It is totally unrealistic to try and Hang-glide, Skydive and bungee-jump...
... In one day at that is, I had to spread it over two.
I am currently staying in a room above Queenstown and am doing my very best to jump off of every high place within spitting distance tied to whatever rope is convenient.
No rope? No problem, give me a foil or a parachute and I'll be glad to jump face-first off of a perfectly good cliff or out of a functioning airplane.
Due to a quiet little mix-up somewhere in the cosmos we are enjoying an extra day in Queenstown.
Great news for my adrenal glands.
Horrible, horrible news for my bank account.
The Routeburn track is one of the great back country trails in New Zealand and is renowned worldwide for its breathtaking vistas and cascading waterfalls. It is fitted with 32 kilometers of trail ranging from maintained and groomed to vaguely marked slabs of rock. With four huts (kiwis can be wusses about their backpacking (tramping) and build huts on trails to save the horror (the horror!) of carrying and pitching a tent in the wilderness) the trail is recommended at 3-4 days, 2 days if you're experienced and in a hurry.
I don't have that kind of time.
Luckily one end of the trail emerges north of Te Anau (home of giant cement statues of extinct birds and where I was staying last week) and the other end empties into Glenorchy just North of Queenstown.
You know what sounds like a great idea? Day hiking the Routeburn track while your friends van it from Te Anau to Queenstown and meeting them there.
Naturally we had to try it.
You know what's less than a great idea? ( ^that idea right up there )
Actually I stand by it being a great idea. That side hike to the summit of another mountain maybe a little less standing by that idea.
Three of us set off on the first trailhead shuttle at O'dark thirty on the 21st to tackle what we were guessing was going to be a 10 hour day of steady hiking. 30 minutes in we had our first seriously rolled ankle.
Go team.
Between tripping over each other and tripping over ourselves we managed to trip over a waterfall.
All 174 meters (metres if you fancy) of it.
From the waterfall we could see all down the glacial valley we were sidling to see the fjord-lands and the Tasman Sea off to the west as well as the Misty Mountains (read: waaaaaaaaaay to much Lord of the Rings on this trip.)
New Zealand tracks are marked not in distance but in time you should expect to hike between landmarks. They say it is because the terrain can be so deceiving when viewed on a map and people end up stranded short of their destinations. For the first 6 hours or so we were able to make the check points in about 2/3 of the time expected of hikers. So when we arrived at the high point and 2/3 distance mark of our hike a little over an hour in the black we decided that we had time for a quick (read: not quick) jaunt up nearby conical hill.
Conical is a Kiwi euphemism for monstrous and malicious.
Just like Damp is a Kiwi euphemism for sheeted downpour.
Conical Hill was worth it. It also left us with 2 and half hours to hike the last 12 kilometers, rated at at about 4 hours. So we did what every sensible hiker would do, we ran as fast as our nerves would allow. Which for about an hour was a very slow scramble as we worked down bare rock paths and steppes. Back in the forest though we were able to step up the pace to half the marked times.
I fell, I bled, I made it to the trail-end by 6 (our goal). That last part is all that matters.
I changed my mind, there is no such thing as too much Lord of the Rings.
In Queenstown, it rains people, at any given time you can look up and there will be no less than 10 parachutes/hangliders/parasailers/man-birds soaring around above you.
I know that I have been doing something right because I have started to run into people over and over again. Travelers and natives alike are in the right places at the right times and its like a reunion between old friends with people I talked to waiting in line for an ice cream cone.
So free pool night is my absolute favorite bar gimmick. While staying near Lake Wanaka I played a fellow student who was from Switzerland. After getting totally stomped on for a couple of racks I asked how long he had been playing, to which he replied "Oh I stopped playing tournaments when I was 10".
It was then I decided to stop taking it easy on him.
There are wild goats here, and they don't get much taller than my knees, they are ridiculous.
well until next time,
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"Who wants to be run over by the Zorb?"
What a silly question. Of course I want to be run over by a Zorb. Who wouldn't?
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
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