A Notable Walk (5)

The remainder of the day's walk takes us to Dumpling Hut, named after a nearby hill which is round in shape.
"There's a trick with that." Says the ranger, whose name this time is Ross, "If you can see Dumpling Hill, it's going to rain. If you can't see it, then it's already raining."
Ross is about six-foot seven and bares a striking resemblance to the BFG. He also looks like he has been alone in Dumpling Hut for a little longer than might be wise.
"So we lost two from the group today." He tells us and we learn that the two English girls had been helicoptered off the pass with injured knees. A third casualty - the sports coach - was also struggling, and it is noted that he has not reached the hut yet.
"I saw him struggling before hand." Steve explains.
"You could have leant him one of your walking poles." Cliff says.
"One wouldn't have done him any good." Steve argues. "Besides, we were up far to early. We were first out this morning. We broke the trail for everyone."
Everyone exchanges glances. Cliff smiles.
"You did good, Steve." he says.
"What did you think of the Sutherland falls?" Aine asks.
Steve hesitates.
"Uh, I didn't see them." he says, "I had to get a move on, you know? It was an hour-and-a-half..."
When he hears that I lived in Auckland for a few months, he gives me his card and invites me to drop in if he needs a walking partner should I be in the area again. He also promises to demonstrate his revolutionary sleeping bag invention, which makes me blink with concern.
Cliff puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"His wife's lovely." he says.

The final casualty makes his way to the hut later in the evening, also suffering injury. Arrangements are made for him to be flown out the following morning.
We stay up playing cards with Noel and Aine until the generators go off and the communal area is plunged into darkness. Prepared, we break out the head torches and continue the game regardless.
When we finally leave the hut, Noel freezes and holds up a hand. From somewhere in the darkness surrounding us comes a distinctive sound. A keening cry, sharp and long. Repeated over and over.
"It's a kiwi." Aine says softly.

The following morning, for reasons best known to himself, Ross has left a dead possum on the deck outside the kitchen hut.
"Breakfast." someone says.
The long threatened rain has finally arrived, and the day - the final and longest stretch along the Arthur River, looks to be a wet one. And no wonder, with around twelve metres of rain a year, the Milford Track is arguably one of the wettest in the world, and to say that we have been lucky so far is an understatement, as the quotes in the guest books in each hut will testify.
We prevaricate as long as we can before setting off - hoping that the weather might clear as it has done in the past few days, but it remains persistent if not heavy, and we bite the bullet and trudge into it gloomily. Noel and Aine, who have so many of New Zealand's tramps under their belt that even the rain cannot dampen their spirits, plough on cheerfully. They vanish ahead of us into the clouds, Noel singing show tunes as he goes.

If the first half of the Milford Track should be attributed to Quintin Mackinnon, the route along the Arthur River was originally cut by a Scotsman named Donald Sutherland (no, not that one). Sutherland was known as The Hermit of Milford, but although he referred to city-folk and photographers as 'ash-felters' and 'shadow catchers' respectively, he was clearly not so reclusive as to keep the world at bay indefinitely.
He established 'the city of Milford' in 1877 - a trio of huts at the foot of the Sound. In 1890, he married a woman named Elizabeth Samuel, who seemed to be the business brains of the operation. It was under her influence that they built Milford's first hotel, and her cooking and hospitality was widely praised by the trampers who would traverse the distance to visit.
Until the 1960s, only guided walks were available along the route, and earlier still - even in Blanche Baughan's day - the only route back, was the way you had come.

