Archive for November, 2008

kiwis don’t celebrate thanksgiving

November 20, 2008 · Filed under New Zealand, Queenstown · Tagged , , ,

so i kinda feel like i was complaining a bit too much about the food here in my last post, the truth is there are some redeeming morsels out there.

first i found an awesome bakery in te anau that served this beast of a donut. their chai lattes are also top-notch, and when paired together, oh man. then there are the stroopwafles, basically a small syrup filled waffle that you heat up then roll around in, trying to soak up it’s awesomeness. i met a dutch girl in the hostel kitchen who let me try one, i then quickly went out and bought another package…heat them up and put them on top of ice cream, i am getting fat. which leads me to the ice cream, i don’t know how or why, but i have been eating ice cream every day. usually a waffle cone, sometimes a shake, always wonderful. now i am experiencing queenstown food, on the recommendation of corey, i went to furgburger. it wasn’t the promised ‘best meal ever’, but it was definitely in the top 3 store bought burger of all time. rare company there.

one liter of water weighs one kilogram, why is america so stubborn?

i also found a shop that sells creme brulee fudge, i won’t go into it though or i might walk up to my room and start eating it again. finally, there is venison, i have never eaten bambi, but apparently it is a big deal here. so far i have made venison chili dogs and venison meatball subs with mozarella, both were probably the best things i have eaten since being here. hooray bambi! so as you can see, it isn’t all that bad, but when i don’t get my weekly supplement of hot sauce, i start to get grumpy.

well i finally got off my butt and did the milford, i am pretty happy i did, it was a lot different than what i expected. i have heard so much negative hype about this walk (airplanes and helicopters flying overhead, hordes of people walking it, too easy) that i was pretty reluctant to spend the money on it. the dynamic of a walk where there are 40 people in a hut every night is pretty crazy. it is almost like being at a hostel, but with some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine right out the door.

the walk is basically two valleys with a main river running up down both of them, surrounded by huge peaks and waterfalls, and connected by an 1100m pass. it was super nice the first couple of days, our first hut warden’s name was peter jackson, seriously. we found out on a trip to the glow worm caves that peter didn’t like torches very much. someone had t heir light on, he would tell them to turn it off, please, they would turn it back on and he started snapping at them about night vision and stuff like that. the worms themselves were pretty crazy, i had never seen anything like it before, kinda like lightning bugs that don’t move i guess. we would be walking down the trail, and all of a sudden you would see stars where there should be dirt, really disorienting, but relaxing at the same time.

day 2: waterfalls everywhere. green. green. green. i was getting a bit overwhelmed by the green.

the second day was another beautiful day, so nice in fact that i decided to climb the pass after arriving at the hut to get some pictures. they were forecasting rain the next day so i wanted to make sure i got to see the views before the clouds came in. by the time i reached the pass the clouds had arrived and so had the wind. i quickly ducked inside the shelter on the top where i was greeted by a poster showing pictures of the last 3 huts to occupy the location, i read on to learn they were no longer there because they had been blown off the side of the mountain by high winds. yay. i started back down to the hut just in time to see a helicopter fly over the pass, carrying a backhoe, how strange. the warden informed me that they were forecasting 220mm(about 10 inches) of rain the next day and they didn’t want it to float away. i laughed, he didn’t. oh. sure enough, the climb back to the top was a wet one, as was the rest of the day.

day 4: social retards pack their bags at 6am in the middle of the hut. of course they are putting everything into a plastic bag liner, so every item makes a nice crunchy noise that is impossible to sleep through.

later i find out that the guy is from hungary, and has visited over 100 countries since the the fall of the wall in ‘89. wow…but he still sucks.

so wet weather here goes a little like this: all of the valley walls are made of super hard rock, it rains a lot here, all the water rushes to the valley floor. and unfortunately the weatherman was right for once, we got just about the full on 220mm of rain. my little jaunt through the forest quickly turned into an adventure as every nook in the valley turned into a waterfall. i mean there were literally thousands of the things, all of the creeks and rivers were swollen and i even got to walk through a few cascades. when i got to the trail marker saying i only had an hour to go to the hut i was pretty happy, i was wet and ready for some tea. little did i know that the trail dipped down to the edge of the river the last km or so. i was literally waist-deep holding my back poack up out of the water for the last 20 minutes to the hut. it wasn’t moving quickly or anything but man i wasn’t expecting that. one day it is 75 degrees and beautiful, the next day i am wondering why i left my life raft at home.

