Tuesday 31 March 2015

Te araroa Chapter 3 - Nelson Lakes NP & Waiau track

Tak jsme presli dalsi kousek zeme... :) bylo to velice paradni a plne srdecne zabavy haha :) Fotky tradicne na konci :)

So we managed to walk another piece of land. It was all jolly merry fun!
You can find photos at the end of the post :)


Our trip, day 16 and on the road again. Our fellow tramper friends David and Eileen shared a lot of their delicious homebrew cider and stout in St.Arnaud where we stayed for 2 nights. Nice rest. Eileen later had an awesome idea which she shared with us as well - she was going to take a boat to get on the other side of lake Rotoiti because she walked it before and she suggested she'd carry our backpacks with her on the boat. This excellent idea saved us 10 km carrying the load and we were so light that we could walk 32 km in total that day! Whoop :) it felt like we were wearing kangaroo boots :D
The track was so so so different from Richmond Range! Nice walking on the flatland on nice paths was awesome.

The next day the track changed a lot. Let's go uphill again! Up to Travers Saddle (over 1700m) and then back down and up again. It was a long day full of lot of thinking. On Upper Travers Hut where we stayed the night before was a lost person post and a big article in the Wilderness magazine about people who vanished in the mountains and were never found again. So I spent most of the day thinking about where they might have gone lost and that mountains are places you always should respect even if you have a lot of experience. The tramping is not always fun and sometimes it made me feel a bit uncomfortable thinking about the bones that are around but I guess this is part of the whole thing. 
We arrived to Blue Lake after 17 km day of big ascends and big descends and were happy to get there and we went to check out the water, which was....A M A Z I N G ! Blue lake is the clearest water in the world recorded so far. The visibility is 70 - 80 metres... It was absolutely incredible! We were also extremely lucky that day because we saw some endangered species like Blue Whio ducks and Kararea NZ Hawk. I really love bird so I was very happy to see them. Ducks were really friendly :)

We decided to start writing the " FOOD" chapter...aka what we want to munch when the walk is over...


After the Blue Lake, there was another challenge waiting for us. In fact, many people say it's the biggest in Te Araroa and it was the Waiau Pass, 1870ish metres very steeply up and down. Our training hike started when we needed to scramble up above Lake Constance and sidle the whole length before we went down again so guess what? So we can climb up to the Waiau Pass. The climb was brutal straight up affair through snow tussocks plain (better) and the scree (worse). We made the whole climb in 1 hour and 5 minutes and when we got up the weather rewarded us with sunshine and view over the north of South Island and south of the Waiau track. Just absolutely incredible hike up and the reward. We were almost speechless. At least some keas were hanging around and did the speech for us :)


The day ended perfectly. After a brutal descend (what else would you expect?) we camped at Upper Waiau Forks campsite and had a great evening with campfire. Just fabulous. We only had to change the classification of brutal climb to uber brutal climb after the Waiau pass day.


As you can see above, next day we had a lot of fun. The track led through a wide valley, very easy to walk after we've crossed few scree slopes. We later had some river fun. Especially Roman.
It was extremely difficult for me not to laugh when he had his emotional breakdown. What a good wife I am!!!
Although we had the river fun and the beginning was slow, thanks to wide beautiful valleys and easy paths, we made the 24 km to beautiful little Lake Guyon in 8 hours and had a long time in the afternoon and evening to recover :) He did recover as you can see on the other picture. This is Roman when he's dry.


From Lake Guyon the trail continued very similarly - great wide valleys, golden grass, nice weather... we could see some showers, but they occupied other valleys, so we were safe for the day... This part of Waiau track gave us a strong sensation of freedom...I just can't describe the feeling being in the wide valleys with so much space for yourself. You have to go there yourself :)
and a lot of bumblebees fell in love with my pink merino t shirt...