The final day's walk - carried out with heads down and views obscured - passes a number of otherwise interesting diversions such as Mackay Falls and the hollow Bell Rock. The path follows the edge of Lake Ada - named after one of Donald Sutherland's ex-girlfriends back in Scotland - and follows the waterfront all the way to the track's terminus at the uninvitingly named Sandfly Point.
Here, we find room to sit and dry off as best as we can in the gloomy and damp little shelter provided to avoid the sandflies and wait for the ferry to arrive.
Sandflies were once described to me as looking like large sets of teeth with tiny little wings. They actually resemble small, normal blow flies, but when they land on you, they bite and when they bite, they draw blood and when they draw blood, they leave a mark which will itch for days.
Their Maori creation myth is appropriate. Fiordland was carved out by the god Tuterakiwhahoa and the goddess of the underworld, Hinenui-tepo was so overwhelmed by the beauty of his work that she feared that humans would refuse to leave such a glorious place. So she created the sandfly as a "warning not to linger too long", a reminder of morality.

The ferry arrives and takes us across the Sound to the port on the other side. The weather is still so cloudy and miserable that the iconic shapes of the conical mountains rising from the water are obscured and hazy, but despite this, the ferry terminal is crowded with tourists eager to take a tour and to say they have been if not seen the view that adorns every other postcard for sale in the South Island.

We do not take a cruise - not at this time, not in this weather. Instead, we take a shuttle bus to the nearby hostel and indulge in hot showers, laundry facilities and a bottle of wine. We are joined by others from our group and retreat to the restaurant for a huge plate of overpriced but still welcome fish and chips.
I ask again about the regimented nature of the route, the fact that payment must be made in advance, that there is no freedom to decide where to stay and how far to walk.
"There's a guarantee of a bed each night," someone says, "So you don't have to lug around a tent as well as everything else."
"Plus you only see minimal people on the track at any one time - you don't end up with large crowds gathered at any one view point, or people camping out say, on Mackinnon's pass - imagine that!"
"And the atmosphere's good. You get a community you wouldn't get if people split up all the time."
But isn't it expensive?
They shrug.
"You can see where the money is going." Someone points out, "Look at Ross and Ruth and all the work that's been done in terms of conservation."
We all nod sagely into our empty plates.
"Unless you're a possum." Tamsin notes.

A Notable Walk (4)

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say, and the sight of Steve's ear-plugs inspires me to dig out my own and sleep like the dead for the duration of the night.
Tamsin is not so lucky.
"For the record," she says, "Both Cliff and Steve snore. It was like a competitive snoring match last night, and the heavy breathing German guy didn't help."
I ask who snored worse.
"Steve." She says, "He even managed to wake Cliff up."
But by the time I am awake, both Steve and Cliff are nowhere to be seen. While they are clearly noisy during the night, they were almost completely silent moving out of the dorm room.
When we emerge ourselves, we find that the weather forecast has been accurate on one score at least. The promised rain is once again absent, but the evening has bought snow.
"Down to six hundred metres." Noel observes. "As promised."
Before the hut, the face of Mount Balloon has become white. Like a wedge of chocolate cake dusted in icing sugar. But behind it, the sky remains once more blue and inviting.
By the time we start walking, the evidence of snow on the path is minimal. Foliage to each side of the route is capped with blobs of white here and there, but there is nothing to impede our progress in any way. But it does not take long for the path to angle upwards, as our ascent of the Mackinnon Pass begins in earnest, and before long we have caught up with the snow, and our footsteps are crunching through it, placed with more care and attention than usual.
The views, behind us down the Clinton valley, are glorious as they drop away from us, but Tamsin is still trying to preserve her final roll of film.
"The view's only going to get better," she says, "it's not worth taking a picture now."
She's right, but I take pictures anyway, risking blocking the path as I do so.
The path continues up, out of the trees and zig-zags up the side of the hill. Beneath us, the valley lunges downwards, and ahead of us, brightly coloured figures stand out in contrast against the white. The view becomes more spectacular, the more is revealed. The wintry landscape possesses a Narnia-like, magical quality, which of course belies how treacherous the footing could be, not to mention the effort required to lug our bags up the hill.
Eventually, however, we reach the memorial dedicated to Quintin Mackinnon and Ernest Mitchel, who first pioneered the Milford Track in 1888. The achievement of reaching the spot is tempered by the sight of a group of guided tour-party members being fed mugs of hot-chocolate by one of their tour-guides.
A bubbly looking woman from this group beams at us as we approach.
"So you finally made it then!" she says.
The look which Tamsin gives her has killed lesser mortals and injured countless others, but fails to dent the woman's demeanour.
Tamsin ignores her and looks at the view we have earned.
The pass acts as a saddle linking Mount Balloon to the east and Mount Hart to the west. Both peaks rise thunderously above us, dressed up in their pristine winter finery.
A grey and chilly tarn stretches out before us, swallowing snow-balls whole. They sink, unmelted beneath its surface.
Behind the monument, the view into the next valley can be seen, and it too is glorious. The Arthur Valley, flanked once more by snow-covered, craggy giants. We stand as near as we dare to the aptly named Twelve Second Drop, which is sheer and spectacular in a slightly queasy sort of way.
"So it is worth it, then." Tamsin says, as though she half wishes it were not.
"It's beautiful." She admits, "But."
The last word is emphatic.

