few days here to get acculturated and oriented before getting my rental car and spending the next month driving over a thousand miles on the LEFT SIDE of the road!

Downtown Auckland from just off Queen's Wharf

Yellow dock in center background is where the French intelligence service sank the Rainbow Warrior in 1985

Salisbury Plain

Our last stop on S. Georgia (it's a big island) was Salisbury Plain. This is home of the second largest King penguin colony. I didn't get an estimate for the largest colony size, but this one is estimated to have 160,000 breeding pairs. For whatever reason the young penguins here are way more forward about checking you out. Several different ones walked up to me and pecked on my hand or boot. One actually followed me around and every time I stopped he got in front of me and made a big show about something, like he wanted me to do something or go somewhere. He's the one in the first pic.

After this stop we were done and began our long sail to the Falklands which brings me full circle to the "10,000 mile journey" post a while back. The last pic below is a set of rocks a day out from S Georgia. They are not part of any land mass and are really in the middle of nowhere. There are generally lots of whale sightings here because this is the top of a mountain rising up from the sea floor, which is otherwise very, very deep in the Scotia Sea. We crossed the Polar Front soon after this and the air warmed up immensely, though still chilly.

That was the end of the Antarctic part of my expedition, I'll start posting New Zealand dispatches next. Thanks to Shelly for posting these, and setting up the website.

A zealous King penguin fledgling pecking at my camera

Part of the colony at Salisbury Plain

Shag Rocks between South Georgia and the Falklands

Shackleton's Footsteps and Courtship Dancing

The last Shackleton-type thing we did was to follow in his footsteps across South Georgia. He and his guys had to land on the western side of the island and spent three days hiking across mountains and glaciers to the eastern side whaling stations. So we hiked in their footsteps... Kind of. We did the last few hours of his walk from Fortuna Bay to Stromness, no glaciers but there was a steep snowfield to descend. And we didn't cross the ridge exactly where they did, we went the easy way. Hey, excluding me, there was zero climbing experience among the participants, including the leader, so what could I expect?

It was refreshing to get out on even a moderate hike, only the second on the trip. It took 3 hours, but only because we waited for some very, very slow hikers in the group, it's probably less than two hours for anyone with hiking experience and reasonably fit.

After that we went to Prion island and observed birds. Flying birds. Can't remember if they were skuas or petrels, but we got some pics of a trade off where the male takes over brooding and apparently it was the first trade off since the egg was laid given the size of the chic (bird experts with us, remember). In the background two younger birds were doing a courting dance where they stand with their wings out. This goes on for YEARS before lifetime mates are selected. Photo below, you have to zoom in to see it properly.

The bird watchers in our group thought they had died and gone to heaven to witness this. Most of the birds in South Georgia just about disappeared when rats were introduced inadvertently from visiting ships. The good news is that they have just finished successfully eradicating rats from South Georgia. It took a huge effort, years and very expensive.

Group walking up from Fortuna Bay, our ship visible in background

Birdsong on Prion Island. Two nesting on left, one dancing in front of another on right

Penguins

We stopped at St. Andrews bay and visited the largest King penguin colony in the world. The size of it was unbelievable. There are hundreds of thousands of penguins here. The place I took the photo below was very loud with penguin squawks, and it only shows a slice of the colony which wrapped around this point almost 360 degrees. Indeed, it did not smell good, but to be honest, penguin guano didn't smell that bad to me, fur seals were far, far worse smelling. Many people in the group did have big problems with the penguin smell, be warned if you visit here....

The next morning we got to Grytviken, the old Swedish whaling station. It operated from the late 1800s to the mid 1960s. This is the story: in the second half of the 19th century, there were almost no "right whales," what they call the particular slow swimming whale species that were hunted, in the northern hemisphere. They had been hunted to near extinction in the north. But, it was noticed that around Antarctica there was an abundance of whales.

In the bay at Grytviken it was recorded that ships would see hundreds of whales, in the bay alone. So it evolved that the industrial scale whale hunting would move to the remote Southern Hemisphere. And over the next 80 years they were hunted to near extinction. For most of the early years, the only thing that was used from the whales was the blubber, which was cooked into oil. The rest of the carcass was dumped into the bay.

