Cindie’s Daily Journal: The Southern Alps, Fiordland, and Southland. Wanaka, Queenstown Routeburn Track, Caples Track, Mt. Nicholas station, Mararoa lake, and Te Anau (February 22 - March 11, 2008)
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
The pass over the crown range.
February 20 Wanaka to Arrowtown via the Crown Range 54 km We left Wanaka with rusty legs and it took me a little time to warm up, it didn’t help that we had to ride up and over the glacial terminal moraine left behind by the last ice age, a short and steep ride. But after that it was rolling and we had a tailwind, who hoo. As we rolled into Cardonna we saw a park and a grassy spot, with two cyclists having lunch. So we pulled up some grass and joined Chloe and Rob from Canada for lunch. We opted to ride together over the Crown range and 700 meter (2200 foot) climb. This is Chloe and Rob’s first cycling trip, they bought their bikes from nataral-high.co.nz in Christchurch, they were last years touring bikes and Tim said they did a nice job of setting them up on the bikes.
I was surprised when Chloe told me she was a Type 1 diabetic (also know as juvenile diabetes, she has to have insulin injections). Then she showed me her pump, it monitors her sugar levels and injects insulin when she needs it. She commented that she uses less insulin when she exercises because her sugar is stable. How very cool, I have never met a Type 1 Diabetic who was so active, Chloe and Rob are guides in Canada and do canoe trips and rock climbing too. Check out chloe’s blog connectedinmotion.blogspot, she documents her experiences while traveling with Type I diabetes.
As we climbed the hill I wondered how Chloe was doing with her blood sugar and if she would bonk easy? Tim paced us up the hill and turned on the tunes when the riding got tough when it was a bit steep at the top. I was impressed that Rob never left Chloe behind, he stayed with her all time, now that is a good riding partner too.
Before we knew it we were at the top of the Crown Range and the views down into Arrowtown and beyond were amazing. Chloe made the ride with no problems and even had a smile on her face. She was jazzed and I was impressed, goes to show that even Type I diabetes didn’t slow this girl down. We coasted down into Arrowtown and got a campsite for the night.
February 21 Arrowtown to Queenstown 21 km It was a short but scenic ride today wow, the scenery is stunning traffic was medium near Arrowtown and Queenstown. We rolled into downtown and it did not take us long to run into Isidro our friend from Spain. We found another campsite pretty close to town and set out to find out about the Routeburn track, one of the great walks in New Zealand.
A note on the weather, the weather on the south island has been awesome. We are in a La Nina year and it is dry and warm at the moment. 25 - 29 C or 75 - 85 F. How long it will last who knows.
We are signed up for the Routeburn track and will wait here in Queenstown until March 2 when we are scheduled to walk the track, we go up the routeburn and back down the caples. should be good. Lets hope the weather holds out.
February 22 - March 1. We have lots to do in Queenstown the adrenaline mecca of New Zealand and home to bungy jumping and various other sports like jet boating, sky diving, white water rafting and the tamest sport of all tramping (trekking for you north Americans). While waiting to start our trek we worked on other parts of our book like our packing list and photos. We have come to the conclusion that we can not finish the book here in New Zealand, we are at the book layout and book cover design phase but to do this we need to send large files over the wire and that is just not possible here. Our maximum upload speed is 12 kb/s and our download is even slower. We will have to wait until we get to Alaska, I know it sounds remote but they do have fast internet up there and Tim and I will be relieved to get a decent speed for our work. We have wasted hours of our time and lots of money on internet here and are nothing but frustrated. All you have to do is look at a map of where New Zealand is and that explains why internet is so slow, they have a long way to do go to connect to anywhere and there lies the problem.
March 2 - 6 Routeburn Track to Caples Track 57 km- I have waited 14 years to do this track, the first time I came to New Zealand was with a friend who said she would go trekking with me if I went sea kayaking with her, well, we sea kayaked at Able Tasman and were suppose to do the Routeburn after that, my friend decided that she didn’t want to go so I had no one to go with. In hind sight I should have gone myself rather than not go at all. So I was more than excited to be going on this trip, the logistics of setting up the trek were a bit of a hassle but we tried to make it as cheap as possible, we would camp on the Routeburn at 16 US per night and camp on the Caples for free as long as we didn’t use the huts. We stored our bikes and extra panniers at the campground for 8US a day and rented our backpacks for US3 a day each, it all sounds reasonable so far until we signed up for the bus at 63 US per person to go 100 km or 60 miles round trip, now that is what I call gauging, and there was only one company offer this service so there was no competition. Ouch!