The path levels out from the monument, but rises gently to the highest point on the entire track at 1154 metres. A utilitarian looking sign marks the occasion, but this is also the most exposed section of the path and so we do not linger too long, but instead start picking our way down the path on the other side, descending towards the Arthur River.
The sun is bright, and the snow around us is already starting to melt. Across the valley from us, the sheer sheets of white are more vulnerable, and our route downwards is punctuated by the sounds of distant avalanches, stark gunshots, cracking across the valley. Our own path is safe in this respect. A diversion in the track guides us away from any potentially dangerous areas, and the slopes behind us are too sparsely snowed to form any real threat, but never-the-less, the sight of falls of dust from peaks in the distance, and the sounds - reaching us only later, like echoing snaps and crackles - are enough to hasten our pace.
But the downhill path is heavy going. In fact, the word 'path' is a generous term for the well defined but awkwardly lumpy scrabble which leads us downwards back beneath the tree layer and towards the valley. The knees and the spine twinge as we lower ourselves down, and the melting snow in the branches above us, splashes down like a deferred rainfall.
It is slow work, and so wet and narrow that there is no practical place to stop for a proper rest, let alone to find a spot to crack open our lunch. But we persevere and eventually, a broad bridge takes us across the Roaring Burn, which is once more appropriately named.
The view from here is attractive: the water crashing down the oak-thick valley. We can see the start of a network of staircases and platforms which invitingly continue downhill, providing a more comfortable route than more rocky pathways. The first such platform is broad and friendly-looking - an ideal spot for lunch.

Lunch consists of cheese and salami, biscuits, fruit and fruit juice. We dump our bags gratefully and tuck in. It does not take long before we find ourselves with company. Not another member of our group, nor one of the guided walkers, but a kea.
Kea's are parrots which inhabit the South Island's high country forests and mountains. Their feathers are a drab military green, but the undersides of their wings are bright red. They are inquisitive, destructive and nosy and are referred to either as 'mountain clowns' or as 'bloody nuisances' depending on whom you ask.
New Zealand's sheep farmers certainly, have had problems with rogue keas, which occasionally prey on lame sheep in an unsavoury manor. Less savage, but certainly annoying, mountain keas tend to vandalise any walking equipment which is not hung up or put away, and many trampers have found their walking boots, left out to dry, are shredded when they come to put them back on again.
The kea who has come to visit during our lunch is clearly only after some food. He struts before us, his head cocked, regarding us beadily. He's a big creature too and completely unafraid. Any shoo-ing movements are responded too in a half-hearted sort of manner, and it becomes clear that it is only a matter of time before he will be sitting on our laps and helping himself if we don't pay attention.
The path continues downhill, the walkways and staircases following the river through the valley. The snow-layer is far behind us now - evidenced only by the caps of the mountains lurking before us, but the thawed ice has clearly fuelled the river further, and it storms along, the stone carved smooth by its insatiable progress.
Eventually, we stumble upon Quintin Hut - the luxury accommodation for the guided walkers that evening and still an hour distant from our own beds for the night.
Here, however, we are invited to drop our bags off in a storage room, and embark on a side trip to the Sutherland Falls, a further one-and-a-half hour round trip.
Tamsin opts to risk the sandflies and stay behind, nursing her knees as I jog off up the path, promising to be as quick as I can.
It's a strange feeling setting off on a diversion such as this without the weight of the bag which I have become used to. There is the potential danger, I imagine, that the going might seem too easy by comparison. But the path is undemanding, and it does not take long before the gutteral roaring of something lurks ahead of me behind the trees.
The Sutherland Falls are the highest permanent waterfalls in New Zealand, with water spewing out from 630 metres in an almighty, violent explosion of white-water, crashing to earth with the sort of torrential spray which drenches anyone who is foolish enough to consider spectating in an instant.
The sound alone is enough to untether the eardrums, but I manage to hear the mother of the Tasmanian family instructing her husband to take a group shot of the rest of them as close to the water as they dare.
I offer to take a photograph of the four of them, but the husband shakes his head.
"I think I'm close enough." He says.

