As you may have read both Drew (Devslashtux) and I have been in New Zealand on holidays. Not the same holidays, it was just a co-incidence that we both planned trips to New Zealand at the same time. I left for my trip on the 6th and got back on the 18th of January. Drew left on the 9th and is yet to return.
The main purpose of my trip (which I took with my family and some close family friends) was to complete the Milford track, a four day 53 kilometre walk.
We flew into Queenstown on the 6th over snow capped mountains. The plane only just skimmed over the top of the mountains. To the right of the airport are the massive Remarkables mountain range, over 2000 metres tall. Queenstown is one of the prettiest towns I’ve ever been too, rivalling some of the places I saw in Alaska.
We then travelled to Te Anau which was the starting point for our Milford track walk. We had one night there and left early morning the next day for the walk.
The Milford track walk takes four days and is 53 kilometres long. We had to carry all our food, clothes, utensils, everything. We stayed in huts with no showers, just a matress and a common area with gas cookers. There are 3 huts and 40 people stay in each hut each night. The walk was one of the best things I have ever done in my life. It follows a river up a magnificent valley with snow capped mountains walling you in. But the track itself travels through rain forest.
On the third day we climbed 500 metres out of the valley over a mountain pass 1100 m above sea level, between a two mountains 1700+ metres tall. Then we walked into another valley on the other side and descended 1000metres in to the floor of the other valley. Part way down we detoured to Sutherland falls, the largest permanent waterfall in NZ and the 5th tallest in the world.
The rivers were flooded from heavy rain and the water coming off this fall was unbelievable. To imagine what it was like to stand 20 metres away from the fall, imagine the heaviest storm you’ve been in and double it. The water was shooting off the rocks like rain so hard it hurt your eyes. None the less 6 of us worked our way around through a swollen creek and stood behind the fall, behind the main curtain of water. It was amazing. The closest thing I can imagine to being in a hurricane. There was so much water it soaked right through our water proof pants and rain coat.
(The above image is of Sutherland falls. On the day we stood behind it the falls were swollen with rain and there was far more water coming off the falls)
On the last day there was a massive storm. 250mm of rain fell in less then 24hours. We had to ford dozens of swollen creeks as the mountains flowed with hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls. The rain was so bad that the 50 guided walkers who stay in different huts and were walking 1 hour behind us had to be helicoptered out of the track past the flooded creeks. If we had left 1 hour later that day we would have had to have been helicoptered out as well.
The next day was perfectly clear. Its amazing how quickly the weather can change in one day when you’re in the mountains. One day an unbelievable storm that flooded the track and caused landslides on the road to doubtful sound (forcing our cruise today to be cancelled). The next day perfect clear weather without a cloud in the sky.
Because of the landslide we changed our Doubtful Sound cruise to one on Milford Sound. It was so different to see Milford Sound the next day. All the water falls that had been there the day before during the rain had dried up.
We spent that night in Te Anau before driving to Queenstown for two more nights. In Queenstown we went jet boating and bungy jumping which was great fun. We went on the Ledge Bungy which uses a body harness which allows you to take a running jump off the platform.
After our two nights in Queenstown we headed up to Franz Joseph glacier for two nights. There we stayed at the Glenfern Villas which I can highly recommend. The best accomodation of our trip (and we had some good accomodation I might add).
After those two nights we went onto Christchurch for one night then it was back home to Sydney.
This was the first time I’d been to New Zealand (which is a shame since it’s so close. I’ve been to many other countries but never before to NZ). I really loved the place. It’s scenery was amazing and the people were very down to earth. I’ll be travelling back there as soon as possible, hopefully to ski some of the great mountains we saw while over there.
Oh and before I sign off, I’ll leave you with my bungy photos:
Stay tuned for Devslashtux’s trip report which I’m sure he’ll post upon his return.
Cheers,
Colonel.