Hard Labour on the Kepler Track

Te Anau is beautifully set beside a lake and surrounded by mountains and forest. It is just a few hundred meters above sea level, so mountains of just 2000m or so seem very impressive. It’s also a tourist hub and the start of the Kepler Track, one of several hiking tracks in the area that give you a taste of the wilderness to be found in Fiordland National Park. The Kepler Track takes 3 – 4 days and you must carry all your food and cooking equipment, and a tent as well if the huts are booked out. The huts were indeed booked out, so we prepared ourselves for a tough hike.

We spent the first night at Brod Bay, a nice camping site under the trees beside Lake Te Anau. It would have been idyllic but for the pesky sandflies! The second day was the hardest. The track took us all the way up to the top of 1750m Mt Luxmore, followed by a long traverse, before a final descent to Iris Burn. We were rewarded with stunning views of snow-capped mountains the lake 1500m below us. It reminded me very much of the view from the Al Legn hut beside Laggo Maggiore in Switzerland, but with the knowledge that only wilderness lay beyond the mountains, and after that, the sea.



Sunset over Lake Te Anau



Camping at Brod Bay on the Kepler Track



Hiking on the Kepler Track

Late on the third and final day, we made it to the end of the 62-kilometer hike. We were weary but the feeling of accomplishment was very satisfying. We still had enough energy to make the 150 km drive to Milford Sound, the jewel in the crown of New Zealand’s scenic spots. The weather was still fine and we knew it would be a highlight of the trip.

Caving

On the way to Te Anau, we stopped off at some caves near Tuatapere, about 40 km from Invercargill. In one of those spontaneous decisions that often end in a brush with disaster, we grabbed our only two light sources (the light on my mobile phone and a Petzl headlamp) and headed into the cave. At only 350m long, it can’t be too dangerous, even if we’re on our own, we thought. The cave headed downwards into the bowels of the earth. At first it was pitch black and our light sources barely made an impact, but our eyes slowly adjusted. Christina was having major second thoughts, but somehow I convinced her to go on. Soon we were so far in that turning back was not an option any more. The wet and slippery walls of limestone eventually opened out into caverns and when we turned out the lights, glow-worms created hundreds of specks of light above us, just like a starry sky. It was beautiful. After what seemed like eternity, we finally reached a serious obstacle to our exit from the cave: the Swimming Pool. Recent rain meant that it was pretty deep – how deep we’ll never know, since we were not about to jump in and go swimming! Instead, we stripped down to our underwear and gripping tightly to an overhanging ledge, inched our way around the side of the pool. Even here it was up to our waists and freezing cold. One slip and we would have been in a very unpleasant situation. Fortunately, we made it, and with our adrenalin pumping, we exited the cave into daylight 10 minutes later. We’d been underground for over an hour. Relieved to be out, we were in no rush to head into another cave for quite a while.

South of the South

Finally we reached Slope Point, the southernmost point of New Zealand. Wild, wet and windswept, it is a place to see once and then never come back.



Slope Point

A short drive along the southern coast brings you to Invercargill. It’s a city, but a fairly bleak one with little to recommend it except its proximity to cool places such as Stewart Island and Fiordland National Park. The nearby town of Bluff, better known as the ‘Arsehole of New Zealand’, is New Zealand’s southernmost town. We stopped in for a drink in the local pub, expecting to meet some Bluff locals. We ended up talking to the barkeeper, who was Australian, and a farmer from the UK. A sign of how multi-cultural New Zealand has become.

We didn’t linger in the far south, but instead pointed the car northwards and set off on the scenic route to Te Anau, 150km away. It is the gateway to Fiordland, the largest and most spectacular wilderness area in New Zealand.

The Catlins

Reluctantly, we left Dunedin behind and continued south. The backroads from Dunedin to Invercargill pass through a region known as the Catlins, home to some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. It is famous for its remote little fishing villages, rainforest coming right down to the coast, deserted beaches and abundance of wildlife – seals, penguins, dolphins, sea lions and sea birds.

Two of the highlights were the evocatively named Nugget Point and Cannibal Bay.



Coastal rainforest in the Catlins





The lighthouse and the 'nuggets' at Nugget Point



A sea-lion at Cannibal Bay

Dunedin and Port Chalmers

Dunedin is the largest city in the province of Otago. Known as the Edinburgh of the South, it has a beautiful setting at the head of Port Chalmers, a long inlet flanked on either side by rolling green hills. In perfect weather, we drove a winding, narrow, coast-hugging road out to Akaroa. Akaroa will be forever famous in New Zealand as the site of worst mass-murder in New Zealand’s history. After some searching, we finally found the poignant memorial to the innocent people who lost their lives to a crazy man named David Gray back in 1994.



Sheep near Port Chalmers

Dunedin is also the origin of the Kiwi half of my family, descended from Scottish and English settlers. My grandparents grew up in the Leith Valley, where the camping ground we were staying at happened to be. Nearby is Baldwin St, the world’s steepest street and on my granddad’s old paper delivery route. We paid a visit to one of my relatives, Russell, who is my mother’s cousin and a retired cinema projectionist. He took us on a short walking tour and was able to pass on a wealth of information about Dunedin’s fascinating history. On Russell’s advice, we drove out to St Claire for a walk on the beach and then to the beautiful fishing village of Portobello, where we camped for the night.



St Claire Beach

Christchurch to Dunedin

We were happy to leave Hamilton behind. It was hot and incredibly dry, with no rain since Christmas, and the water level in mum’s tank was getting pretty low. In Christchurch it was a bit cooler and a bit greener, but not much. We didn’t linger. After picking up the rental car, a gutless Nissan with automatic transmission, we headed south following the eastern coast of the South Island. It began to rain.

Our first night was spent in a backpackers in Timaru. Our only company was a dear old lady with a black eye and a bit of mental problem, who insisted on washing our dishes and worrying about whether we were warm enough. She was very sweet and when we left the next morning, her parting gift to us was a bunch of lavender and some cherry tomatoes.

We made a fleeting stop in architecturally-blessed Oamaru, one of the few towns in New Zealand where a sizeable number of turn-of-the-century buildings have been preserved. Further down the coast we came to Moeraki, where large near-perfect spherical boulders litter the windswept beach, many with a diameter of 2 or 3 meters. Set against a wild sea, they are a spectacular sight. Their origin is debated, but it seems they were eroded out of nearby cliffs.



Boulders at Moeraki

Near the town of Moeraki, there’s a nice peninsular where you can see seals and yellow-eyed penguins. We were lucky and saw many of both.





A seagull, a yellow-eyed penguin and a seal

Southbound

With a bit over two weeks until my job begins on 1 March 2008, we’ve decided to fly down to the South Island for a last hurrah. We’ll take the tent and rent a car. Our planned route is shown in the map. Starting in Christchurch, we’ll drive down the eastern coastline to Dunedin, then further south through a beautiful region known as the Catlins to Invercargill. From there we’ll head north again, via Te Anau, Milford Sound and Mt Cook. We have a flight from Christchurch back to Auckland booked for 25 February.



Map of our route