A Notable Walk (3)

Although Ruth asks that we move quietly out of the dorms the next morning, so that those who would prefer a lie-in may do so, we are woken early the following morning by what sounds like every American on the trip crumpling plastic bags, stamping their boots and talking very loudly indeed. My one-season sleeping bag might have just about kept me warm during the night, but pulling it up over my head, it proves to be next-to-useless when it comes to blocking out any external noise – I promise myself to find my earplugs for the following evening.
As it is, we set off late the following morning, so late in fact that we run into an advance party of guided walkers who spent the previous evening in more luxurious accommodation a fifteen minute walk from the ferry terminus. The guided walk is considerably more expensive than the independent alternative, but includes the added incentives of hot showers, decent food and the benefit that the participants need only carry their clothes from location to location. What they have been told about us is anybody's guess, as a group of them have evidently taken the diversion to inspect our hut before continuing further.
"Oh." says a pristinely attired woman, sounding curiously disappointed as she emerges from a reconnaissance mission to our toilet block, "They have proper toilets."
Her husband says nothing as we pass hastily, he just issues a straight-line smile and swats off some sandflies.

The second day's walk is the first day to cover a substantial distance. Sixteen or so kilometres follow the Clinton River to its source in the Clinton Canyon. The path starts off well defined and although there was rain in the night, and the surrounding peaks seem to have received a fresh dusting of snow, the weather appears to be clear once more, with another blanket-blue sky serving as a backdrop for the day's trek.
After a short distance the river forks, a little later still, and we find evidence of a landslide which occurred in 1982. The fallen rubble isolated a backwater of the river and created a small lake, punctured with greening dead tree-trunks extending upwards as bristles and downwards as reflections.
To our left and right, the canyon narrows, and the previous night's rainfall becomes apparent in the silver threads of waterfalls trailing down the rock faces on either side of us.
The route is helpfully marked with kilometre markers, which aside from illustrating how far is left of the walk there is to go, also - gallingly - demonstrate how much our pace slows as the day progresses.
But with the weather clear and the views all around excellent, there is no reason to rush, and as we leave the beach forests behind and enter a broad prairie marking out the base of the glacier-formed valley, we take a little time to stand stupidly and oggle.
Here we have our first view of Mackinnon Pass, the highest part of the route which we will be crossing tomorrow. It looks imposing, lurking darkly ahead of us, flanked on either side by the glowering edifices of Mount Hart and Mount Balloon. To our left, further peaks reveal themselves and Tamsin is having difficulties rationing her camera film.
"I'll take one shot every two kilometres." she decides, before another mountain rises into view before us, each more glorious than the last.
"Oh, to hell with it." she says, and takes a picture anyway.
We stop for lunch near Pompolona Creek and as we finish, the weather finally begins to resemble the forecasts we have been warned about. The final hour or so is spent stumbling through scrub land as the path begins to ascend part way up towards the pass.
The path gets quite steep here, and with the lowering clouds veiling the views once more, the rain lends us an impetus to just get the walk over and done with for the afternoon.
"This hut had better have a good view," Tamsin says.
It does. Greeting us with wide verandas fluttering with multi-coloured waterproof jackets and trousers, hanging up to dry as best they can, it faces directly onto the steep slopes of Mount Balloon, which towers before us, drawing the weather to it: clouds, snow and rain.
We retreat into the shelter of the hut. A fire has already been lit, brightening the ruddy faces which turn to greet our entrance into the warmth.

