Our Heaphy Adventure

The second day was about 17km from Gouland downs to the Mackay Hut.  We had to cross a few rivers (more like bustling small streams) by foot (most have bridges), which meant I had to fall into at least one.  My record has been pretty good with crossing waterways in New Zealand, but when you strap a 20lbs pack on my back I'm bound to fall right into the water like a turtle on its back, and sure enough I did.  With a little time and the hot sun I dried up a bit, and at the next rest stop Jeff and I went dipping in a watering hole. (too cold for swimming)  It was a beautiful afternoon, but the discovery of some nasty looking spiders under the rocks quickly scared me from the water hole.  We arrived at the Mackay huts and were greeted by the sandflies.  They basically make is so we cook quick and run and eat it in the tent.  My feet were killing me by day 2 so I was very content setting up the tent and falling asleep before sundown (which was about 9:30-10).  We were abruptly woken around midnight to the sound of a Weka trying to steal our food.  We were able to save the cous cous, but he got our last few slices of bread!

Honestly, I was quite surprised that of all of the things that could really hinder my ability to enjoy the hike it was my feet.  I expected sore shoulders, a lower back spasm, or maybe some really rough hills, but not sore feet, but they were so sore at times i could feel the adrenaline pumping so that it was almost numb.  Day 3 came along and the feet were still pounding, but we had to move along so I took it one step at a time for about 20km to the Heaphy Hut.  It was the most beautiful of the hut locations, and it was located right where the Heaphy river (a very large river) dumped into the Pacific Ocean.  Despite all of the sandflies, we made sure to take a swim in the waves of the West Coast.  We were informed by John, a friendly American born (attended HS in Allentown!) guy who has lived in NZ for 8 years, that there was a shuttle from the track end to Karamea (an additional 18km) that came at 1, so we made sure to get up around 6am to get to the trail end by noon.

The last day was the most beautiful, as we walked almost entirely along the beaches of the upper west coast, and we arrived at the end around 11:30 and grabbed a shuttle to Karamea to find a backpackers to clean up in.  It took us 72 hours but overall I enjoyed the hike.  I don't mind camping at all, but I did not enjoy walking when my feet were acting up or the sandflies.  I think I prefer camping when I don't have to carry a pack the whole day, because I was so exhausted by the time we got the huts each day, I really couldn't enjoy the surroundings too much.  We also had to ration out food, which is my weakest point because I love to eat, but we brought a soup for each night, and about 18 granola bars, some cous cous, some scroggin (kiwi name for  trail mix), breakfast shakes, a bar of dark chocolate, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter, and we had finished everything by the end, and didn't go too hungry, although a bigger dinner would have been nice.

The Heaphy River draining into the Pacific Ocean

Arriving in Karamea was like a huge ray of sunshine, despite the dark clouds rolling in.  We got some laundry going (for $5 a wash!!) at the Rongo backpackers.  Rongo was really fun and there were a few Heaphy trampers there.  Petia stayed the same night we did, as well as our new found French friend Gabriel (he'll show up later in our adventure as well), and we even got to pet our first sheep (because it was on a leash)  That afternoon we headed out to a cafe called "The Last Resort" for a proper bite to eat.  There we had run into an older American couple, Steve and Laurie, we had seen/spoken to along the Heaphy, who were currently living in Nelson.  We said hi and joked with them about following them here, and you could tell they felt bad about not offering us a ride from the trail end when we spoke to them there.  They offered to take us on this nature adventure they were doing the next morning, and said if we wanted to go to just wait outside the backpackers at 8am.  We thanked them for their generosity, but decided not to go because we wanted to sleep a bit and there were rain clouds coming. By the time we got all of our things together and has some breakfast it was 10am and time to set out for our first hitchhiking experience.  It is 430km from Karamea back to the Heaphy start where our car was, so we knew this could be quite the adventure (when driving to the west coast you have to go all the way around Kahurangi National Park rather than through it).
(side note:  At "The Last Resort" we ordered a milkshake, and apparently a kiwi milkshake is just shaken milk with a flavor... quite disappointing for $5.50)

We often refer to our experience getting back to the car as "more of an adventure than the Heaphy itself", but it only took 50 hours to get the 430km. We could have taken a shuttle for 6 hours and $110, but we decided to do it the hard way, or the "adventurous" way as some may put it.

I hope to get caught up to Queenstown by tomorrow because I really can't wait to blog about QT, but there we have had a lot of great experiences before we even got here!

Cheers!

