Veber mistakenly informed us that there was a Fergburger joint (I'll get to Fergburger in a minute) in Dunedin, so we spent a while trying to find it. Unfortunately, the only Fergburger is in Queenstown, so we'd have to wait. Our friend Ryan from back in Peru and Bolivia had recommended it, so we were interested to try it out. Either way, Colin and Meredith headed to a bar to watch more cricket while Blove, Veber, and I headed off to get some food and some internet.
After getting a small meal at a restaurant offering free wifi (which NEVER happens in New Zealand), we discussed future travel plans. I wanted to go to Australia and more of Oceania, while Blove and Veber wanted to go directly to Thailand and Southeast Asia. After much discussion, I was outnumbered and it was decided our next destination would be Bangkok. I was very disappointed, but it wasn't going to stop me from having a good time. Plus, I'm continuing the trip when Blove and Veber call it quits in February, so I guess I know where my first destination will be!
We spent the rest of the day wandering a bit. Blove and I played a game of chess on one of those massive street chess boards. The last time he and I had played, we were both drunk in the Czech Republic. I had forgetten he's much better than me. He quickly defeated my little chess army and I walked into a bar to grab a beer and watch some cricket with Colin and Meredith.
After a few more hours, we drove off for Te Amau, at the doorstep of Fjordland National Park. But first we decided to stop by at the Guinness World's Steepest Road
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| Entrance to the National Park |
We knew we were going to do one of the long Fjordland treks, and eventually decided on the Routeburn Trek, approximately 36 kilometers over the course of about 3 days. We stocked up on the essentials (tons of granola bars, spaghetti, PB, Jelly, tortillas, etc) and drove into the park. We first drove out to see Milford Sound, which from all the tourist magazines and postcards looked stunning. When we got there, it wasn't quite as advertised. The tide was extremely low, and the wind kicked up a ton of waves so the scene wasn't quite as placid as it seemed from the pictures I'd seen. Still, I'd never seen Fjords before, and it was still spectacularly beautiful. We took tons of photos.
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| Te Amau |
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| Outside of Te Amau |
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| Milford Sound |
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| More Milford Sound |
That night we camped out at what I thought was one of the most beautiful spots we'd camped in the entire trip. Unfortunately, there were also tons of little sand flies that bugged us (no pun intended) all night. Still, I enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The sunset was gorgeous, as was the sunrise.
We headed out for The Divide, which is where the Routeburn Trek began. When we got there we met up with our driver from Trackhopper, a driving service I found. The guy from Trackhopper (a completely spaced-out hippie, but still a very nice guy) took our car and drove the 6 hours around the park to bring it to where Routeburn ends.
We packed our bags with the necessary foodstuffs, clothing, tents, etc and began our trek. We had no guide, no map, just instinct. Kidding. But seriously we didn't have a guide or a map, the trail was well-marked.
Day 1 was mostly an ascent into the mountains. After coming through the trees, we were greeted with some gorgeous scenery
We happened upon a gorgeous waterfall next with rainbows appearing through the mist.
We marched along for a good 8+ hours, enjoying the scenery. One thing that made the trek even more exceptional was the water. We each started with a couple of bottles of water pre-purchased from a grocery store and we had planned to just purify water as we went along. However, the Trackhopper dude told us we could just drink straight from the streams. We were a bit hesitant at first, but it became an absolute highlight. We'd hear rushing water off in the distance and when we got closer we'd all gather around the stream to re-fill our water bottles with some of the coldest, freshest water I've ever tasted.
At night, we set up camp, which was a bit more difficult than usual. The Dept. Of Conservation (DOC) carefully controls the Park and other natural areas, as you could imagine. As such, there were designated campsites that were basically Astroturf on a bed of packed gravel. It made our old-school tents quite diffcult to put up, but we made it work.
