Catlins and The Hump Ridge Trek

The way from Dunedin to the Hump Ridge Trek goes through an area called Catlins, mostly coastal scenery landscape full of touristic little spots to stop upon. Because of the time limit and the bad weather (winds!) we decided to stop only on a few of them.

1st stop : Nugget Point.
Not much to tell here, just a nice place, you walk from the car park to a lighthouse from which you get a good viewpoint over the sea, a bunch of rocks close to it's shoreline and couple of seals.















2nd stop : Purakaunui Falls.
Not much to tell here, just a nice viewpoint of a chain of small waterfalls 20 minutes walk from the car park. It felt like walking in an Israeli trail to see a waterfall.















3rd stop : Slope Point.
Not much to tell here, it's the the most southern point in the south island. It wasn't a great view point or anything just a windy spot. So windy we had to hold on to the sign!














Eventually, the most interesting part of this section for us, was sleeping in a very nice place called Hilltop. We got a fancy room in a house on top of one of the hills there with great views and 500 sheep surrounding us.

1 supermarket visit and 1 night at the local hostel on a city called Invercargill, we picked up 2 German hitchhikers and we set our sails over to the Hump Ridge trek, a 3 days trek on the south area of the Fiordland national park.

The night before the trek we settled in a very small rural town called Tuatapere, the closest village to the trek. Not much to do there, except for drinking some beers in the local bar.
When we came to the trek office to get our hut tickets, an unpleasant surprise waited for us -
the lady at the office told us we came a day earlier because, as she claimed, a woman called and identified herself with our name the day before, and postponed in one day our departure. She also charged us with the postponing fee, and told us that if we want to departure on the original date, we will have to pay that fee twice.
No matter what we said to her, she didn't believe that we hadn't made that call, not to mention how rude and impolite she was. Where is all the New Zealand kindness and innocence?
Of course when we came back from the trek to hand out the hut ticket she said an error was made, and a dutch tourist with a surname similar to ours had called, and not us, and she credit us the postponing fee. Not only she was rude again, she wouldn't agree to apologize for her behavior 3 days before. Her excuse was our nationality, Israeli, and the experience she had with Israelis who tried to deceive her before. No matter how hard we shouted at her she wouldn't take her words back. This is one New Zealand experience we would like to forget.

Anyway, about the trek:

The beginning was quiet nice, short walking trough a bush, long walking along a beautiful coastline,




























up to a junction where we started climbing up to the hump ridge. Then we had a long walk on a boardwalk (real treat comparing to our previous trek) until we stopped for lunch break in a shelter. From this point on the weather got worst, every minute that passed the rain got heavier and heavier. Half an hour later we were all soaked, including our underwear and shoes :(
We were so wet and depressed that we climbed the 900 meters of this section without any breaks or extra effort. The worst part was at the top, just 2 km from the hut, where the route was exposed without trees to block the winds, we had to hold on to each other and anything we could find, while the rain slapping our faces, so we won't be blown away from the route. Eventually, we arrived to the hut wet and shivering. Two hours later, after changing cloths and eating dinner, we started feeling our feet again. Lovely day number 1.
On this picture you can see the hut and the boardwalk that follows it. It was taken the day after when it wasn't raining...















At the second day we woke up just to find out everything had frozen by night and all was covered with ice and snow. Luckily, the weather got better and even the sun could be seen from time to time. We started with a small track around the top (called "The Hump") that gives views of the surrounding mountains and seashores. There is also a really small lake surrounded by large rocks.




























It was still a bit cloudy so we only got partial view of the area, don't know if it was worth walking in the storm the day before. The trek then descends slowly back to the bush giving you from time to time viewpoints.














At this point snow started to fall. We actually was happy about it because it's better than rain (it takes more time to get wet) and it adds nice atmosphere to the walk. The snow stopped about half an hour later. Once we entered the bush, there were no more viewpoints and the walk became monotonic, muddy and boring for another 5 hours until we got to the next hut, where we spent the night. That day Sarit's foot started to hurt and slowed us down a bit.
The nice thing about the second hut, called Port Craig Hut, is that there is a nice beach nearby (5 min walk).














But like any other thing in New Zealand, a nice experience is always accompanied by sand-flies. Just after 10 seconds of sitting at the beach, 50 of them came, and they were hungry!
Lovely day number 2.

The third day was 6 hours of walking in a bush again (nicer than the second day, and less muddy) and walking along coastline back to the car park, retracing part of the first day.
We started the walk and after 15 minutes Sarit could not continue the walk because of the painful foot. The problem was that the shoe pressured a specific area in the foot that caused the pain. Luckily we brought our sandals with us. Sarit changed her shoes with sandals and we moved on (twice as fast, speedy sandals!). The rain visited us again on that day, not as hard as the first day, but just enough to make you want to just finish the walk and get to the car, without looking at the view too much, not to mention taking pictures. Lovely day number 3.















Our next stop is Queenstown, and then to the Rees Dart 5 days trek.

Oamaru, Dunedin and in between.

Hi,

Right after the lovely night at Mt. Cook camp site we head on to a city called Oamaru.
One special thing we saw on the way there was the "Elephant Rocks".







































































Oamaru has historical area which all the people there wears traditional clothing (how touristic...) and all the buildings there kept exactly as it was.




























Oamaru's public gardens:














Oamaru offers lots of things to eat and taste :
An old whiskey factory that offers tastings (Sarit is still not a whiskey fan),
famous cheese factory that offers tastings (Sarit is still a cheese fan),
A traditional dutch bakery with a half Jewish baker that offers variety of pies and breads (Sarit has become a dutch bread & pie fan).

