Follow our journey across New Zealand's South Island.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Vines, Roots and Views

Yesterday lasted from sunrise to sunset - which in New Zealand in the summer is a very long span of time. Despite a very late evening, Dave stuck to his plan of getting up to watch and photograph the sunrise at one of the country's most scenic spots, Lake Matheson. The lake is famous for its mirror-like surface in the early mornings and late evenings - mirrors that just happen to reflect New Zealand's tallest mountains perfectly. I had been up until 2 a.m. finishing off the previous day's blog posting, so I wimped out on the early morning adventure. All I can remember is sleepily saying "have fun" as Dave headed out into the darkness. Apparently he was the only one at the lake and he hiked about 40 mins to find the perfect spot. A few hours later he returned with his treasures - photos that took my breath away.







Dave crawled back into bed for about an hour, and we both made it for breakfast around 8:30 a.m., joining the two couples from the UK that we had dinner with the night before. One couple was heading south to Lake Wanaka and the other was heading up to the glacier for a half day guided hike. Dave and I decided that we were going to hike Mt. Fox, next to the glacier and the high peaks, because it was supposed to have some incredible views of the mountains and the river valley, all of the way out to the ocean.

The trail started right outside of town. We should have been thrown off by what we read about the hike, but we weren't. It was 7km round trip. But it climbed 1000 meters (or 3000 feet). Estimated time, 8 hours. Those signs had been conservative thus far, so we jumped right in. We knew right away that this would be tough hike. The trail was muddy and narrow and it snaked through really wild rain forest. Very different than any place we had hiked before. Beautiful, lush, tropical green - a jungle without the humidity or bugs. The trail meandered for about 20 mins until suddenly, very suddenly, it went up. Not switchback up, but up. We attacked it head on. Imagine climbing extremely steep stairs, with each step about three times as high as your typical step. But those steps are roots and rocks, with mud in between them. It was a Stairmaster workout on steroids. The trail was so steep, you could almost look at it at eye level in front of you. There were sections that we were climbing roots like we were scaling walls of rock on a mountainside. If you can call a jungle trek technical, like a rock climb, this was technical. But it was fun and a challenge. The roots made climbing really easy. There was always a foot hold or a root to grab on to to pull yourself up.



We climbed like that - hot, muddy and exhausted - for about 2.5 hours. It was rough, but it was also fun because we had never done anything like that before. Finally, we got to a section where we knew we were up on a ridge line and the brush got shorter so we could start to see over it. And what we saw is that 2.5 hours later, we were probably about 4/5 of the way to making it the nearly 2 miles to the top. I think we reached the first, lower, summit. There was a survey marker there and incredible views. But we could see that the ridge took another steep turn up into the bush before reaching the real summit. At least another 30 or 40 mins straight up (which meant another or 30 or 40 mins added to the down). At that moment, covered in mud and exhausted, and anticipating 2-3 hours already climbing down - we decided that these beautiful views of the river valley and mountains would suffice and that we were taking a rest and heading back down.




The Fox Glacier river valley, draining out into the Tasman Sea.

The trail continued, but our stamina did not.

And so we started the "climb" back down - picking our way through the roots and vines. Lowering ourselves down over overhangs and steep inclines. Using our arms to hike almost as much as our legs. Dave and I got into a rhythm and, to be honest, despite the labor, it was extremely therapeutic to be focused so intently on a single task for a few hours. We were very quiet, except to talk ourselves through some of the more difficult descents. For stretches on end, the only sound were the extraordinary songbirds with out-of-this-word calls. The birds seemed to be following us down another the path - either cheering us along or wondering why the heck these humans were putting themselves through all of that work.



When we stumbled out of the trail and arrived back at the car 5 hours later (at 3 p.m.) all I wanted was a burger and an adult beverage. So, covered in mud and trying to get used to walking on flat ground again, we arrived in town and sat at a table in the sunshine and gorged ourselves on lunch, beer and hard cider for me. Very rewarding meal.

Muddy and exhausted at the end of the 5 hours.

From there, we decided to go drive to the base of Fox Glacier and check out the giant from it's bottom edge. We drove up into the glacier gorge as far as we could go along the river (which is the melt drainage from the glacier) parked the car and started the 30 mins hike to the edge. My legs were screaming at me for doing another hike, but the day was still young and there was more to be seen.

The pouring rains of the last few days (while we were at our last stop) had messed with the hike up to the glacier. Apparently it had been closed for a few days and there were rock slides and the river had moved. We saw the bulldozer parked that had created a new trail over the last few days for tourists to come in and glacier watch.

The glacier is huge, and it's alive. It's very difficult to explain its scale, but it was fascinating to watch. Every few minutes another chunk, large or small, would break off the end of the glacier and come crashing down with a thunderous, boom. And then a few minutes later, giant ice chunks would come bouncing down the silty river (which is usually blue, but has been running gray with silt this week because of last week's rains). You could here the boulders of ice barreling down the water, hitting rocks as they headed out to sea. It was like watching geology at work in real time.

The bottom of the glacier. It looks small but that snow and ice was actually huge.

Boulders of ice barreling down the river to the sea.

Look out above and keep walking (or as we like to call it, do the rock dance!)

After glacier viewing we hiked back and then returned to the inn for an hour nap, to rejuvenate for our planned evening activities. That night we planned to watch the sunset over Gillespie's Beach. We knew we were putting dinner in jeopardy, since sunset was at 9:15 p.m. and it was already 8 p.m. when we awoke from our nap and headed out the door. We went as fast as we could to reach the beach in time, and got there about 8:30 p.m.. Our rationale: we eat dinner every night, how often can you watch the sun set on a perfectly clear day, into the ocean, on a remote stretch of the West coast of New Zealand.

So there we were, just in time to watch the big golden ball of sun sinking into the West over the rich blue water, illuminating the metallic smooth rocks with a warm glow. What was more magical than that was the fact that the clear skies revealed a great depth of snowy white rugged peaks looming over the beach only 20 kilometers away. The thing that makes these mountains different than the Rockies back home is their extreme vertical rise from sea level. Their elevations may be a few thousand feet lower than the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado, but they are starting from near nothing and powering more than 9,000 feet toward the sky. They are giants and we got to watch them turn rose pink from the sunset on the beach. Dave had his tripod out and honestly didn't know which way to turn - the sunset on one side, the golden rocks and sculptures of driftwood stretching out from both directions or the towering colorful peaks in the East. It was overwhelming.

As the sun disappeared from sight and the shutter slowed down on the camera, we took time to absorb what was around us and remind ourselves of just how tiny we were. At that very moment, I was more aware than I have ever been that we were just one speck, on one small beach on one small, but beautiful, island at the bottom of the world.


















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