Kiwi Tracks
Authors: Lonely Planet
Andrew Stevenson was born in Canada and brought up in Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Scotland, Singapore and Malaysia before attending university in Canada and France. He has worked in Canada, Tanzania and Norway as banker, economist for the United Nations, African safari operator and owner of a Norwegian adventure company. When he isn’t travelling he writes in Bermuda.
Andrew is also the author of
Annapurna Circuit: Himalayan Journey
.
A NEW ZEALAND JOURNEY
LONELY PLANET PUBLICATIONS
Melbourne • Oakland • London • Paris
Kiwi Tracks: A New Zealand Journey
Published by Lonely Planet Publications
Head Office: 90 Maribyrnong Street, Footscray, Vic 3011, Australia
Locked Bag 1, Footscray, Vic 3011, Australia
Branches: 150 Linden Street, Oakland, CA 94607, USA
72–82 Rosebery Ave, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 4RW, UK
Published 1999, reprinted 2005
Printed through The Bookmaker International Ltd
Printed in China
Map by Tony Fankhauser
Designed by Tamsin Wilson
Edited by Lucy Sussex
National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication Data
Stevenson, Andrew.
Kiwi tracks: a New Zealand journey.
ISBN 978 1 74220 480 2
1. Stevenson, Andrew – Journeys – New Zealand.
2. New Zealand – Description and travel. I. Title.
919.9304
Text © Andrew Stevenson 1999
Map © Lonely Planet 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
Dedicated to the memory of my brother, Kevin.
My appreciation to all the Kiwis who made tramping around New Zealand for four months the wonderful experience that it was. I’m definitely coming back.
Thanks are due to several friends who were coerced into reading successive drafts and who sometimes made rude but inevitably helpful comments: Kirsten Badenduck, Valerie Beatts, Sacha Blackburne, Than Butterfield, Wenche Fosslien, Sue Holland, Kerry Mahony, Sue Mills, Elisabeth Montgomery, Jennifer Schelter, Tania Stafford and Ingrid Zondervan. Thanks to Lucy Sussex for the final cross-examination. Any remaining errors are of course mine. Thanks to the staff at the Kathmandu Guest House for the familial atmosphere that made writing there so much easier, and to Valerie Beatts for lending me Per Ketet.
Thanks to Susan Keogh at Lonely Planet for accepting a dusty disc from a lowly backpacker making his way around Australia.
Finally, thanks to Mum for instilling in us the confidence that we could do whatever we wanted, and for picking up the pieces when we couldn’t.
FIORDLAND
MILFORD TRACK
MILFORD SOUND
THE GRAND TRAVERSE: CAPLES–ROUTEBURN TRACKS
KEPLER TRACK
STEWART ISLAND
I explore Te Anau, still jet lagged by the 25-hour flight from London to Christchurch, and a full day’s hitchhiking. Snow-covered jagged mountains and a wind-swept, glacier-gauged lake front the sleepy municipal centre of Fiordland. The scenery and people look strangely familiar, as if I hadn’t flown to the other side of the world at all. I could be back in the American Rockies or in Norway.
Hungry and cold, I find a pub. I settle on a barstool, lean over the counter and reflect on the day. There are few places in the world where you can still hitchhike safely, if at all. It was rumoured to be ridiculously easy in New Zealand and it was. The cars, some of them classic British models from the fifties and sixties, almost formed a line to pick me up, as if the hospitable Kiwis were competing to chauffeur me around. One driver not only went out of her way to drop me off at the backpackers, but she had thrown in a meal as well.
I’m psyched to be here, with the conspicuous wide-eyes of a traveller newly arrived somewhere far from home. The barmaid, on the other hand, studies me with the glazed look of a professional.
‘Anyone sitting here?’ I ask, with the cultivated nonchalance of a veteran globetrotter.
The bar is empty.
‘Yeah, go for it,’ she replies, poker-faced. ‘What’ll you have, mate?’
‘Your special,’ I reply casually, trying not to sound too much a foreigner.
‘What special?’
‘You know, your special.’
‘Which special?’ she reiterates impatiently. I detect a hint of disdain.
I blink, taken aback. She has called my bluff already. Nervous, I squirm to the edge of the barstool. Outside is a blackboard advertising their daily special. I look out the window. Unfortunately, it is facing the wrong way.
‘You’ve a blackboard out there with “Daily Special” written on it. I’ll have your daily special,’ I repeat with a faked casual smile, nodding enthusiastically to encourage her. After the consistent friendliness and hospitality I have experienced since arriving in New Zealand, I am surprised by her apparent hostility.
‘What’s it say exactly?’ she asks.
I am on shaky ground. I cannot remember exactly what the sign says. ‘Some kind of special. I don’t really know,’ I admit timidly. She’s sussed me out: I am not a cool dude who just breezed in for a beer.
‘Well, I don’t know what you want either,’ she says, rolling her eyes, hands on her hips like a teacher mocking the class dunce.
