Travels with Nicki
 |
Red Rocks along the aptly named
Red Rocks Walkway. |
I met Nicki during my last two weeks on
the farm, and we made plans to go hiking together before she settled
into work over the winter. I felt I had earned a vacation after 6
months of wwoofing.
We talked about hitch hiking a ride
down to Wellington to save on bus fare, but the weather threatened to
rain quite heavily, so we opted for the bus. I really doubted anyone
would want to pick up a couple of strangers who'd been standing in
the rain and were soaked to the bone. We spent a few days down in
Wellington, gathering supplies and sight seeing. We went to the Te Papa museum a couple of times, checked out a few pubs and saw a Ukranian performer at Fringe Bar, named Sergey Onischneko.
We had dropped off some of our summer clothes at the op-shop back in Waitara (the town nearest to the Krumm-Jury farm), so we picked up a few much needed items while in the big city. Including some proper footware. My boots had died a horrible, horrible death, so I was forced to buy some new ones (all I had were flip-flops, which weren't going to cut it), and Nicki wanted to get something warmer for the incoming winter season (she planned to stay in Wanaka, working for one of the ski hills). We tested out new
hiking boots along the Red Rocks Walkway and saw some members of the
fur-seal colony which gathers at the end of the trail. We were lucky
and had beautiful weather for out walk, the sun was out, but the wind
was strong enough to keep any sandflies away and keep us cool while
we walked along the coast.
We had been warned about rough waters
in the Cook Strait when we were on the ferry, but found it to be
quite a nice ride. We stayed in Picton one night while we finished
preparing for the Queen Charlotte track. While we thought we'd done
our due diligence by asking the DOC rep in Wellington about the
trail, it turns out pretty much everything he told us about the trail
was wrong (water taxi time, what to expect on the trail etc).
Thankfully the folks at the hostel had much better information and
got us all set up (booked the water taxi for us and hooked us up with
our multi-day pass required to walk on the private property portions
of the trail). 71Km in 3 days. The first day was the longest, 27 km,
and the hike started with a biiiiiig hill up from Ships cove. We
caught the water taxi at 7:15 and arrived at Ships cove a couple
hours later, after a couple of stops along the way. There was a group
of four cyclists who'd planned to do the same trip as we, but changed
their plans because it had rained a fair bit the night before. “Never
marry a man in lycra” warned the taxi skipper. Sage advice, friend.
The forecast threatened more rain, so we were dressed appropriately
(I was even wearing my fancy new rain pants), however there weren't
even showers that day. Everyone said it was going to be so cold and
many were surprised that we would want to camp at this time of year,
so we packed some extra clothing that we really didn't need. Always
over prepared, it seems. Not a bad thing but after walking all day,
my joints and legs would have appreciated not having to move the
extra weight. My poor calves. We made it to Camp Bay Campsite just
after dark. I didn't want to have to walk again for a very long time,
and slept like the dead, roused only a couple times by rodents in the
cook shelter, scurrying about.
Slept a little bit longer than we
wanted to, and ended up setting out at 9:30 for Cowshed Bay.
Thankfully I had recovered a fair bit overnight. I was pretty worried
that I wouldn't and that it would be damn near impossible for me to
get going at a good pace again the next day. I knew I was out of
shape, but... jeeze. The views were improving as we climbed higher,
and we adjusted our packs and clothing to make things a little easier
on us (no fancy pants for me, just light trekking trousers for me
this time). The distance was a little less on the second day, we
'only' had to cover 24km and the inclines weren't quite as steep as
the ones we faced before... though some of the declines... Still,
though, I didn't want to cut my legs and hips off at the end of the
day, so that was a great improvement. We damn near flew down the 600m
final leg between the trail and the campsite (8 minutes, Nicki timed
us). The wind blowing through the trees (great for drying our damp
gear and clothing) and the water splashing on the shore covered up
any animal sounds. Since we were close to the main highway, there
were a few other people sharing the campsite with us. Again, we
arrived around nightfall, and it seemed that everyone else was in bed
for the night, so we had the shelter to ourselves.
