around the world in 180 days

We hardly did anything today. We drove about 150 km,ending up in Invercargill, and saw a waterfall and a bog lake and went grocery shopping. Neither one of us slept well last night, as it was cold. Not MN cold, of course, but probably lower 40’s. Our bags are rated to 55 degrees, and they don’t really mummy up. Anna wore three shirts, long underwear, wool socks and her skirt. Today we bought her a $15 sleeping bag and me a $6 fleece blanket. We also got a cabin for tonight.
For the last few days, we’ve been trying to figure out what our other big NZ overnight trip is going to be. We realized that we only have 12 days left before we fly to SYD and lots left we want to do. A 4 day trip is 1/3 of that, a big commitment. Two trips of that length would mean missing a large area of the island.
Besides that, hiking is the bread and butter of NZ tourism and it’s priced as such. Huts on the great walks are $30 per person, per night, so for the 3 night trek we’re looking at, it’d cost us $180, plus transport costs. For hiking. The Great Walks are through some of the best scenery and have the best services–transport to and from the track, maps, etc–and are thus the most tempting. There are a few other tracks that are more difficult, both in terms of the hike itself and in terms of getting to the beginning and end and in between, but they’re not in the most prime locations and whatnot.
I think we’ve decided, though, to hike elsewhere. We’re looking at an alpine track called the Rees-Dart track, which follows the Ress river up, crosses Rees saddle at 1450 meters, and then comes down along the Dart river. It’s a 4 day trek, with day 2 having most of the ups and a good chunk of the downs. There’s 1000 meters of elevation gain, and a lady told us that after one of the uphill sections, you can’t see where you started because it’s so steep. There’s also knee deep mud if it’s been rainy and no available water on the alpine section (shich is mercifully brief). The plus is that, being more rugged, it is less used and just as beautiful as any of the great walks.
Wilderness in NZ (and probably much of the rest of the world) just isn’t enjoyed in solitude and, while we haven’t been overwhelmed with people, there are times when I just want to do a hike and not see anyone else for a half hour or so. With luck, this Rees-Dart track will give us that. Also with luck, we’ll actually be able to hike it.

Tags: New Zealand, Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.