I'm Back

So I've returned from the depths of Fiordland alive.

The drive down was very nice. I took a bit of a weird route, through the colourful and delightful township of Waimate, but I got to see some big hydro dams on the way, which I rather enjoyed. I guess working for the power company for a summer all those years ago rubbed off on me a bit. Southland and Fiordland are very pretty too. I haven't been down that way for many years...

The day we started on the Kepler track I woke up with a really sore throat, and it got worse as the day went on. Now if it had been a hard tramp I may well have dropped dead on the second day, but fortunately the Kepler is the kind of track that even sixty year olds can manage, but being sick still impacted my enjoyment quite a bit.

The first day was good. It started out cloudy but cleared up later on when we started climbing up into the mountains so we had many nice views of Lake Te Anau and Lake Manapouri. The next day I felt like shit, and the weather seemed to sympathise. It rained all day and it was completely overcast so we missed out on all the best views while we were up in the mountain tops. Even so, there was something to be said for the view of remote fiords glimpsed through the mist. Normally I'd enjoy a good hard slog through the wind and snow anyway, but feeling as ill as I did, it wasn't very pleasant.

It was still kind of funny listening to everyone else on the tramp complaining about how hard it was. The track was like a highway and it doubled back along all the steep slopes to make it easier to go up and down. Compared to some of the places I've been it was like a walk in the park, and I'm not an especially dedicated tramper. On the other hand of course, there was the crazy American dude who had just finished the Dusky track (mud up to your waist), was planning to go on to the Milford the day after he finished the Kepler, and did the whole track in his sandals.

The rest of it was nice. Weather was good, I felt better. The drive home was kind of horrible though. There's nothing like a six hour drive after you've been tramping for four days to fuck you every which way. When I first moved down to Christchurch I observed that all the drivers were really bad and I assumed it was just a South Island thing. After driving around for a few days I've come to the conclusion that it's just a Christchurch thing. All through Fiordland and Southland the other drivers were normal, but as soon as I hit SH1 I was surrounded by people driving like senile grandparents. And of course there were the people who follow you at a slightly slower pace for half an hour, until they reach a passing lane, when they scream past at 140kph and then promptly drop down to a steady 85 for the remainder of the journey (speeding up again at any passing lanes, in case you might try to pass them). Honestly, this sort of stupid shit doesn't happen anywhere else in the country.