Tramping in NZ
Since my last update I've covered over 100km of New Zealand bush, walking the Rakiura and Kepler tracks. The Rakiura track on Stewart Island was a nice little warm up, being only 36km long and spread over 3 days. The weather was blessedly sunny and the path so well made it was a rare occurrence to come across a section of mud, for which Stewart Island is traditionally famous. The path is more or less all though native forest, very lush and green with ferns and moss covered trees. The wonderful New Zealand hut system meant that I didn't have to carry a tent with me; instead I stayed both nights in purpose built huts, each with a bunkroom and a cooking area with a pot belly fire - they even had sinks and running water! Very luxurious compared to a Scottish bothy. Tramping the route at the same time as me were a Belgian, a German couple, a Czech man and a Polish women - quite the European mix. Luckily for me, the only common language between everyone was English.
After flying back to Invercargill and taking a bus up to Te Anau I took a day's break to restock then set out on the Kepler track, a rather more difficult route going 65km and climbing 1270m (4167 feet) to the top of Mt Luxmore then descending all the way back down again and following a river back to Te Anau. Apparently, the record time for completing the circuit is an insane 4 hours and 37 minutes. I did it in a rather more leisurely 20 hours across 4 days. Again, I was incredibly lucky with the weather; it only rained when I was safely in a hut for the night.
The Kepler track is very popular and the first two huts were huge (taking up to 60 people a night) and at $40 they were the most expensive places I have stayed at in New Zealand! But then they did have gas stoves, solar powered electric lighting and flushing toilets, hardly your standard hut facilities. With so many people there it was easy to find a group to talk to and play cards with.
The first, third and fourth days are more or less exclusively though forest so not so interesting (although still quite beautiful). The second day, however, is simply stunning. Virtually the whole day is spent above the tree line, first ascending to the summit of Mt Luxmore (1472m - 4829 feet - in Scotland that would be a munro bagged for sure!) from which there were 360 degree views over cloud filled valleys to the snow capped mountains beyond then continuing along a couple of ridges, with views down either side; occasionally the clouds would part and you could catch glimpses of Lake Te Anau, glittering 1000m below.
I also came across a party of quite possibly the worst prepared walkers I have ever seen. Two Germans and a Canadian set off from a campsite just before you start climbing (at all) and arrived at the first hut just after I did on the first day. Only they were intending to make it to the campsite at the next hut, a good 6 hours away at their pace. So first they stopped for lunch and then an hour or so later set off, with only 4 hours til dark and rain descending on the mountain tops ahead. They ended up having to spend the night at an emergency shelter, soaking wet and with only one dry sleeping bag. Oh, and for one of the Germans it was her first ever hike and she was wearing jeans. She also got massive blisters on the back of her foot and twisted her ankle. I caught up with them at the end of the second day when I found them sitting round the fire in the second hut, warming up and drying all their clothes.
The last hut I stayed in was a little different to the first two. For a start it was 1/8 of the price. It was a tiny one roomed, 6 bunk hut slightly off the main track and not advertised much (the DOC would prefer you to stay in their $40 hut). Then again, it didn't even have running water, although Lake Manapouri was conveniently 10m in front and I ate dinner sitting on the shore watching the sun go down behind the mountains. I shared the hut with a group of 3 girls, two Americans and a Slovenian; they had been walking the same days as me but I hadn't bumped in to them before.
Tomorrow I'm heading up to Milford Sound. I'm going kayaking on it in the evening then staying the night and doing a cruise in the morning. From there I'll get the bus all the way to Queenstown, but I'm only going to stay there a day to restock and arrange transport to the small hamlet of Glenorchy, from where I have access to the Routeburn-Caples and Rees-Dart tracks - another week or so's worth of hiking in the mountains before I return to Queenstown to see it properly.
Down South
Well, I'm now on my Johnny Todd after parting with Oli, Mel, Alex & Laura etc. in Auckland and being driven to the airport in a gorgeous, open-top vintage Porsche by a family friend; an unexpected bonus. I flew in to Christchurch over the magnificent Canterbury planes, totally flat and stretching for miles. INJOKE: I was slightly alarmed when the captain first cane on the radio and announced himself as Peter Duncan but thankfully he was quite competent and didn't claim to be able to fly because his brother used to be a pilot.
Christchurch was a nice city with plenty of green space and a large park near the city centre. The Avon river winds its way through the middle and the banks of this are presumably where Christchurch gets its reputation for being the most English city in NZ, being reminiscent of the river Cam. An old tram does a short circuit of the city centre, costing rather more and travelling far less than back when it was actually a proper means of public transport, but it does at least take you to the museum, with detailed information on how the Brits were beaten to the south pole by the Norwegians but still became more famous, and the magnificent glass fronted art gallery. A little way out of town, a Gondola takes you up on to the surrounding volcanic hills and despite not having a map I managed to wander round for a couple of hours, taking in magnificent views of Lyttleton harbour, the Canterbury planes and of course the ocean, stretching out to the eastern horizon. A visit to Canterbury Brewery proved that not all Guinness is brewed in Dublin but for $10 was quite fun and you got at least that amount of free beer at the end.