I have had a great day, and this arm-wrestler of a stroppy barmaid is wrecking it. Where did they find her? I count to ten and look at her eye to eye,
mano a mano
. There is no mistaking her antagonism. If looks could kill, I would be dead and buried six feet under.
‘Do you work here?’ I ask, tempting fate.
‘Ah come on, don’t give me that.’ She grabs a menu. ‘Here, take a look at what you want.’ She tosses the menu on the counter and jabs her finger at it so hard I am surprised her finger doesn’t snap in two. I duck, thinking she may throw a punch.
‘It’s a toasted something or other. With a beer. The special,’ I repeat.
‘I still don’t know what you want!’
I lean back out of range just in case she changes her mind about the punch. She’s either having a bad day or there is some kind of basic cross-cultural communication problem here, despite the superficial similarity of language. Maybe she is from another planet, although that is usually what I am accused of. ‘Look, it’s not worth it. I’ll go somewhere else.’
‘Ah come on mate, don’t go over the top. We’re not playing for bloody sheep stations, you know.’
To retain some semblance of dignity as I retreat out the door, I assume what I hope is a plausible imitation of a John Wayne tough-guy strolling out of a cowboy saloon, although I’m half Wayne’s size and a lot skinnier. I glance nervously at the blackboard to see what I am missing out on with the special.
‘Daily Special. Toasted Sammie and a Beer.’
What the hell is a ‘sammie’? Local fish? I thought samis were reindeer herders in the north of Scandinavia. I wander aimlessly on the scenic path skirting the lake, the view not seeming quite as idyllic as it did a few minutes ago. Exhausted from the confrontation, I withdraw to the backpackers and flop on my bed. I recount the episode to my Australian roommate. He wears a T-shirt with the slogan, ‘I support two teams: The Aussies and whoever is playing against the Kiwis’.
He explains: ‘A “sammie” is a sandwich.’ He puts down the cricket magazine he has been reading while cutting his toenails with the scissors on his penknife. ‘Bloody Kiwi chicks,’ he adds, replacing the scissors, and opening the knife blade to remove dirt from under his fingernails. ‘Legs thicker than tree trunks. Good genetic stock for rugby players and handy wives to have around the farm, but don’t expect to fall in love with one.’
The barmaid was only asking me what kind of toasted sandwich I wanted. Turkey, tuna, ham, chicken, beef or cheese? She probably talks like that to all her regular Kiwi customers. If I was a typical cool All Blacks Kiwi rugby player whose father owned a million-acre sheep station, I would have thought, ‘What a friendly barmaid,’ and enjoyed the banter. Next time I will slam
a fist on the counter. No, I’ll slam two tiny fists on the counter and tell her in no uncertain terms what kind of goddamned sammie I want.
If I dare go back there again.
Return to beginning of chapter
Every bit of Kiwi tourist literature refers to the Milford Track as being ‘the finest walk in the world’. This much-repeated phrase first appeared in an article by poet Blanche Baughan, published by the London
Spectator
in 1908. The Milford Track runs through Fiordland National Park, from the head of Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound. Fiordland National Park is part of the Southwest New Zealand World Heritage Area, which includes fiords, glacier-cut gorges, lakes and hanging valleys. It also provides, according to all the tourist literature, some of the best examples of the ancient forests of the old continental landmass of Gondwanaland, including extensive areas of temperate rainforest.
New Zealanders, I have learnt, do not hike or trek, they ‘tramp’. They do not have trails or routes; they have ‘tracks’. My intention over the next four months is to ‘tramp’ at least nine ‘tracks’, described as ‘Great Walks’ in the marketing put out by DOC (Kiwi vernacular for the Department of Conservation). Already these words have become part of my everyday vocabulary. With a return air ticket from Auckland scheduled for the end of February, four months from now, I have plenty of time for the nine Great Walks and probably many lesser-known tracks as well.
Full of anticipation, forty Milford Track trampers board the bus in Te Anau. If we hadn’t booked months in advance we might have been tempted to cancel the trip; it is bucketing down with precipitation. The bus plunges through driving sheets of heavy rain to Te Anau Downs Harbour, further along the lake. There, what looks like an antique, steam-powered vessel awaits us;
walking out to it on a swaying floating dock, I feel the first twinges of seasickness.
The crew casts off from the bucking pier and the refurbished old boat is tossed on the waves with the liveliness of a cork. Throwing up in the bowels of this boat would likely accelerate a chain reaction among the other queasy passengers, so I escape to the open-sided stern. Rain pours down so heavily that the horizonless view is solid water and it is impossible to tell whether I am gazing at the sky, rain or lake. I am soon decidedly wet, green-around-the-gills and tempted to put on my pack and jump overboard, to hell with the consequences.
‘Are we going to tramp the Milford Track or snorkel it?’ I wonder aloud, but my not-so-subtle sense of humour is lost on my miserable fellow passengers.
