The Franz Josef Report
Hi y’all,
The combination of a drenching-wet day and comfy internet calls for a new report - and for the first time some photos too. I’m not sure what to write this time, and there seems to be a general, ahem, dissatisfaction with the previous format, so we’ll try something a bit different today.
Gravity
We’re not doing any bungy jumping or skydiving, but some gravity-related “activities” have been recorded.
Feb. 20: Ron takes a bad step off the Milford track, plunges 1.5 meters into a jumble of trees. No serious injury except to ego.
Lesson: watch where I’m going.
Feb. 28: Ron falls off the ladder while trying to climb off the 2nd-story bunk bed in our cabin on the ship Fiordland Navigator, anchored in Doubtful Sound. Scares himself and the other three people who were trying to sleep in the cabin.
Lesson: Dana now occupies the top bunk.
Mar. 5: Dana falls off her mountain bike on the shores of lake Wanaka. Again no material damage.
Lesson: mountain biking is harder than it looks.
Mar. 9: After completing a fairly demanding three day walk (see below) with no incident, Dana takes a tumble off the second of three stairs leading to the booking office, and gets her knee painted with psychedelic colors.
Lesson: it’s always the little things.
Gillespie’s Pass
Yesterday we came off a three day walk known as Gillespie’s Pass track (or Wilkins-Young circuit). It was the first, and probably the last “grown-up'” walk we’ll be doing on this occasion. Not because it was so terrible - on the contrary - but that’s how the plan is right now. By “grown-up” I mean that the track is generally more difficult, less maintained, and more remote than the more popular ones that tourists like us usually end up walking. There are no helicopters to carry your stuff, or gas stoves and solar lighting in the huts, etc. For some reason, my pack ended up being about twice as heavy as those of our eight fellow travelers (4 British and 4 Kiwis), and this fact became a subject of frequent jokes along the route (maybe I should have left the collection of rocks back in the car?)
The track passes through places such as Mount Awful, Mount Dreadful, and the Siberia valley. While there’s general agreement in NZ that the guy who gave these names to such beautiful scenery was a moron, they accurately describe some of the weather we experienced.
The first day was quite okay, except for the exhausting 800-meter climb at the end, and the difficult land slip section where I came close to falling 15 meters into raging rapids (Dana took a more sensible route across the slip, so she was waiting on the other side while I was hanging on to loose gravel for dear life). Our companions turned out to be very nice and friendly people, and that was lucky, because we all spent the night together in a box of about 6x6x3 meters called the “Young hut”.
By nightfall the wind was howling so bad that we thought the hut was going to fly off the mountain with ourselves in it (such things have happened before). At some point the rain started also, and went on happily till after noon on the next day.
Next morning, huddling in the hut listening to the downpour outside, the brave party needed to decide whether to try climbing to the pass, or spend the day in the hut, or go back the way we came (and across the infamous land slip). An especially brave scout (wearing shorts like most non-Israelis on the trip) was sent outside, and returned an hour later saying that he can actually “see” up to the pass, so perhaps we should go for it. And so we did.
At some point on the way up, stepping from rock to rock and through the ad-hoc rivers streaming down from the peaks, Dana mentioned that it’s one of the hardest things she’s ever done, and gave me some instructions to carry out in case she doesn’t make it to the other side. She was probably less at risk that her tumble-prone partner, but it was tough going for us both.
At the top there was snow all around us. Not just the kind that rests on mountain tops and makes them pretty, but also the kind that stings when the wind blows it into your face. We tried to stop for a sandwich, but the snow and frost convinced us to get down off the pass while we still can.
At this point I should mention that the height of the pass is 1800m above sea level, which might sound laughable to any Nepal/South America veterans in the audience - until they try it.
The climb down was steep but somehow not as wet. In the beginning there was some happy sliding down ice surfaces. After a month of bush-walking in NZ, we didn’t think we’d be so happy to walk in bush (forest) again, but getting the sensation back in our hands and feet was a welcome feeling. The warm stove and hot soup in Siberia hut were even more welcome.
On the next day we planned to do a day-trip to a place called Lake Crucible, which is probably very beautiful. But the rain had other plans. The track to Crucible crosses two rivers, which can usually be crossed on foot with no problem, except after heavy rain - and most of the time it rains. A few days ago, a couple of hikers went there and got stuck because of the rain, and eventually ended up being located and rescued by park authorities (the couple’s names: Miki & Hadas. They had a 7-month-old baby with them on the trip. The child’s name: Ness, which means “miracle”). Anyway, we (the whole troop) walked out of the valley instead. This was a short, wet, uneventful day, ending with a jet-boat ride back to the beginning of the track (a jet-boat is a kind of boat that travels over 20cm of water at 70 km/h).
After some hot coffee/chocolate and an invitation to stay with a couple in Tauranga (a city in the north island), we said our goodbyes and sped away from the region to look for drier lands. We’re still looking.
Till next time,
- Ron & Dana