Our first day we set off in the rain and walked from the routeburn shelter to routeburn flats, it was an easy walk through a glacial valley the camp site was pretty and in the evening it was pretty cold. The next day we walked from routeburn flats to McKenzie lake, it took us 7 hours including stops, the scenery was stunning the the weather perfect. It was a cold night of camping with a frost in the morning. Then we walked from McKenzie lake to Greenstone divide 20 minutes walk from Howden hut (they like to keep the campers separate from the huts because they don’t want you using the facilities). The walk was beautiful with great scenery and we walked past a 170 meter waterfall, wow, the track was well groomed too. Our fourth day was the longest and the hardest, the caples track 300 meters up a steep cliff, up and over roots and mossy rocks, a bit of a challenge for us tender footed cyclists. This is the day Tim strained his knee going up and over all those roots. The weather was cloudy with a sprinkle of rain. We camped at the Upper Caples hut too tired to go on to mid Caples. Our last day was a sunny day and we set out early (for us) and it took us 5 hours to walk out, Tim’s knee was bothering him so we slowed the pace. We arrived at the bus pick up with 5 minutes to spare. Overall the hike was beautiful and challenging, I forgot how hard trekking was on my feet. Funny, I didn’t get a blister until the last day. We had gorgeous weather and in hind sight the distances between the huts is easier but it costs more. There are three price ranges on the walks, guided walks, independent walkers, and us lowly tent campers.
March 6 - 8 Queenstown. Back in civilization again and time to repack the bike. We ran around for an entire day taking rented packs back, shopping for food and catching up on the internet. One day I did manage to read for a couple of hours, nice, a luxury that had been given up to work on the book.
March 9 Queenstown to Mt. Nicholas station 20 km. We bought our tickets on the Earnslaw steamer that took us across the lake to Walter Peak station, from there it was about 100 km on a dirt road and 40 on a sealed road to Te Anau. We planned to do it in two days but I brought food for three days. It turned out that the first day was an awful head wind and we covered 20 km in two hours of riding on a relatively flat road, a bit depressing but we easily go over it because the scenery is stunning and the weather was sunny. So we camped near the river and in the morning we woke to a hard frost. Ice everywhere and really cold, the weather is changing from late summer to early autumn.
March 10 Mt. Nicholas to Mararoa lake rd 58 km. It finally warmed up and we were happy to ride with a slight tailwind, 5 km after our camp we passed a hut and a nice area to camp. Our only major climb of the day was short but steep in places, our bike book said to get off and walk but that is just plain crazy thinking, it is better to ride and the hill was not as bad as the author made it out to be. Once over the hill we had a nice gradual down to flat and a slight rise to Lake Mararoa, only in New Zealand do you ride up to a lake. We originally planned to camp at the lake but since we had a tailwind we continued on. After the lake the country side turns to private land and it was difficult to find a good water source with cattle everywhere muckin up the water. We eventually stopped at a farm house and they filled our water bottles and we camped next to the river. It was windy when we went to bed and the wind howled all night, we were in a kind of eddy the wind came in one direction and left in another, our tent swayed in every direction and I half expected it to come down on us.
March 11 Mararoa lake rd to Te Anau 48 km. After a sleepless night we woke to a hard rain and when I looked out a the bikes they had fallen over and were getting wet from the side. Great. So we waited until noon to pack up and we left in a slight drizzle with the wind from our side. We had 10 km left on the dirt road and then on to a sealed road. When we turned to the west we had a strong head wind and it slowed us down to a crawl, uggh it took us a little over 2 hours to go 25 km on a flat road, the wind was so strong I couldn’t breath and was really happy to see the Welcome to Te Anau sign. Ah out of the wind and into the shower.