all in all it was a pretty good time, and a fitting end to my time in te anau. i met a ton of people(there were a lot to choose from), including some texas frat guys and a couple canadiens! but it was totally different from the other hikes i have done where you get to talk a lot to a few people and seem to get a lot closer. it is just really hard to do that when there are 39 other people running around.

so i took off from te anau and finally got to queenstown. this is honestly one of the nicest places i have ever been. it is like big bear or mammoth, but more beautiful and expensive haha. it is really weird being back in a fairly energetic city, there are a ton of shops and people, but no traffic lights.

i did a day walk today to the local peak, absolutely beautiful with 360 degree views of the southern alps and a birds eye view of the city on the lake. the brush here is way different from the rain forest stuff i have been seeing, a pleasant change. the ferns have given way to dense conifers, and a lot of the ground is bare. it reminds me a lot of hiking in california, a pleasant change.

well, that is it for now. have a happy thanksgiving, put some turkey in the freezer for me

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my ankles are falling off and i fear the unicycle gang

November 13, 2008 · Filed under New Zealand, Te Anau · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

i should probably let you know that the other day i saw a group of 10 kids, all on unicycles, playing street hockey. i wish i had my camera, which i would have gone back to pick up, except my feet are falling off at the ankles. so you know, walking is kinda hard.

i never really talked about this in previous posts because i am a man, and men don’t complain about being hurt. but i feel now is the time to fill you in. when i was on stewart island doing the northwest circuit i severely screwed up my achilles on both legs, to the point that the last 2 or 3 days of the tramp i was limping on both legs and in quite a bit of pain. this coupled with the fact that my toe aids has developed into toe hantavirus, fueled by parasitic sand fly bites, causing pustules to form on the top of my feet and my toenails to fall off. my feet are in bad shape.

but really, i stretch 3 times a day now to make sure i don’t re-injure my achilles, and while it still gets a little sore on long walks, it doesn’t really hurt anymore. the toe aids is from the drunken coed softball league i was in over the summer where both of my toe nails fell off, except for a little nasty green bit at the base. so of course i kicked a tree root really hard the other day, and the poor toe nail that has been slowly growing back in is now black, getting ready to fall off again. the sand flies are another story altogether. these ravenous beasts are like mosquitoes, the female sucks your blood so she can feed her babies, then they hatch and eat you again. except i am pretty sure the sandflies i am encountering are some sort of genetic freaks that are laying chest-burster like larvae in my legs that will soon burst onto the world to feast on more unsuspecting victims. but really, they just itch a lot.

“don’t let her slip you the schniztel!” -annonymous male parent in response to me telling him i was hanging out with a german girl.

this is kinda part 2 of my 2 part series on te anau. i say kinda because i have decided to pay $300 to walk up and down a mound of dirt and do the milford track. i wasn’t originally going to do it since the price is pretty absurd, half of it is transportation, but i figured i might as well since i am here. right?

i am getting to know this town inside and out, which isn’t very hard since there is basically one street. one of the things that really bugs me about this country is their lack of food. i mean there is a lot of normal food, but the only thing the country can remotely claim as being a part of it’s food culture are meat pies and sausage biscuits…neither being very exciting as you might be able to tell. so until i can return to the promised land of carne asada for my mexican food binge, i have been looking to make my own here.

“don’t talk about doing it. book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.” -the beach

it all seemed pretty simple, they have meat and peppers and garlic, even tortillas! i even had some simpleton ask me what tortillas were used for, boy did she regret asking that question, little did she know there was a real live 25% mexican standing next to her. but no cilantro. no, they are missing what is probably the most basic ingredient to all of mexican food. i searched high and low for this humble green leaf only to find it had been hiding right under my nose. people, in other parts of the world where there are no mexicans, cilantro is called coriander. problem solved, and i will be eating carne asada within a week or two if things go well.

after the kepler track i started making preperations for my next tramp, an 8 day, 100km walk along the hollyford river to martin’s bay. it is pretty hard to get motivated for these things, the hostel i am staying at is very cozy. there is a fireplace, free dvd rental, and the internet is only $5/hour(so it only costs me about $15 to write one of these blogs haha). but then i remind myself that i get to buy food for my walk, and i get excited. see, my favorite part of tramping is figuring out what i am going to eat, there is so much cool stuff you can make. i just walk up and down every aisle at the store, examining every product and considering it’s usefulness as a part of my backpack kitchen. in addition to all of this store bought stuff there is also the magical free food bin at the hostel, mostly a bunch of stuff people left behind when they move on. oh man, the discoveries to be made there! ok, so that probably doesn’t sound very exciting, but i still love it.