We were just about to make some dinner when we realized we had forgotten to bring any plates, bowls, or silverware. We had been so focused on buying and packing proper trekking food that we had forgotten to bring anything to eat it with. We could only laugh at our stupidity, and asked some of the other hikers to borrow their gear.
The next morning, I awoke to one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. I walked out to the shore of this mountain lake, which was quiet and serene. Not a single ripple moved across the water. I enjoyed being alone for a few minutes by the edge of the water, then took a few photos, skipped a couple of rocks, and went back to the campsite to pack up.
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| View of the Campsite from above |
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| View of the lake beside the campsite |
Day 2 was supposedly the toughest day of the trek, as it's a steep ascent for the majority of the day, with the last 2 hours or so descending down into the valley. We climbed and climbed, and were constantly rewarded with amazing new views.
I got pretty excited at the climbing we were doing and went off the track a few times to get better views. It was a lot of fun, especially in places where I could see miles away where the track was headed.
We stopped for lunch, unstrapped our packs, and did a little cooking. We made PB&J tortillas and boiled a packet of some freeze-dried food for Meredith, who can't eat gluten. We then continued on for a few hours until we reached Conical Peak.
Conical Peak is a side-trek you are allowed to do at certain times of the year. It's about an hour to the top. There was a sign saying that the peak was closed due to 'dangerous snow conditions' but hey, there was nobody there from DOC to tell us not to go, and we'd heard from other hikers that it's an amazing sight.
Colin and Meredith continued on, skipping Conical Peak, but the Brians and I just had to try to see it. We hiked up the Hill and after 20 minutes or so, realized what 'dangerous conditions' actually meant. There were huge chunks of snow, the melt water running down the hill, that looked like the could give and fall off the side of the mountain at any moment. We did our best to stay out of any probable avalanche paths as we continued our ascent (do I have my mother worried yet?). We finally made it to the top to more incredible views. Fortune does favor the bold.
Conical Peak was the geographic high-point of the Routeburn Trek, as well as the scenic high-point. From there we began our long day-and-a-half descent. We reached our day 2 campsite after 2 hours or so, and pitched a tent. We filled our waterbottles, Brian and Brian took a swim (stupid, it was way too cold for that; needless to say the swim didn't last very long), and we all sat down to chat a bit or do some reading. Eventually it got a bit darker and the stars came out. They were absolutely gorgeous. Not quite as spectacular as our first ngiht camping in New Zealand, but still amazing. Colin and Meredith decided they wanted to take a night stroll, so we devised a system of light signals with my Petzl so they could find their way back to camp in the darkness.
The final day of our trek was a leisurely descent. As usual, some great scenery, but the hike itself was very casual. All those streams we had been drinking from finally converged and formed a crystal-clear river, which was also beautiful
We finally finished our trek, and reached the Homer completely exhausted. We packed up the car and drove to Queenstown for the night. We decided to stay in a hostel, as none of us had slept in a bed in over a month. We wandered out to see Queenstown, which had a very cool feel to it, like a ski-town.
Queenstown was also home of the FERGBURGER, and for a few days while we were there, I develped a brief love affair with these juicy burgers. They had all sorts of different types. They're big burgers, and many people would barely be able to eat a whole one. I had two each time I went. My favorite was the Little Lamby, a giant lamb burger that even had a bit of mint jelly on the inside. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.
FERGBURGER
We enjoyed our two nights in the hostel. Got some sleep the first night, and went out drinking the second, all the while keeping up with the Ashes Test Match, which was still, unbelievably, not even halfway over.
We left Queenstown, knowing it was the beginning of the end of our time in New Zealand. We first headed off towards the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers, but it was too cloudy to see much. We drove off again, back toward Christchurch. We dropped Colin and Meredith off, and began driving back up north towards Auckland. It was right about this time that I got a bullshit speeding ticket. That really pissed me off at New Zealand as a whole for a few days, but I got over it.
After seemingly endless hours of driving, we reached Auckland and borded our flight to Thailand the following day.
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