Whether you agree with hunting animals or not, there is nothing right about doing it on an industrial scale for a single product.

Anyway, this is where Shackleton is buried and so we did a toast at his grave with readings from his writings. Everyone got a shot of good scotch, and we did a toast. At 9 am, by the way. He was known as "the boss" long before Springsteen was born, and so that's what everyone was calling him.

By the way, the princess had been here the day before, visiting the science station so we got an earful of how stressful it was preparing an official meal and then a private "royal party" meal.

St. Andrews bay,  largest King penguin colony in the world (partial view)

Group toast to "the boss."

Cooper Bay

First landing on South Georgia at Cooper Bay, normally not accessible due to waves. We landed here to see Macaroni penguins, one of the few places they are accessible. They nest on high rock cliffs normally, and are very difficult to get to, but we could get close to these. They are not named after the noodle but rather an Italian "dandy" as they were called in the 1700s or 1800s.

We also had our first encounter with fur seals. Unlike all the other seals we encountered, these seals were smaller and could move fast on land. The little bastards would growl at you and charge like a small dog in a bad mood. And they have lots of sharp they like to bare.  This was instinctive behavior and they never bit any of our group but they warned us about it. All we did was yell and growl back at them and they would stop charging. But it was annoying, they'd charge you after you walked by or when you weren't looking. 

The fur seal was hunted almost to extinction for the furs.. They protected it at some point and they have come back with a vengeance in South Georgia.

Next: more penguins. And I mean more...

King penguin who approached me trying to figure out what kind of penguin I was

Macaroni penguins, zoom in on the head and notice the macaroni feathers

South Georgia

After 7 days in the Antarctic, we started toward South Georgia. The passage over the Scotia Sea (as it is called), was rough but not as bad as the Drake Passage. Some who were still sensitive to seasickness were again absent from all meals and gatherings, I'm thinking it must have really been terrible for them. They certainly suffered a lot for this experience. This passage took over two days, note that it took Shackleton 16 days in a relatively tiny boat.

Again we had lectures, some entertainment (movies), but otherwise it was very tedious since you really couldn't do much with the ship rocking severely. They allowed us to hang out on the bridge pretty much whenever we wanted, so several of us spent a lot of time up there.

BTW, for Clint: my cabin mate was a Rotarian from Australia. As a matter of fact there were three Rotarians among the passengers, which they claimed was enough to hold a meeting (they did).

After two-plus long days, South Georgia emerged into view with its sharp, glaciated peaks in stark contrast to the open gray ocean.

In my cabin trying to kill time on the South Georgia passage

First view of the dramatic landscape of South Georgia

Click the link below to see where I am located. 

http://fms.ws/TlAkt/38.37692S/175.19852E

Red Neck Camping

I'm at the halfway point in my Southern Hemisphere expedition. Camping in New Zealand for the first time, you can see it's pretty much redneck car camping. Despite common belief, you cannot just camp anywhere here. Recently they've been cracking down on feral camping due to trash, vandalism and excrement. Only at campsites are you supposed to camp, just like most of Colorado and everywhere now.

Back to Antarctica... We went to Deception Island, a giant old volcanic caldera you sail into. Look it up on google maps. The water in the caldera is warmer, but not warm enough to swim in, thank you. 

We then headed to Elephant Island, the northern and easternmost big island in the South Shetland islands. This is where Shackleton's expedition rowed to when the pack ice broke up. Shackleton and several others then sailed one of the small lifeboats from there to South Georgia. We took the Zodiacs in near Point Wild, named after Shackleton's lieutenant Frank Wild, where the crew waited in winter for months for a rescue that may have never come.

They stayed in overturned rowboats on that small spit of land, living on penguin and seal. We could not land there due to the extreme waves and winds. A big hazard in the Antarctic is the katabatic winds. Like chinooks, they blow down from the mountainside up to 100 mph. We were in 66 mph winds on that day (measured by one of the crew).

Not exactly a vacation beach, but allowed Shackleton's men to survive.

Next: South Georgia 

Redneck camping in New Zealand

Point Wild in 60 mph katabatic winds

On the roof of the Polar Pioneer bridge, about to head for Deception Island