The atmosphere this evening is warmer than last night, with our community of walkers visibly more comfortable with each other. Camaraderie has grown with the shared spectacle to discuss and the hut feels more relaxed as a result.
Faces emerge from the crowd, and various groups become more defined. The family from Tasmania consists of a young married couple and his parents. They shuffle brightly coloured camping equipment around the tables.
"We took our time today," says the mother with wide-eyed delight, "We stopped at every diversion."
The Polish couple preside over a remarkably complicated sounding card game, while a comparatively local older couple now based in Queenstown take pity on Tamsin and me because we did not bring any coffee. They supply us with mugs of our own - instant coffee has never tasted so welcome.
Two English girls huddle around the fire and fret that they are under-equipped for the following day's walk. A portly Australian, travelling with his daughter, admits he is a football coach. A pair of Germans look remarkably miserable even when a cheery Austrian tries to engage them in conversation.
The largest group is the Americans. Once strangers to each other, they now huddle around a table in the far corner of the hut talk about the wonders of Colorado in not-so hushed tones. But they are not the loudest in the hut, the most vocal is a man named Steve, who describes himself as a "Jafa".
"Jafa?" I ask innocently.
"Just another fucking Aucklander."
He grins the sort of grin reserved for those who don't swear as much as they would like to.
His walking partner, an elderly gentleman with eyes which twinkle with good humour, chips in.
"Me too." he says in a broad American accent, "I'm a Jafa too."
Steve frowns.
"No, you're not." he says. "You're a Yank."
His companion nods.
"Just about from Alabama." he says with a grin.
Cliff first encountered Steve on an Internet talkboard centred around hiking. Steve was looking for volunteers to test out his revolutionary new sleeping bag design and Cliff volunteered.
"It didn't really work," Cliff admits, "Not for me, anyway. But we kept in touch."
They have been in communication for years, and although Cliff's visit to New Zealand has been the first opportunity for them to meet, they act and talk like a pair of old friends who are very comfortable with each other's company. Or at very least, a double act in which there is the suspicion that only one of them is aware that their performance is funny.
At the moment, for example, Steve is including references to 'Uncle Jack' in each sentence in order to demonstrate that he possesses a hip-flask full of Jack Daniels.
"Not really a bourbon man, myself." Cliff says.
"Jack Daniels isn't a bourbon!" Steve roars. "It's Tennessee Whiskey!"
He embarks on a lengthy lecture on the subject - detailing the differences between the two. Cliff nods attentively with the occasional mischievous grin at us, clearly delighted to have set him off.
"Do you know how Jack died?" Steve asks.
Cliff scratches his toe meaningfully.
"Liver disease?" He asks mildly.
"Gangrene!" Steve cries triumphantly. "He couldn't get into his safe one time, and kicked it in frustration, breaking his toes. Got gangrene and died three days later!"
"That a fact?" says Cliff, releasing his own toe, "You should be a tour-guide at the distillery."
"That's just what they said!" says Steve.

