Lows and Hieghts

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Entry Trip End May 08, 2007 Next
Entry

  Mt. Cook Area, New Zealand
Thursday, March 15, 2007

Before we proceed into the meat of the story, I feel the need to elucidate the specifics of our situation. New Zealand is very different from Asia (duh, Mike) and it took me a couple days to adjust. The biggest adjustment was our style of traveling. Where Jon and I were used to MRTs, taxis, tuk tuks, ferries, skytrains, buses, etc., in New Zealand we'd only be relying on a 1988 Toyota Liteace Diesel van. For those of you who don't know, a van of this model houses a full queen sized bed in the back and only has two seats in front.

But Mike, you plus Jon plus Buddy means there were three people. Did you sit on each other's laps or something?

Only when it got cold. (just kidding) Buddy had already solved the seating problem. (and no, playing musical chairs is not a solution, so that's enough Reggie) Buddy set up a folding camping chair in the space which opens up when the bed is folded away. It faced sideways. We called it the beer chair. Not entirely sure why. I have a vague memory of similar chairs being on Buddy porch at his house in SLO, but I digress.

Gee, Mike, I hate to interrupt again, but a folding chair sitting precariously in a moving van doesn't seem very safe. Or legal.

As far as safety is concerned, I was often cushioned by my overinflated feelings of self-worth. I also have just spent the past five months barreling down rutted dirt roads in the back of, or on top of, poorly maintained pickup trucks. I've also been on damaged, ancient buses being driven by less than sober drivers. So did my personal safety alarm go off when driving a mechanically sound van with my trustworthy friends on the well-paved roads of a civilized country? Not so much. As far as the legalities of driving with one of us in that chair... that's precisely why we kept the curtains drawn. (Yup, curtains. It's that kind of van).
And as we anticipated, New Zealand was also different in its weather, pricing, the strength of its currency, language, yada yada yada. It was startling at first, but second nature in no time. (Or is that third nature by now?)
Upon leaving the sprawl surrounding Christchurch and entering lush farmland, it began to rain. None of that warm, tropical, "this is gonna make things way too muggy a little later" type rain. Cold, refreshing rain. Rain like at home. I was surprised at how welcoming I was to the sight of it, excited even.
We reached Lake Tekapo, our first stop of the day. The rain had turned to snow. Cool rain was one thing, but snow was a little too much. I still only had shorts and t-shirts. We'd have to remedy that soon. Lake Tekapo has a quaint little English style church on its shores. It's just about the only thing of note there, especially in snowy, low-visibility weather. Despite the drab, sinking sky, we could tell that in sunlight the water would be a brilliant turquoise. Oh well. We decided to take our lunch on the lake's shores while we waited for the snow to pass. We made sandwiches inside the van and set about naming her. Out of nowhere, we decided on the name Dierdre. It just seemed to fit that stout little Toyota. So Dierdre it was, even though the correct spelling seems to be Deirdre. (I looked it up on babynames.com just now. It means "young girl, one who rages, broken hearted" and is of Celtic origin).
Having seen the Church we pushed on to Lake Pukaki. (Mmhmm. Pooh-Cockey. A lot of the native Maori names are fun like that). Pukaki was far more impressive than Tekapo. The water was a brighter blue. The lake itself seemed far larger. It was looking at this body of water where I realized the biggest difference between New Zealand lakes and those of home and Asia. Yes, the water was almost unnaturally blue. Yes, the surrounding scenery was stunning and dramatic in its overcast trimming. What made it truly different was the lack of boats, the lack of structures. Not a single vessel bobbed on the water's surface. Not a single structure marred the shores. Not a single pier extended out into the blue. Lake Pukaki was a bona-fide pristine, natural lake. Oh... uh, just remembered it's actually probably man made considering the dam at one end. But we didn't know about the dam at first, so keep that first impression. After a few shots of the lake, we decided that if tomorrow cleared, we'd drive back and see the lakes again under blue sky. But in the mean time, we had to hurry to set up camp and get a hike in before dark.
We drove to Mount Cook Village. I immediately sought to find some long johns. The local outfitter had a pair for not too much money and in my size. I was still hesitant to buy them. They were garishly rainbow. My hesitation wasn't at all homophobic; they were simply hideous. While Buddy did get a picture of me in them, don't hold your breath about ever seeing it.