day 2: i started day dreaming. thought i might write a short story in the hut book about savage rats laying siege to the hut. you know,”food is nearly out…there is a dull pounding on the door…scratching under the floorboards…” then have it trail off in an unintelligible scribble of blood.

later that night, the possums were fighting on the roof of the hut and i started to worry.

the walk started off pretty strange, it was raining really hard the night before i set off and when i woke up there was snow everywhere(in a town 600 feet above sea level in late spring). i hit the trail alone, and as you can tell, being alone for 2 days with nobody to talk to can do strange things to a person. that didn’t last too long, as a few days later i met up with a family of germans who informed me that the US had elected barack obama as the next president. we celebrated, and i made chocolate pudding for everyone. a huge success! i did a bit of fishing, caught a pretty good size trout, then met up with a group of 8 kiwis from auckland who had flown in that day.

“well he is a bit loose.” one of the auckies poking fun at another in response to their realization that they might not have enough toilet paper to last the trip. ouch.

they were 4 couples: john, heather, stuart, marlene, dave, ruth, ross, and robin. quite the awesome group of people. a bunch of friends who seemed bent on having a good time, they all had their own booze and were quite gracious in sharing cookies, chocolate, and custard with me. thanks guys.

the rest of the trip was pretty tame, saw some seals and penguins(you must watch the video, look for the penguin jump!!). got lost a few times, found out that kiwis say ‘maths’ instead of ‘math’, and that ‘mate’ sounds exactly like ‘mike’(very confusing stuff here). then came the time to leave, and it got a little ugly.

“yeah mate i wouldn’t advise you head that way, there is a flood channel back a ways and there is about 100 q of water moving through there.”

i have no idea what the guy was saying, but he was running through mud and jagged rocks with his dog, giving me the impression that he was pretty keen, so i listened.

yeah so instead of 2 easy days out i had to pass up one of the last huts and slog it out for 9 hours. not a whole lot of fun, especially since in my solitude the first few nights i had finished the beach already (which was actually a completely different book from the movie, and therefore pretty good) and had nothing to read but fishing magazines and new zealand political magazines, cruely left behind by past trampers.

well, tomorrow is ‘the finest walk in the world’, and considering the cost of admission, hopefully something to write about. i am getting a little burnt out of constantly hiking, so i might take a bit of a break here soon and go bungie jumping or something tame like that. weeeeeeee!

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“of all the gin joints…”

November 12, 2008 · Filed under New Zealand, Te Anau · Tagged , , , , ,

no, i am not talking about the fall out boy song; in fact, i didn’t even know such a song existed until i started this post. i watched casablanca like 3 weeks ago, and it was one of the best movies i have ever seen. that isn’t something to be taken lightly either! not only am i a connoisseur of fine movies, but woah, it has been like 3 weeks since i have put words onto the internets!

so because i haven’t said anything in a while, this might be 2 posts. but first, i would like to address a couple of political topics that i hope will make some people mad. first of all, i just got home from an 8 day trip. i left on november 5th, but since i am in the future, it was november 4th in the states. this didn’t really occur to me until my first night when i thought to myself, ‘wow, today was the election, i wonder how badly obama crushed that other guy with the dumb vp.’ it turns out i didn’t have to wait long, because a friendly german family came my way a few days later and let me know the results. i don’t think this came as much of a surprise to either parties, but it sure put a spring in my step the rest of the way. of particular interest to me was the percentage of people making over $200k a year who voted for obama, perhaps they realized their dollar’s abysmal worth was of more interest than paying a few more dollars to the irs at the end of the year. good call, trillion dollar wars with no tax increases aren’t so good for long term investments i hear. and finally, i must agree with nicole here, are the gays really that bad? do you think that people are going to get the gay, or that the gays are going to ruin your neighborhood? it just seems like there are more important things to focus our attention on than two guys or gals who find they need to dress well and be good neighbors. oh well, i didn’t vote this year so that is all i am allowed to go on about. my apologies to the republicans on my mother’s side of the family.

ok ok, so back to business here. so after ‘hanging out’ in invercargill for a couple of days(i saw burn after reading, pretty good) i took a super boring bus ride from invercargill to te anau. te anau(pronounced tee-ah-no, one word) is one of those little towns with one store of each type and whose entire purpose is tourism. i finally finished  The World’s Religions, a pretty boring affair about the seven main world religions. i must say, other than confucianism and  buddhism(which were super interesting), i really didn’t think religion would actually be a chore to read about. i am not kidding, it took me 5 attempts to defeat the first, and admittedly the worst chapter, hinduism.