Dunedin is apparently the Edinburgh of the south and from the pictures that accompany all the advertising leaflets you would expect every building to be 100 years old and made of stone. You would be wrong. With the exception of the railway station and the university however, everything is pretty standard and new. It is nonetheless a nice city, apparently the largest (by area) in New Zealand and the 5th largest in the world, easily beating London, despite having a population of only 120,000. It also contains the world's steepest street as well as the world's longest walk to a not-really-worth-it-attraction (the aforementioned street).
Rugby is the national game in New Zealand and with the venerable Carisbrook stadium nearby, I of course took the opportunity to go and see a Super 14s match between the local team (the Otago Highlanders) and a team from Perth (Western Force). It was a glorious sunny day and I had a ticket for the terraces, where one could stand or sit on the concrete steps. With Perth winning 15-3 at half time the crowd behind me were rather despondent and I wandered down to the railing at the edge of the pitch where four girls were standing wearing capes and clothes in the Otago colours of yellow and blue and sporting faces painted to match. I started chatting to one of them and whilst we watched Otago mount an amazing comeback in the second half (going on to win 25-22) we became friends and she offered me a ticket entitling the bearer to free transport back to a pub in town and 3 free glasses of beer; she had been given two of these tickets by mistake. Naturally I accepted; it would have been ungentlemanly not to. I ended up getting back to the hostel at 3am. Oh, and as if a load of free beer and a great night out wasn't enough, Katie also happened to be the daughter of the owners of Stewart Island Flights and got me a hefty discount. Bonus.
So here I am, currently on Stewart Island, having been flown over this afternoon by Katie's dad from Invercargill. The nice weather stopped literally as soon as we passed from the sea over the island and currently there is a distinctly cloudy look to the sky. Tomorrow I set out on the Rakiura track, a 3 day circular walk taking me along the coast, inland and then back to Oban (the only town here), hopefully in time to fly back to Invercargill on Friday evening.
Diving with sharks and other things that eat you
So I'm in New Zealand now and yes everything is very nice. I've wandered around Auckland, got refused entry to a casino for being underage (min. age 20) and have been out into the bush to do a morning's conservation work, retrieving wasp poison from little plastic containers on a transect line off the beaten track. I've already booked my flight to Christchurch for monday and then the real adventure starts. Before I left Fiji however, there was one other thing I did worth mentioning. You might have guessed what it involved from the title of this piece.
The shark dive on the Shark Reef Marine Reserve is apparently, according to many world class divers, the best in the world. It's even in the list of 1000 things to do before you die in the back of Oli's diary. This was an extra activity organised by Greenforce after the phase had officially finished, although of the 17 volunteers 11 of us did the two dives.
Let's clear something up straight away as this always seems to be everyone's first question: you were in a cage right? Ummm... no, actually. But don't worry, we were wearing full length wetsuits and gloves to ensure we don't look too much like morsals of food. So with that out of the way, let's get on to the dives themselves. We descended quickly to a depth of 30m, where a small stone wall had been built for us to kneel behind whilst no more than 2m in front of it, the dive master stood wearing chain mail gloves and holding on to a huge wheelie bin full of fish remains from a local processing factory. In front of me and above me (in fact all around) were over a hundred giant trevally, enormous vicious looking fish up to a meter and a half long and 75cm tall. Whenever a fish head was thrown up to them they would descend upon it like a pack of piranhas, ripping and tearing before a massive one simply swooped in and swallowed it whole. There were also some other large fish in with them, particularly red snappers and a fair few shark suckers. All these fish were no more than a meter or two away and often passed close enough to touch, should you not value your fingers that is.
It wasn't long before the sharks came. Three absolutely gigantic tawny nurse sharks arrived, each between two and a half and and three and a half meters long. Despite this, they weren't that scary as a rather toothless grin with two little tassles hanging below their mouth like a goatfish and they ate straight out of the wheelie bin, their head stuck inside. The bull sharks however were much more impressive, starting off slinking throuigh the shadows at the edge of the visibility; they look like real sharks.
After 17 minutes we ascended to another wall at 10m and watched a show of smaller sharks, white tips and grey reefs, along with some smaller fish. We ascended and had an hour-long surface interval before dropping back down to 15m and watching a stunning display of giant trevally and (apparently) 15 bull sharks (although I never counted more than 8 in my sight at one go). Up to two and a half meters long and fat as a barrel, they had little piggy eyes and a sloping mouth. The dive master was feeding them out of his hand; the sharks would approach from the left then he would swing the food around so the sharks turned to face towards us as they opened their cavernous mouths a meter away from where I sat and slammed them shut on the fish. Absolutely awsome. And to top it off, a giant moray eel was poking his head out of the wall just below me, apparently enjoying the show as well.
We were of course slightly disappointed that we didn't see a 6 meter long tiger shark that actually scares the bull sharks away, but you can't have everything ;-)