New Zealand Part 3 (Te Anau, Kepler Track and Queenstown)

We changed buses on the way to Te Anau and arrived in the cute little lakeside town.  There is not a lot going on there, but its a picturesque little town.  The YHA is very clinical and clean, but a little soulless.  We didn't do much and just went down to the DOC birdlife park.  Its a nice little place and we got to see our first Takahe and Kaka, but most of the birds are in little cages.  The lake itself is very pretty when it is not completely covered in clouds (which it often is).  They have a mean little pie shop in the town and we were able to get some venison pies.  Its cheap down there as they farm venison.  Then we just bought all our food for the first of the great walks.  A lot of people had said that it was quite boring to hike the back 30km through beech forest, so we decided to just hike up to the top of Mt Luxmore if the weather was good and stay a night in Luxmore hut.  They do a boat across the lake, but its apparently $25 or $30 one way, so we elected to leave at dawn and hike around the lake (around 10km) before the ascent.

In the morning we set off just as the light was breaking and as the sun rose, we realised it was going to be a cloudless day.  Perfect for the walk and it looked like we would be able to hit Mt Luxmore in one go.  The walk around the lake is boring (and this was our first forest so imagine how boring it is if you've already done some).  Following the 10km of almost nothing, we hiked up the mountain.  DOC says 4 hours to the hut, but we took just over 2 hours even with Cannelle injured.  We realised that we did 2/3 of the DOC times on the flat and 1/2 of them on the slopes, so I would say they are very conservative with their estimates.  It was only when we finally broke the treeline that we realised why this walk was famous.  The views from the top on a clear day are absolutely breathtaking.  Your visibility is about 90km or so and you can see across most of the lake and over reams of mountain ridges.  Really special.  We stopped to eat and soak it all in before climbing up to the hut.  We dropped the packs and set off for Mt Luxmore which did take us more than an hour.  We crossed the ridge in only 20km/h winds.  Nothing really.  Would not want to be up there when they have 100km/h winds and lateral rain.  Our luck with the weather had continued.  We got to the top and just sat and admired the views.  Really nice.  On the way down I asked some Germans how the view was along the rest of the ridge and they told me it was the same as what I had seen so far, so I don't think we missed much.  If you took the boat you could do Mt Luxmore peak in a day if you were fit and would probably have seen the highlights of the Kepler.  No need for the rest.  Back in Luxmore hut we saw that the ranger was doing a nature walk at 5pm.  I wasn't sure but Cannelle said we should go.  Everyone seemed to join in and about 40 of us went on a rather long and boring walk around the hut.  Unless you love flowers then this is not really for you.  Every now and again he would give you some interesting information, but you had to wade through the inordinate amount of plant data to get to it.

"This is a daisy.........bla bla bla"
"This is another daisy.......bla bla bla"
"and this over here may not look like it but its another type of daisy"

I did not know there were so many daisies.  Probably fascinating stuff for botanists but judging by the continual drop out rate of our group from 40 down to 10 I guess most of us weren't.  When some would leave he would say

"well over here we have some more plants if any of you are interested"

We thought we'd stick it until the end but there did not seem to be an end.  After a while I kind of felt that it was a test of endurance and a game for him to see how much boring shit he could shovel onto us to see who would be the last person standing.  It was a one hour tour, but when we left to leave the group at 10 it had been going on for nearly two hours.  They eventually returned in the dark and I guess he had found his winner.  He also asked everyone questions such as well "as you all know what colour are these in Europe?"  Fuck.  I had no idea.  Surely someone must know.  Everyone was looking around awkwardly.  Someone save us.  Its embarrassing.  Finally there was a German guy who knew the answers.  Thank fuck for him.  After this tour we went to bed, but were summoned down for a safety talk by the same ranger.  God no.  This consisted of telling us to open windows in case someone ate beans, a long spiel about the introduction of mammals and how it killed birds (by now I can recite it by heart.  Hopefully they will lay off on the north island as it gets repetitive).  He asked some people why they were leaving (because a beautiful sunset was happening behind him), asked some Germans to share their story if it was so important (like being at school) and finally finished off by telling us about a maori instrument and then proceeding to play it while dancing around like a demented pied piper.  It was hard not to laugh.  Very surreal.  You can't tell me spending all your time out in these huts doesn't turn you nuts.  Weird.  We got chatting with a guy from the Basque in Spanish for the rest of the evening.   Good practice.  The huts are impressive here by the way.  Way better than I have seen in other countries.

