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March 8, 2024

No longer solo! - Week 2 in NZ ctd.

February 20th I woke up, so excited for the day because it meant that I was meeting up with my Christchurch friends! I drove about an hour and a half from my oceanside sleep spot to Cave Stream Reserve to meet Will and Blake and go adventuring. Though short in distance (only .3 miles!), “walk” at Cave Stream takes about an hour because the entire time you are wading upstream in frigid water that’s anywhere from ankle to waist deep. It’s dark, it’s cold, and it’s super cool.

Headlight strapped to my head, I led the charge, feeling much like Laura Croft or Indiana Jones as we waded, scampered, rock hopped, and pulled ourselves through narrow passages and rushing water. Will and Blake were very patient with my constant commentary on how amazing this was and my even more constant wellness checks. At one point, someone made a joke about feeling as though we were on a field trip; I guess even months off of work can’t take the teacher out of me.

Some very cold, waist deep water
Will and Blake doing the final squeeze

This was by far one of the coolest things that I have done on any of my trips. By the end of the day I had thanked Will and Blake a million times over because I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to do this on my own and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun it had been.

-For reference, I enjoyed it so much that I only commented once on how cold the water was. ONCE.

Very wet, but very happy, we then went 10 minutes down the road to Castle Hill, an area with remarkable rock formations. For some Māori tribes it is considered the “birthplace of the Gods.” Less significant and culturally relevant, it is also known for being a filming location for the Chronicles of Narnia and is a well known, very difficult, rock climbing location.

So many cool rocks!

Here we parted ways with Blake, and Will and I set off to drive the rest of the way west across the island. We stopped midway at Arthur’s Pass to admire the mountains and do a short waterfall hike, and then decided to go all the way to Hokitika because there was no free camping in the entirety of the pass.

Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall

We kicked ourselves later, recognizing that we should have planned better and spent actual time in Arthur’s Pass, but neither of us had done enough research about the area and it seems as though both of us had planned to quickly make our way to Queenstown; we grossly underestimated how much fun we’d have together apparently and how great it would be to have a travel buddy.

In Hokitika, we got some mediocre fish and chips - Will was especially judgey, being from London - and explored the beach. They’d just had their annual driftwood sculpture competition and the whole beach kind of gave off Burning Man vibes. Everything was made from what washes up on the beach, and we were quite impressed with some of the pieces, the camera specifically.

Once the sun set, we headed out to a glow worm dell, and WOW. Larvae never did look so cool. They lit up all of the dark nooks and crannies, as well as the undersides of the plants in the dell with their tiny blue-ish lights. The while are looked much like the night sky here, which also leaves me speechless on a regular basis.

Night sky here, not the glow worms, sorry

Day 2 with Will was glacier day! Will had never seen a glacier and I was beyond excited to be with him when he finally did, especially after all the stunning glaciers I got to experience in South America.

We drove to Franz Josef and hiked Roberts Point, which takes you to a glacier viewing point deep in the forest, close to the glacier. According to some signs, the point used to be over the glacier, but Franz Josef is rapidly receding - since 2008 it’s receded 1.5km! - and it is now a fair distance from the point. The trail was pretty strenuous and relatively long, with many very fun swing bridges, and lots of rocks and roots slippery with water and mud. It made me especially glad to have a companion- I was not interested in any more sketchy feeling hikes while alone - but made me feel a tad guilty because though I’m very into that type of adventurous hiking, I wasn’t sure that’s what Will was into.

The longest swing bridge on the hike
Will and his first glacier

Will seemed happy with his first glacier sighting, but not happy enough in my book apparently, because I planned the hike of all hikes for the next day, straight up Mt Fox, so he could see Fox glacier in all its glory from above.

That was the day we really bonded, because on brand with my one other more intense New Zealand mountain experience, the weather didn’t do quite what had been forecasted..

Much like Angelus, we left the parking lot with beautiful sunny weather ready for what we knew was going to be a strenuous, but rewarding day. AllTrails, the hiking app, had told us it was a 2.2 mile ascent with 3,900’ of elevation gain. Much of the trail was described as “brutal” and more as climbing than hiking, and relatively soon into our hike we found that to be the truth. The rock climber in me was stoked to be hauling myself up with roots and branches, doing hand-foot-matches on tall steps, and just generally getting a full body workout. It was, admittedly, the longest 2 miles of my life, and seemingly Will’s too. The jury is still out on whether or not my cheering on of both myself and him, as well as my positive self talk and encouragement was more annoying than helpful to him. He stuck around for another week and for quite a few more brutal hikes, so I’m going with the latter.

When we finally got out of the forest and above the tree line it was starting to look like we weren’t going to have a view of much of anything. The valley we’d come from was visible, but everything else was socked in with clouds.

Will realizing he shouldn’t trust me to pick trails

We trudged along anyway, eventually getting completely engulfed in grey mist by the time we’d made it to what the map said was the peak, but sure didn’t seem like it. We sat down anyway and had a snack, recognizing that the climb down was going to be just as hard and treacherous and we needed fuel. During our snack break, another hiker appeared, sweaty and as exhausted looking as we felt. We chatted for a little and he told us we weren’t at the peak yet, but by this point sitting in my sweat had made me so cold that I was ready to go back down, not continue up, especially knowing I’d have no view at the top anyway. The man, Simon, offered me his jacket, and he and Will set off to finish the hike. Not wanting to be left out or left to freeze alone in my sweaty clothes, I joined. When we got there, we were met with this:

Though we got no view, we did make great friends with Simon who hiked down with us and invited us to his hostel so we could hot tub. It felt wrong to use a hot tub that wasn’t technically ours, so Will and I splurged a bit and stayed there. As much as I love my little van, it is nice to have a real bed and kitchen every once in a while.

That evening, we went to Lake Matheson nearby for sunset and to try to see kiwis - birds not fruit or people. We didn’t see any, but we DID get to see the mountains that had been covered all day. They made their appearance for only about 20 minutes, but my goodness... So worth the wait.

The mountains were a welcome sight as we knew the weather was going take a turn for the worse the next day, and the idea of leaving the area without seeing them made us a bit sad. We went to bed happy, relaxed (thanks hot tub), and ready to take on the literal storm that was coming the next day.

The view we were supposed to get from Mt Fox.. thanks internet!
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