Jeff & Annabelle

Christmas & the Heaphy Track

I know it’s been quite a while, but it has been a non-stop adventure ever since we’ve left our house in Nelson.  This may end up being a 3 part blog entry because there’s a lot to tell, and I want to start from where I left off last time.  So where did I leave off last time?  Jeff finished up at the orchard, and I worked 2 shifts at the council.  I brought my lunch friends Tim Tams so they could try the Tim Tam slam, but they all insisted I do it for them.  I tried to be as eloquent as possible while shoving a melting cookie into my mouth, and I’m pretty sure they were delighted.  This time working at the café I worked with James (the manager/chef) rather than Lorraine (who left early for Christmas), and he was really fun to work with and even taught me how to make coffee!  It was an invaluable experience because it looks really good on my CV (resume).  Speaking of resume, I was reading a weekly bulletin put online that lists Queenstown jobs and apartments while we were still in Nelson to get an idea of how difficult it could be to obtain employment and housing once we get there.  It was clear we would have no trouble finding a place to live, and I saw an ad for waitstaff at the Hilton in QT, so I applied, and within a day the manager had called me for a phone interview and asked me to come in to meet her as soon as I got to QT!!  More on this later.

So Thursday night I took Jeff to basketball because I needed to go to the grocery store out that way anyway, and I came and watched the end of his games, and he was playing with a Giants player!  The Giants are equivalent to the Sixers in that they are the big team for that city in the country, but unlike the Sixers, they are not super rich and famous, but apparently he was a pretty decent player, and super tall.

Friday, Jeff finished up at noon, and I at 2, and we went to Coverstaff to say our goodbyes and collect our holiday pay.  Then we went on a mission to find a speaker that could play music while we were on the Heaphy track.  We came across this awesome speaker called the “Bassburger” (seen below), which has a rechargeable battery that charges by USB and lasts for 8 hours on a 3 hour charge.  The sound is terrific, and it is way too loud if you turn the ipod up all the way.  It was perfect for the hike, and a really great reflection of what modern technology can accomplish in a combination of size and quality. 

That night we went out to the Nelson Hotel, which is a bar we found that had $3 Tui, Heineken, and Speight’s bottles (which is really cheap by NZ standards) and an amazing Ginger Lime cider that I am in love with.  We met up with Jeff’s basketball buddy Jake who is from Germany (the same town as Dirk Nowitzki, which is kind sweet).  We spent a few hours talking to Jake about Germany and basketball and life, and we hope to meet up with him when he comes to visit Queenstown soon.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and we headed to Golden Bay to find a backpackers to spend a warm night in before our big hike.  The Shambhala backpackers and yoga retreat was recommended to us by James at the council.  It looked and sounded beautiful on the website, and the price was right so we headed there, and it was beautiful in real life but we were disappointed that they didn’t have internet because we wanted to skype with family before Christmas.  Needless to say we had a free yoga session and a wonderful Christmas eve dinner because everyone there that night made a dish and we all shared.  Jeff and I made a vegetable scampi of sorts.  We got a really good sleep in and were off to the Heaphy track on Christmas morning. 

 

We picked up Petia, who was hitchhiking to the track and walked with her for the first couple hours of the track.  She was a nice 46 year old forest ranger turned music teacher who was very eccentric and fun to talk to, and loved to take pictures.  Our first day was about 24 km (& 7 hours) to Gouland Downs Hut, and once we arrived there we were hungry and I was beyond exhausted.  We made some dinner and put some decorations on a tree to get in the Christmas spirit.  We were the only ones there from 7-9pm then a young group of trampers showed up (from France, Switzerland, Germany, and Mexico).  Jeff and I attempted to go look for kiwis as the sun went down, but the sandflies were really bad so we went to bed. 

Side note:  Because the track is 49 miles (76 km) long we didn’t really expect to meet too many people on the track, but we didn’t realize that we would get to the huts and the break shelters and there would be about 20 others who had booked hut beds or camp sites.  It ended up that we would see the same people every morning and night for 4 days, and we made a lot of friends who appear very often later in our adventures.  It was actually really great to be able to hike alone during the day, but share your experiences on the track with the others at the end of the day. 

It’s getting late and I’m getting hungry, but I will blog about the rest of the Heaphy track and our adventure to Queenstown tomorrow.  Hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas and New Years and I want to hear about everyone’s Christmas so please skype/e-mail!

Cheers!!

Ps. I have uploaded all of our most recent pictures to our Flickr/Photo page!