Mintaro hut has three dormitories, and by the time we arrive, the largest one upstairs snuggly fitted beneath the rafters of the hut, is full. Walking up and down it, faces emerge from the shadows peering at me as I try to identify any free beds. Instead, we end up in a smaller room near the back, and find ourselves sharing with a tall, adenoidal German, and the continuing Cliff and Steve show.
As we unpack our sleeping bags, Steve unpacks a large box of ear-plugs.
"Are they to hand out to everyone else?" Cliff asks.
"No they are not." Steve says, "They're because you snore like a traction engine."
"You have eight pairs." Cliff observes, "I can't be that bad, surely?"
Steve notices the logo on my sleeping bag and changing the subject, explains instead that his coat was made by the same company.
"It doubles as a pillow." he says, and to demonstrate, slips out of it, and folds it in such a way that he can tuck it into a pouch at the head of his sleeping bag. He stands back in a sort of 'ta-da!' pose and not knowing what else to do, I nod and smile appreciatively.
This is clearly the wrong thing to do, because he then repeats the trick several times, from different angles, and for a strange moment, I become half convinced that I've become trapped inside the shopping channel.

A Notable Walk (2)

To say that the first day of the walk is the easiest, is something of a cheat. With much of the day taken up with the various buses and boats required to start the walk, the route itself extends for a mere five kilometres before the first hut is reached.
By now, the weather has cleared and the peaks surrounding us stand distinct against the blue sky. Crumpled rock, folded to sheer edges like vast, roughly hewn slate blades. Dark, rich grey but wrapped green at the base and dusted white at the top. The track here is exceptionally well cared for, looking more like the sort of path which which might be found in a city park rather than a national one. It follows the Clinton River through beach forests, stopping here and there to provide access to rocky beaches affording clearer views of the looming scenery surrounding on all sides.
Clinton Hut is reached after about an hour or so, and it is here that the first night must be spent no matter how keen you might be to press on. The walk is strictly organised in this respect. Each night is allocated to a different hut, camping is prohibited along the route, and so only certain distances may be traversed each day. It is contentious to some independent walkers, who see it as going against everything that walking routes such as this represent. Freedom of movement is severely restricted, beds are allocated and diversions are discouraged. For those less experienced in this sort of activity however, the benefits are appealing. From an organizational perspective, the walk is very carefully structured, and in terms of safety - being counted in and out of each hut each night, can be seen as very reassuring.
Clinton Hut is a small network of three huts jumbled together around a shared board-walk. Two huts are bunkhouses and one is the kitchen area and lounge.
We try and pick the bunkhouse with the smaller number of dead sandflies speckled on the window-sill, but it is a futile gesture.
The hut is presided over by a Ranger named Ruth, who hails from just outside Invercargill and sounds a little like Pam Ayres might do should she trade the occasional vowel with Rolf Harris.
As the weather is still clear she invites us out on a nature walk around the nearby wetlands, and points out various examples of flora and fauna along the way.
Along the path, she beings to rub the face of her wrist-watch with a piece of polystyrene making a squeaking noise which she says usually attracts the local bird life.
We hold our breaths in anticipation, but although the answering birdsong seems to get a little closer, we don't see much of the birds themselves. Ruth shrugs and plucks a plant from behind her.
"No matter," she says, rubbing the leaves, "Can anyone tell me what this is?"
She sniffs her fingers to demonstrate and the plant is passed around so that everyone else can do the same.
"Pepper?" someone asks and Ruth nods.
"Absolutely." she says, "We call it the Pepper Plant. What about this one?"
She passes another plant around and everyone greedily starts rubbing the leaves as they had done before. This time, the smell provokes revulsion however, but Ruth nods once more in satisfaction.
"We call that one stink-weed." she says matter-of-factly and turns her back on us and ambles back towards the hut, leaving us staring at our hands and cursing the lack of showers at the hut.