We found a spot at the local campground (Dierdre also came with a two person tent. She's ready for anything) and started down a trail suggested to us by a local: the Hooker Valley Trail. We were promised views of Mt. Cook and the Hooker Glacier. The trail delivered. We were also treated to a couple of suspension bridges over torrential rivers. We got as close as we could to Hooker Glacier before another raging stream cut off our path. But it was time to head back anyway to fully set up the tent and cook before dark. Plus it was threatening to rain again.
We set up the tent in a snap. Dinner was pasta which we prepared on the butane stove Dierdre hides in her hatch. It was piping hot as we ladled out equal portions with lava for sauce. But within thirty second of sitting on the plate, each of our meals was ice cold. No matter. We inhaled our respective portions, barely noticing or caring. After washing (rinsing) the dishes, it was bedtime. We had no light, and we were all drained anyway. The Buddy/Dierdre combo saved the day again by supplying down comforters, sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows for all. Remembering some ancient vestige of advice from God knows where, I pulled my jacket into the sleeping bag with me so that it would be toasty in the morning.
If only I'd been smart enough to do that with my pants too. They were practically frozen when I woke to Buddy slapping the tent. He'd been woken up extra early by a pair of rowdy hawks who liked Dierdre's roof. Poor guy was cold too. He'd given us too many of the blankets and was cold most of the night. But the sun was already out and warming everything. We had two hikes planned before lunch, and only two apples apiece to energize us. After packing everything back into Dierdre, we set off for a lookout which promised spectacular views of Mt. Cook. It was alright. The Hooker Valley Trail views were better. But seeing as the walk to the lookout took 10 minutes, it was no real loss.
From there we aimed towards our second destination: Sealy Tarns. We didn't know what exactly Sealy Tarns was or why we should go there. On the map, the trail was a dinky squiggle even shorter than the trail to the lookout. The map also told us that that dinky squiggle would take 3 hours to trek. But we didn't need the map to tell us any of that because from the trail head we could see. The trek to Sealy Tarns would be practically vertical. We ate our first apple at the trail's base. I'm not sure if it was to get our energy up or to delay so we could mentally prepare ourselves. Neither really happened, but we started out anyway. Most of the way was clearly defined, at first. But as we climbed to higher altitudes, we relied more on the footprints of other hikers than any real path. Steeper portions had rudimentary stairs cut into them. At level portions the dirt gave way to rock, and there were no footprints to follow. Creativity, balance, and guesswork blazed ahead. We reached what we thought was the end only to find we were about half way. From there our pace slowed to a more steady trudge. This was to our benefit not only for endurance, but for traction. We'd reached snow, and in the late morning sun it was slushy and slippery. We climbed higher and it became denser; more firm. In our shuffling, mindless rhythm, we quickly found ourselves at a large ledge with a yellow lettered green sign reading Sealy Tarns. Above it was carved F'n Finally. It took us a little over an hour and a half, but we'd made it. And as we stood in proud victory, a group of senior citizens donning ancient boots and petrified walking sticks briskly walked past us. They were headed back down since they'd already beaten us up here by a wide margin. I'll tell you, those blue-hairs sure looked smug. Bastards.
But once they were out of sight, we continued our victory celebration. We took pictures, chatted with fellow hikers, and ate our other apples. Then we headed down. With gravity on our side, our return trip took 25 minutes or so. (And for the record, we totally passed the old folks on the way down). Once back at Dierdre, we began making our much anticipated lunch of Campbell's Chunky Soup. (It's CHUNKY!) Then I got attacked relentlessly by two of the largest bees I've ever seen because I was wearing a yellow shirt. Long story short, I ran around a lot and ended up eating while stripped to the waist. My shirt lay in the dirt road where the football sized arthropods buzzed around it.
After lunch we hit the road to return to the previous days lakes. It was worth the return journey. Both Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo were stunning in the sunshine. I'll leave any further description of them to the photos. After the lakes, I took the wheel to give Buddy a break. We headed for Dunedin.

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06 Jon in the Beer Chair	07 Lake Pukaki	08 Lake Pukaki	09 Mt. Cook Campgrounds
10 Starting the Hooker Valley Trail	11 It Begins	12 First View of Mt. Cook	13 Mt. Cook
14 Hooker Glacier	15 The Next Morning	16 Packing Dierdre	17 Good Morning New Zealand
18 From the Lookout	19 Jon's Long Jons	20 The Snow Line	21 Sealy Tarns
22 The View Down	23 Relief	24 Back to Lake Pukaki	25 Southern Alps
26 Drab No More	27 The Full Tekapo	28 A Place Like Home

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