Oamaru also offers penguin observations.
First we went to see the yellow eye penguin colony.
We spent an hour there and eventually saw only
2 penguins (kissing, but still only 2).




























After that we went to the blue penguin colony (to the free observation area of course, who wants to pay 40 dollars after seeing only 2 at the last place?).
We waited and waited, the sunset arrived, and finally few small images of penguins arrived from the sea.
We had more luck this time, we saw about 20 penguins from all ages, walking and talking to each other. It was really dark and penguins don't like camera's flash so we only have lousy pictures.
We must say, South America has much more to offer in the penguin market.

On the way to Dunedin we had few more stops :
The Moeraki boulders, a rounded shapes rocks located on one of New Zealand's coasts,














The rock can also function as morning exercise tool:




























and a few more penguins & seals observations (again, after visiting South America, the sights were not very impressive).















Finally we arrived to Dunedin.
Well, Dunedin is a big city, with traffic, buses, streetlights and big supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and more.
Beside walking in the city streets and enjoying the noise we had 2 tours at different factories:
A chocolate factory - Cadbury, which was nice, but Sarit was very disappointed from the amount of the free chocolate for tasting (Sarit: "The other group we saw on the way got chocolate egg, and we didn't!").
The other factory is actually a beer brewery called Speight's, which is the most famous beer of the south island. The tour was nice but the real highlight of it was the last 30 minutes. "Drink all you can" of their 6 brands of beer! you even pour your own beer from the bar (Roi: "After the third glass, who remembers the stupid chocolate egg?"). We left the brewery drunk and happy.

The following day we arrived to a place called Middlemarch. This was our base camp for the bicycle trip we did the next day, from a town called Hyde to other town called Ranfurly.
The trip goes along an old train trail which was renovated (the rails were removed, which makes the trail a perfect mountain bikes track, mostly flat and wide).
We ride just 1 day out of the 5 days to complete the entire train trail.
The trip was great! that include riding over bridges and through a tunnel in the mountain, the weather was great and the views were lovely. We really enjoyed that 32km of riding.





























In our next visit to New Zealand we'll do the whole 5 days trip.

What can be more relaxing and muscles pain killer after a long day of riding than spending the night in a car? If you ever wondered how 2 people can sleep in 1 car, laying down flat in 180 degrees here is a picture to emphasis that:















The next stop was the Otago peninsula to view Albert the Albatross. For those who doesn't know what Albatross is, it's a wide wing bird, very similar to other seabirds but much bigger. Like any other New Zealand animal attraction you sit / stand for an hour and eventually see 1 or 2 animals. That was the case with Albert. Luckily we didn't pay to enter the observation site but just stood near the surrounding fence. Here is a "Been there, done that" picture of the event:














Our next stop was the Catlins area, but that's for another blog post...

B.T.W. : Mom (Dalia), Happy birthday!!!

The Journey Continues: Methven, Mt. Somers, lake Tekapo and Mt. Cook.

Hi,

It's been a long time since the last post, and a lot had happened.
The same as we had test drive to our car on steep hills, we had test drive to our legs and feet as well.
The test's name is : Mt. Somers Trek.














The trek is 2 days circling mount Somers.
The first 4 hours is going up and down and over again in bush (the New Zealand name for forest).
It all began in lovely wooden stairs,














after 5 minutes the stairs had gone and all that was left is slippery stones and trees roots. 20 Minutes after, water crossing began. Since that point for the next 4 hours it was all up a stone, down a root, hop over a river.




























On the 10th river, Roi fell to the water while trying to keep his boots dry by hopping from one stone to another.
He was so busy getting the camera off the water that he didn't notice that his sunglasses fell to the water.
The camera is still working, Roi's mood isn't...
By the time he noticed his sunglasses are gone it was too late,
the sunglasses are gone for good.

After Sarit saw Roi's wet clothing, she took her shoes off and crossed the river in bare foots, while whistling one of her favorite songs.














After 4 hours the bush ended, and the bold mountains started to appear, but they weren't alone... a crazy wind appear with them. Our bags became sails and we started to cruise along the trails.










































3.5 hours later we arrived the hut, in which we stayed the night.
One thing worth mentioning here, Sarit wanted to save a few dollars and decided that we should sleep in tent outside the hut, instead of in the hut, where it's nice and cozy, so Roi had to carry the 4KG tent and each of us had to carry his mattress.
After we arrived to the hut, and could hear the hut moving from the strong wind, we realized that our tent won't deliver the shelter we needed for that night.














"The cheap pays twice" - we carried the heavy tent and payed the extra money for the hut.

On the next day the sun shined but it was still windy, our bones and muscles were tired, but another day of walk had to be made!














The trail on that day was a bit longer, but easier.














The views were great but all we could think about was that evening's dinner (2 huge steaks!).


After 1 more night in Methven we drove to the shiny turquoise water of lake Tekapo.














What can be more muscles relaxing than another 4 hour walking after a long hard trek?
At least the walk was nice and easy.




























Sarit is doing her best here, to fight the winds:
















Next stop was Mt Cook.














The plan was going up to Mueller hut, spend the night there and go down the next day.
But the lady at the information center ruined our plans. She told us the top half of the trail is covered with snow and ice, and we will need ice climbing gear in order to get to the hut.
So we set up our tent at the local camp site














and climb up half of the way, to the snow line.
It was a clear day and the views were lovely.




























After making snow rabbit and tasting a native New Zealand snow,














we went down, and celebrated our 9 years of relationship sleeping among the snowy mountains and the white caravans at the camp site.














That's it for now.

B.T.W. : Dad (Moti), Happy birthday!!!