Our 3rd morning began a little earlier
than the previous, perhaps we were motivated to get the 400m climb up
to Shamrock Ridge over with asap. I know 400m doesn't sound like
much, but after 2 full days of walking before and a big pack on your
back, yeah, it takes a while to get up there. It was also fairly
steep. As you can see from the bottom of the map we had, it was
expected to take 4 hours to walk 7.5 km. We made it to Shamrock Ridge
just before 10am, and it was mostly downhill from there. Some of it
was a bit steep for our poor knees. Our poor, poor knees. We did a
pretty good job of keeping to the expected times, despite my
sometimes-super-slow-trudging. We stopped for lunch just after the Te
Mahia saddle, and made it to Anakiwa just after 14:00. As we
approached the end we encountered a fellow Canadian whom we'd passed
earlier in the day and began chatting. He was kind enough to offer to
drive us to the main highway, then ended up taking pitty on us and
driving us all the way back to our hostel in Picton (The Villa, which
is an excellent place to stay, should you ever find yourself in
Picton).
 |
| I have too much stuff. |
 |
| Steeeeeeeeeeep. |
 |
| Nest of Shag Cormorants. |
 |
| Hey! Look! A Heron! |
It was hard work, but between the two of us, we got everything taken care of and kept each other going. Despite our exhaustion from our expedition, we have every intention to undertake another such exploit. Though, perhaps, not right away. We spent an extra day in Picton resting up and recovering from our adventure, and trying to figure out what to do next.
We talked about hitch hiking a ride
down to Wellington to save on bus fare, but the weather threatened to
rain quite heavily, so we opted for the bus. I really doubted anyone
would want to pick up a couple of strangers who'd been standing in
the rain and were soaked to the bone. We spent a few days down in
Wellington, gathering supplies and sight seeing. We went to the Te Papa museum a couple of times, checked out a few pubs and saw a Ukranian performer at Fringe Bar, named Sergey Onischneko.
We had been warned about rough waters
in the Cook Strait when we were on the ferry, but found it to be
quite a nice ride. We stayed in Picton one night while we finished
preparing for the Queen Charlotte track. While we thought we'd done
our due diligence by asking the DOC rep in Wellington about the
trail, it turns out pretty much everything he told us about the trail
was wrong (water taxi time, what to expect on the trail etc).
Thankfully the folks at the hostel had much better information and
got us all set up (booked the water taxi for us and hooked us up with
our multi-day pass required to walk on the private property portions
of the trail). 71Km in 3 days. The first day was the longest, 27 km,
and the hike started with a biiiiiig hill up from Ships cove. We
caught the water taxi at 7:15 and arrived at Ships cove a couple
hours later, after a couple of stops along the way. There was a group
of four cyclists who'd planned to do the same trip as we, but changed
their plans because it had rained a fair bit the night before. “Never
marry a man in lycra” warned the taxi skipper. Sage advice, friend.
The forecast threatened more rain, so we were dressed appropriately
(I was even wearing my fancy new rain pants), however there weren't
even showers that day. Everyone said it was going to be so cold and
many were surprised that we would want to camp at this time of year,
so we packed some extra clothing that we really didn't need. Always
over prepared, it seems. Not a bad thing but after walking all day,
my joints and legs would have appreciated not having to move the
extra weight. My poor calves. We made it to Camp Bay Campsite just
after dark. I didn't want to have to walk again for a very long time,
and slept like the dead, roused only a couple times by rodents in the
cook shelter, scurrying about.
Slept a little bit longer than we
wanted to, and ended up setting out at 9:30 for Cowshed Bay.
Thankfully I had recovered a fair bit overnight. I was pretty worried
that I wouldn't and that it would be damn near impossible for me to
get going at a good pace again the next day. I knew I was out of
shape, but... jeeze. The views were improving as we climbed higher,
and we adjusted our packs and clothing to make things a little easier
on us (no fancy pants for me, just light trekking trousers for me
this time). The distance was a little less on the second day, we
'only' had to cover 24km and the inclines weren't quite as steep as
the ones we faced before... though some of the declines... Still,
though, I didn't want to cut my legs and hips off at the end of the
day, so that was a great improvement. We damn near flew down the 600m
final leg between the trail and the campsite (8 minutes, Nicki timed
us). The wind blowing through the trees (great for drying our damp
gear and clothing) and the water splashing on the shore covered up
any animal sounds. Since we were close to the main highway, there
were a few other people sharing the campsite with us. Again, we
arrived around nightfall, and it seemed that everyone else was in bed
for the night, so we had the shelter to ourselves.
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