The huts are busy that evening, the beds were booked in advance some four months in advance. But we are wary of each other so early into the walk that we find ourselves splitting into smaller groups gathered around the fire which has been lit in the hearth at the kitchen hut's centre.
What can be ascertained is that there are walkers here from all over the world. A large group of German speakers find each other, as do a mob of Americans. Between these two poles, there are a family of Australians, the occasional New Zealander, an Irish couple and two Poles.
Tamsin and I wrestle with our hastily purchased cookware and risk our fingers on the provided gas rings. Our food has been chosen for its minimal weight as much - if not more so than for its nutritional value. But it is interesting to see what others have bought - some remarkable looking meals are being prepared and we are torn between outright envy at their results and disbelief that someone had to carry all the equipment and ingredients that they have lugged onto the counters.
Best organized are Noel and Aine, who have been working their through most of the walks that the South Island has to offer and thus appear to have the food/weight issue down to a fine art.
"It's a matter of experimenting, really," Aine explains as she pulls an entire loaf of bread out from the bag before her and sets about preparing some appealingly bulky sandwiches for the following day, "When we did the Abel Tasman trip, I don't know what we must have looked like when we were done..."
"Happy, but malnourished." Noel supplies.
"So we just took it from there, really." Aine continues, "We probably take too much these days, but we're used to the weight now... You just take what you can carry really. Anything to avoid those things."
She nods at someone unenthusiastically poking a boil-in-the-bag casserole with a plastic fork. A freeze-dried meal designed for Antarctica expeditions, yours for a mere fifteen dollars a serving.
"I mean, I can understand resorting to those if you're away for months or something, but three nights?"
She shakes her head. "What did you have?"
Tamsin and I, who have just finished a meal of noodles mixed with powdered soup, carefully change the subject.

A Notable Walk (1)

"You're late." the man at the reception desk of the Department of Conservation says, "Tickets for the Milford Track are supposed to be picked up before ten."
This is true, but I rattle out the practised excuse that when I had last spoken to someone from this office, trying to find out information about the shuttle buses linking Queenstown to Te Anau, I had been recommended the very same bus which had just dropped us off - as late as accused.
The man waves his hand dismissively, he's already scanning the list of names on the print-out before him and replaces the discrete cross beside my name with a tick. He is young, but dressed as he is in khaki shirt and shorts, he is only a pith helmet and a handle-bar moustache shy of looking as though he has stepped out of some fifties jungle adventure serial.
He pushes a book of tickets across the desk towards me and then prods another printout before him: this one baring a simple line map overlaid with a complex design of contour lines swirling in tight, ominous whorls.
"Have you seen the weather forecast for the next four days?" He asks.
"Uh, no." I admit, leaning across the desk to try and decipher the page before him. He turns in around as though it might help. I blink at it uselessly.
"Let me put it this way," he says, "Do you have a waterproof pack liner?"
"Yes." I say.
"Do you have waterproof over-trousers?"
"Yes."
"Can you swim?"
I look up at him sharply and it is only with moderate relief that I see he is grinning. He nods at the door behind me.
"That's your bus that's just turned up." he says.

The Milford Track is New Zealand's most famous footpath. A four day, fifty-three kilometre hike from the tip of Lake Te Anau to the innermost reaches of the Milford Sound. It is also the most regimented, the most expensive and - if the long standing slogan is to be believed, the finest walk in the world.
This particular piece of hyperbole - one which New Zealand's Department of Conservation is more than happy to perpetuate - is attributed to Blanche Baughan, a Surrey-born poet who moved to New Zealand in 1900 and was commissioned to write a series of articles for the London Spectator. The title of her 1908 piece on the Milford Track was changed by her sub-editor from the rather modest 'A Notable Walk' to 'The Finest Walk in the World.'
The few quotes I could find from the article itself, suggest that Baughan was not above a little overstatement herself:

'This track, anyone possessing feet to walk with, eyes to see with and a love for nature at her loneliest and fairest could scarce do better than essay. And from the variety, the beauty and the scale of the scenes through which it passes, it must certainly be accounted one of the most glorious natural wonders of the world.'

