The Second Te Anau Report

Hi,

No, we haven’t been just lazing around here, actually we’ve been “working” quite hard: 4 days on the Milford track, 3 days on the Hump Ridge track, 2 days rest (echad elohenu). But we’re moving to some other place real soon, promise.

Useful Track Recipe

(that’s when you have to carry the ingredients on your back for days, and you have little time/patience/light/equipment with which to cook)

ingredients:

  • 1 pack instant pasta (also works with instant rice, rice noodles, and probably mashed potatoes but that hasn’t been tested)
  • 2 sticks of kabanus (cabanas/biersticks/etc)
  • some cashews
  • a little butter or margarine

Cut the kabanus to thin slices and stir-fry them in butter along with the cashews for a few minutes. Prepare the instant pasta, mix all together and stir-fry some more. Enjoy. Useful upgrades: soy sauce, dried peas/corn/etc.

Of course you can be like some other people we met and carry steaks / eggs / real rice & pasta / fresh vegetables and cook gourmet meals on the track.

Taps

In some ways NZ is still in the stone age. Consider the washing basins. There’s always two separate taps - one freezing cold, one burning hot. And the tap nozzles are so close to the wall of the basin that you have to jam your hands against the basin to wash them. I hear it’s the same in the UK, but you’d think that after 150 years they’d figure out a better system.

Rangers

The government employs rangers (a.k.a. hut wardens) on the tracks, to look after everything. Their work schedule is 10 days on the track, then 4 days off. That’s like many populations in our army unit back in Israel, but the rangers’ work is more difficult. All we had to do was sit in an office. They have to fight avalanches, falling trees, floods, not to mention wise-guy Israeli tourists (who by the way have a reputation for getting lost, or getting hurt, or getting in trouble).

Where’s That Sherpa When You Need Him

On our second track we decided to let someone else carry our heavy stuff from one night-stop to the next. But this is NZ, not Nepal, so instead of porters (or donkeys or camels etc), the packs are airlifted to the hut by helicopter. It was tempting to have the helicopter lift us there as well, since the climb up and down the Hump Ridge still isn’t easy work (but it’s worth it).

Anashim Tovim Be’emtza Haderech (Good people along the way)

Invitations to stay that we got from random people on the road:

  • A family from some town an hour north of Sydney
  • Another family from south of Auckland
  • A shed on the beach in the Coromandel peninsula (belonging to the second family)

Mitz’ad Halahitim (the Hit Parade)

  1. Baby Take Off Your Fleece
  2. How Deep is the Mud
  3. I Wish It Won’t Rain Down

Sand Flies

Ron is seldom harassed and never affected (no swelling, itching etc. Thank you mom and dad for this most useful genetic gift). Dana in the meantime has become an Aloe Vera junkie. Well, they do say that the best insect repellant is hanging out with someone they like more than you...

Random Thoughts

  1. Thank God for Gore-Tex.
  2. NZ is nice because all the pubs are smoke-free (it’s illegal to smoke). Actually, they have a new law that says you can’t get drunk in a pub (go figure). If you get drunk they kick you out, and it’s illegal to serve alcohol to drunk people.

Pictures

This is what you’d call NOSE KAOOV (a painful subject). In most internet places here you only get a screen, keyboard, and mouse, none of which are very useful for uploading photos. In others they ask that you don’t upload because there’s not enough bandwidth. So sorry, no pictures for now. But they’re worth the wait.

Bye for now,

Ron & Dana