There are two kinds of trampers on the Milford Track: the so-called ‘freedom’ or independent walkers, and the guided walkers. Each group comprises a maximum of forty trampers, who commence the tramp simultaneously. Accommodation for the two groups on each of the three nights spent on the track is staggered some distance and some hours apart to minimise contact. The poorer freedom walkers, of whom I am one, share large dormitories with bunk beds. We use our own sleeping-bags, cook our own food, bring our own supplies and have no guide. In contrast, the wealthier guided walkers sleep in smaller shared rooms with beds and linen, have shower facilities and are served hot meals in lodges that are considerably bigger and more comfortable than the DOC huts. Of the eighty trampers on the boat, the guided trampers identify themselves by wearing identical yellow rain jackets, with large name tags on the front. Two guides fetch them hot cups of chocolate, trying to coddle their clients out of their collective misery.
Despite expectations to the contrary, our antiquated boat successfully docks at the other end of the lake. The shoreline is thick with vegetation, dripping with rain as if someone up above had pulled the plug. None of those tempting colourful brochures captioned ‘the best walk in the world’ depicted this saturated scene.
I take my time, stretching and waiting while the other walkers disappear into the forest, like colourful fish sinking into the weeds at the bottom of a murky lake. At the tail end of the group, I deliberately straggle behind. I am eager to begin the track, but I want the intensity of this nature experience undiminished by a chatty fellow tramper. Slipping into the forest, I find it dominated by ancient silver, red and mountain beech trees. The giant trees are soppy with clinging parasitic vegetation, and I touch the moss and glistening ferns with my outstretched hands as I pass by. There is a sense of timelessness, almost a spiritual permanence to this enchanted forest. Long before any of my hairy ancestors were swinging from their branches, these trees, our collective organic lungs, were breathing life into planet earth. Despite, or perhaps because of, the inherent wetness of the rainforest, it is an intense experience.
Hours later, I reach the first DOC hut of the track, the last tramper to arrive. It is no less humid in the hut than outside. Sweaty trampers in long underwear stand in front of lines of gas cookers making dinner. The windows are fogged up with the condensation of a variety of bubbling concoctions. Damp clothes, hung up to dry, steam. The assorted smells of food, boots, socks and sweaty clothes form a noxious mix in the close confines of the hut. The only remaining bunk is tucked tightly under overhead rafters. I pull out my sleeping-bag and unfurl it on the bed before cooking a pasta dinner mixed with a tin of tuna for protein. The mushy paste has the consistency and taste of baby food. Litres of Sleepytime tea compensate for all the perspiration that has poured off me in the walk up here.
Most of us have finished eating when the hut warden enters. He is an older man with droopy eyes, floppy ears and a green DOC sweater, who resembles Yoda out of
Star Wars
. His voice is quiet, almost drowned out by the sounds of water, from the river gushing by the hut and the rain hammering on the tin roof. ‘Some of you may have noticed the corner of the hut extends over the bank of the river.’ Sure we’ve noticed, it’s a swollen torrent. ‘There is a risk the hut could be washed away,’ he understates.
Everyone listens intently; he has our undivided attention. I start sidling towards the one door, just in case. ‘One hut was swept away in 1989 after similar heavy rains undercut the bank of the river.’ His voice is almost a whisper, as if he is required to tell us this but would rather keep it a secret. ‘I promise to wake you up if there is any risk of the river undercutting the building.’ Then he adds: ‘If you hear something during the night, get out quickly.’
With that comforting thought, we go to bed. We have to. The hut warden removes the lantern at ten o’clock and there is nothing else to do. Although I have just lugged my pack some nine kilometres, I am not tired. My mind is a maelstrom of thoughts, mostly to do with the fact that I am doing this trip on my own. After five years sharing my life with someone I love, the sudden adjustment to being single and on the road again is not easy. I find myself brooding, anti-social despite the comforting swirl of conversation as the trampers prepare for bed. I go outside. It has stopped raining and the silhouettes of the mountains are vaguely visible in the clearing cut by the river. The setting is romantic but it makes my bruised heart feel all the more tender. I stroll away from the rushing water, the ambient sounds muted by dense vegetation. Sliding into the dark forest is like entering the dark safety of the womb, where an invisible umbilical cord pumps the forest’s life-sustaining nutrients into me. I shuffle along the gravel track, treading carefully in case I should step off its edge into the drainage ditch on either side.
Looking down at my feet, I think I discern stars reflected in a pool of water beside the path. I peer up to confirm this impression, but there is nothing to be seen – I cannot even see through the canopy of trees. Curiosity aroused, I crouch on my hands and knees to examine the pond. I distinguish bluish pinpricks, not a metre from my face, sheltered from heavy globs of falling water by overhanging roots and earth. The mysterious blue sources of light appear to be the eyes of little fairies. I wave one hand towards them to see if they scare, but they stay motionless, unafraid. They are glow-worms, little two-centimetre critters, dangling sticky phosphorescent fishing lines to attract moths. In the
silence of the gloomy damp rainforest, the unexpected apparition seems explicable as an assembly of fairies, even if I do know what they really are.