Nearly one hundred years later, the popularity of the track means that the route is anything but lonely. Around ten thousand trampers cross the route each year, but restrictions imposed by the Department of Conservation keep numbers to only forty independent and twenty guided walkers per day on each stretch of the track. With different accommodation assigned to each group, the theory is that they should never meet, and so with only up to thirty-nine familiar faces to be encountered along the route, there is a fragile illusion of isolation, which most seem happy to buy into.

For the independent walker, the expense of the track stems from the difficulties involved in accessing it. The start of the walk at Glade Wharf is reached by a combination of bus and ferry from Te Anau.
"In the unlikely event of an emergency," the skipper of the ferry announces, "Emergency exits are over which ever side of the boat you happen to be near."
A hand raises from his audience.
"Is there an alarm?" Someone asks.
The skipper nods seriously.
"Oh yes," he says, "It sounds like me screaming like a little girl."
Although the promised bad weather looked to have been getting ready to unleash itself before the ferry had even left its moorings, about half way up the lake, the grey-white clouds relax enough for a glimmer of blue to emerge from between them. Before long, most of the ferry's passengers have huddled up on the top deck to stand defiant against the rails and watch the scenery swell before us. The wind roars in our ears and waters our eyes, and the deck is full of the sound of waterproof jackets snapping and crackling as they flap around us. The mountains, snow-capped giants hulking around the edges of the lake, glower over us as we approach. To the east, we can glimpse the alternate land route to the Clinton Valley where the walk begins, the high and imposing path across Dore Pass which has claimed a number of walkers both over-confident and under-prepared. The engine of the ferry judders reassuringly beneath us - those of us on board satisfied that we might class ourselves adventurous, but only in the safest and least adventurous sort of way.

Happy Aniversary Luv!

A little delayed admittedley, but the big 1 is upon us, yep, we've now been travelling for over a year on the other side of the globe. For some this may be considered a good thing and for others it may be tinged with a bit of regret. It's gone pretty quick all in all, the memory of standing in Heathrow airport about to board a plane destined for Sydney, is still crystal clear. Myself and Julia have managed to cram a lot into that year, between us we've done the east coast of Australia, two different Tropical Polynesian island groups, and of course where we now call home, both islands of New Zealand. Highlights are plentiful, but standouts include in Australia, the Whitsunday islands, Fraser island and Byron Bay, in New Zealand, the Corromandel region, Milford Sound, and Queenstown and the Fjordland area. But up till now, my favourite place is Tahiti, paradise on earth, the two weeks spent there was an unbelivable experience and one to be heartedley recommended. However the year hasn't been made by the places we've been, it's been about he people we've met, and 1 year on I can confidentley say we've made some very good friends, plenty of whom we'll continue to run into throughout our lives. But the best times have been the periods we've run into familiar faces. Our experiences in Auckland we're made all the better by living and sharing time with Julie. The visits of Jules parents and the Tanakas was an amazing happy time and the visit of John and Moa added even more to our stay. I'm pleased to say John has seen sense and after a period of time int he UK he's now living in Queenstown and working in the supermarket with me. If anyone is sitting at home and dreaming of a couple of shifts on the checkouts, I can probably sort something out for you! Vince hasn't yet taken up this offer but I reckon it's only a question of time. From what might have considered a little bit of a seperate starting point, both myself, Jules and Vince have managed to cram in a lot of QT together, which was always the intention, and highlights of the trip have to be Vince's birthday in Sydney, the time we had living in Auckland and of course our attempts at a traditional Christmas and New Year in Queenstown. And we might have had slightly different itineries, but 1 year on, we're still very much in the same place enjoying the pleasures of New Zealand not more than a bus ride apart. So all in all worked out pretty well. I'm not the most comfortable at writing a bit of a nostalgia thing, but suffice to say, we've had some wonderful experiences and I'm sure will continue to. When will you see our faces again? well probably sooner than you think. We now have only probably 2 more months here and then we start the trip home with a few stop offs along the way of course. So maybe 3-4 months, so not long. I guess the next entry of this nature will be the homecoming one, that's a bit scary!