day 1: i passed the hut warden on the way up the mount luxmore, he informed me that they were expecting 100km/h winds and light to heavy rains. my first thought, ‘what is that, 15-20 mph??’ my second thought, it’s a good thing the states don’t use an alternative standard for the measurement of time, or i might be screwed.

so i set my sights on the easiest and most accessible walk in the area, the kepler track. it started out as a fairly modest affair, even walk along the lake shore, easy switch backs up the hillside, then the hut warden with his scary metric fairytale forecasts. by the time i reached the bush-line things started to change, the winds picked up, and without the trees to shelter me, i was getting blown around a bit. i passed up a family of 5 who later met me at the hut, the kids, no older than 12, were running up and down the track while i was taking rest stops and pounding chocolate for energy. i miss being young. well i finally reached the hut and was rewarded with some awesome views, flush toilets, TOILET PAPER, and gas stoves…amazing what $45 a night can get you, huh?

that night i met the family of 5, the father was a DOC employee i had met the previous day while informing them when to send out the rescue team; a french couple, quentin and elise; and 3 germans, flavio, felix, and kathy. i thought this was pretty awesome because i had never met anyone named felix or flavio, and i am pretty sure i have never met real french people either, seriously. that seems strange to me.i was pretty sure these 3 germans were a bit anti-social when they first arrived, they all went straight to their bunks without a hi or hello and actually slept through to the next day. seeing as how it doesn’t get dark until 9 or 9:30pm(no, seriously) i thought they were just being lazy or avoiding talking to people. it turns out they had walked about 20km further than the rest of us and were just tired, ouch. well i got situated, laid claim to my bunk, had a bit of tea, then decided i should try for the summit of mount luxmore, the day seemed pretty nice for a walk and the winds had died down quite a bit. the summit was about an hours walk from the hut, and once i got about 30 minutes out i knew things were a bit nasty. it started to snow. yeah it was snowing on me and the snow was moving sideways, by the time i got to the summit marker letting me know i had a mere 10 minutes to go i was climbing on all fours and being blown off the side of the mountain by these so-called 15-20mph winds, i think i messed up my conversion.

day 2: when you say ‘american’ some people think it is funny, i found out that is because in new zealand, ‘a mercan‘ means something completely different.

luckily the 10 year old boys failed to reach the summit also and i carried my manhood intact to the bottom of the mountain. the scenery was pretty awesome on this tramp, going from the te anau lakeside, up past the bush line into a barren alpine area, then back down into a the forest. i saw some pretty cool stuff along the way: the only parrot in the world that lives in an alpine area, the kea; as well as what is now my favorite tree, the silver beech, or nothofagus menziesii as i like to call it. the silver beech has really cool leaves that, when shed, make for a super pretty walk in the forest. i really want to get one of these when i get home and turn it into a bonsai, yeah! the next hut on the trail was called iris burn, because for some reason, they call small creeks ‘burns.’ i have no idea. the warden at this particular hut was named ‘ant’, that was his real name in real life, that night he taught us how to set a possum trap and explained to us that if the trap failed to kill the offender male wardens tended to bludgeon the creature to death whereas female wardens generally opted for the ’submerge the trap underwater until animal stops breathing technique.’ a very colorful guy.

day 3: i have blisters on the side of my ankles where the top of my boots run due to running 5km with a 25lb backpack on to meet up with flavio and felix for a ride back into town. much to my excitement, they have sour gummy worms and no speedometer in their campervan, weeeee!!

the last day i had a bit of an epiphany when i  checked out a waterfall near the hut before i set off towards town. i realized, not for the first time, that i waste a lot of time doing inane things such as video games and work, when i could be doing totally awesome things like hiking and building sailplanes!! sweet.

this tramp was a good breather after the STEWART ISLAND MASSACRE, nice and easy. i learned a few things, 1.5 litres of 8.5% cider is adequate on small walks like these, and most important was that i had caught a bit of a sweet tooth from the kiwis and i need to back down my candy consumption on these tramps. an interesting fact i have learned regarding new zealand food, other than all of the food here is rooted in english tradition and therefore horrible, is that they don’t use high fructose corn syrup in their processed foods. this is important because it makes things like oreos and mountain dew taste different, the oreos taste better but the dew obviously doesn’t even compare!

after we got back in i went to dinner with the french couple and ze germans, we ate overpricerd pizza, horrible lasagna, and drank our  much earned beers but had an awesome time talking about keas attacking backpacks and laughing about german vs french soccer teams. i am going to write some more stuff tomorrow, ok? sorry for typos, i am a little drunky.

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