The next day we headed down the mountain to retrace all the boring steps we had taken on our way up.  The valley was filled with clouds now, which was impressive and we were lucky to get both views.  When we got down we were a bit tired (out of shape after Sydney) and just did our laundry before heading to Queenstown.  As it was Cannelle's actual birthday as well we went out for a meal in an Italian restaurant in town, but it felt a bit bad as we had celebrated it in Dunedin.

We got an early bus to Queenstown.  Its mostly a boring ride.  At one point there is a sign that says 'End of the Southern scenic route'.  I am not really sure where it began.  When you get to the lake with the remarkables on the right it suddenly becomes a very beautiful place.  Queenstown really does have a magical location, surrounded by the mountains and nestled on the lake.  It seems all the Kiwis live in Frankton though (which I think is the real original Queenstown) and the centre of the town has been left for the foreigners much like the Dutch have done with Amsterdam.  We checked into our hostel, which is an amazing place and is always booked out weeks in advance.  You have to book in advance in New Zealand.  Not what I am used to when I travel, but I guess you have to make sacrifices so you don't have to sleep on the streets.  We went to see the I-Site and asked about the Shotover canyon.  They said you can take the jet boat and you can't see anything if you go up there.  We pointed out that cars go over the bridge and they said that maybe you might be able to walk over it.  Liars.  That was the second time we were lied to by an I-Site.  We stopped going to them after that and decided not to trust them at all.  We walked the 5km to the shotover bridge and not only can you see the river (which is beautiful) but you can actually see the famous canyon on all of their brochures.  Amazing.  Liars.  To think you pay the same for this jetboat as you do for the Otago Peninsula tour.  The value is incomparable.  I can't believe people pay that much.  I have not met anyone who has done it who hasn't enjoyed it, but neither have I met anyone who thought it was value for money.  That was a walk that was well worth it.  We weren't going to be doing the usual tours in Queenstown and we actually spent very little money there.  Our hostel did a meal in the evening and that Sunday it was a sunday roast complete with yorkshire puddings.

The next day we took the bus over to Arrowtown to visit for a day trip.  Its an easy ride over and you could probably cycle it (We should have done as our hostel had free bikes).  The old buildings are nice and they reminded me of historic Colorado mining towns.  The Chinese settlement is especially interesting and has a number of historical plaques you can read.  Its a good trip.  That night we met Charlotte and some people from her hostel as it was St Patricks Day and we decided to test the legendary Queenstown nightlife.  I think it is only legendary because the rest of the South Island sucks so much.  It was like clubbing in my hometown and although we had fun it was a little bit of a letdown.  Oh well.  The drinks before in the hostel had been fun again.

Our final day in Queenstown saw us hike up the hill with the gondola on it.  They have mountain bike tracks running all the way down the hill.  I wish we had gone biking as it looked really cool.  We will have to try in Wellington, though apparently the tracks are not as cool as here.  When you get to the top they have a luge track that looks cool and all sorts of extreme sports from paragliding to bungy jumping.  They also have a jelly bean shop that you have to take the spin the wheel challenge and can end up with anything from a nice flavour to dog food, vomit or rotten egg.  Its good fun and we bought some jelly beans afterwards.  We thought about doing some other things but just ended up walking back down the hill.  The view from the top is really nice.  This is a town where you can do a lot for free or you can spend loads of money.  The choice is up to you really.  When we got back to the hostel I played the pub quiz at the hostel.  We won a crate of beer, which was cool.  We were miles behind after the first couple of rounds, but there was a cryptic one on English sweets.  Given we had the most native speakers and four english people we smashed it and that won it for us along with the music.  The next day we had booked transport to the Routeburn and we were off to our second great walk.  Queenstown is easily the coolest place on the South Island and you could spend ages there if you chose to.  Cool place.