The next day the dry weather ended and half of the track we had some nice rainy wet times. I also decided to fall down and later to drown my boot. Not that it made any difference in the wet state of my being :) We changed the plans and decided to stay at Boyle hut instead of Magdalen. We had a lot of time to dry our stuff and watch the mice anarchy outside. Luckily the hut was mouseproof and we could laugh at those little buggers outside!
It was our last evening spent with David and Eileen as well. We spent almost 2 weeks together, not every day, but it was great to share our experience after the long days' walk. We were sad to see our companions leave, but we hope to see them again :) as I've written to our diary...to many goodbyes lately. Our French team friends - greetings to Guigui, Eva, Virge et Seb :) - now you are famous guys! I also had to say goodbye to my beloved Lavinder <3 But we are sure we will meet everybody again :)




So, the last day we made it to the road, made it to Hanmer Springs where we E A T  A  L O T and go to the pools and also write this awesomely awesome blog for all of you <3 kiss!

FOTOGALERIE / PHOTO SECTION

jdeme nalehko bez zavazadel / light walking with no packs...me and David

To the Travers Saddle!

Jedna pro Petulku :D 

Po ceste na Blue Lake / on the way to Blue Lake

it's....BLUE / aneb nejpruzracnejsi namerena voda na svete :)

one beauty and one ginger nut and one blue

The whio ducks :))

Blue Lake from above

klasifikace: uber mrda / climb classification : uber brutal climb

Waiau pass on the horizon, right / Waiau prusmyk na obzoru napravo

Lake Constance

French team challenge is ON ! Bisoux!

Lake Constance from the uber climb

PAN VLK!!! MR.WOLF!!!

descend from Waiau pass / sestup z prusmyku Waiau

Upper Waiau forks camp time :)

Divoke husy / wild geese

Velka siroka udoli / Great wide valleys and the freedom feeling. And thirst.

Lake Guyon

Golden grass time

Rainbow time from Anne hut 

Can you find David and Eileen?
Tak to je vse, pratele, priste z Arthur's Passu nebo od jezera Coleridge!
And that was it! Next time from Arthur's Pass or Lake Coleridge :)

Monday 23 March 2015

Te Araroa chapter 2 - The Sounds & Richmond Range

Tak jsme vam slibili blogovani zbesile, tak tady to je :) Bohuzel nemuzeme psat s diakritikou, takze to bude takto hloupe :) Nicmene, ti, kteri sledovali nas blog jiz predtim uz vi, ze cesky nic psat nebudeme, ale budeme publikovat fotky naseho super denicku :)))

Zatim jsme na ceste peskobusem presne 14 dni. Usli jsme 240 km. Tak se podivejte, jak nam to slo ;)

Well, you English reading readers can't really appreciate the awesomeness of our handwritten diary but you might want to use some imagination when translating the cartoons :)
Our journey started. We've walked 240 kms in 2 weeks.

Fotky uplne na konce blogu :)
Photos are at the end of this post :)


We started our journey in The Sounds - Marlborough. our backpacks were sooo heavy as we carry some stuff we don't normally carry when we go hiking. So that was the first VERY big challenge. CARRY-THAT-STUFF! But Sounds were mild when it comes to elevation and terrain and it's very nice mild hike with loads of wonderful views. We were very lucky with the weather as well...no rain whatsoever till the end.
Cheeky wekas everywhere, trying to steal our stuff :)


There were about 784116131 cicadas as well and heat!


Roman is very strict! He doesn't allow me to eat chocolate before dinner :( What a bugger!


The day passed nicely in the Sounds, we just think that next time, we'll get a small backpacks and will stay in fancy lodges, swim, fish and sunbathe and drink some nice cocktails. Well, hopefully :D Somebody would like to pay for our next vacations? :)


However, the ideal place to be ended when we got to Anakiwa. Beautiful little village, but from there we had to start walking on the asphalt road to Havelock. We thought it would be fairly easy and will go well and in the beginning it really did but then the sun and heat and 30 km did the work. You can see the picture below and will understand :)
It wasn't over when we had to climb a bloody gorse hill because it was shorter. It was a real cherry on the top.
But then we could see Havelock, we managed to find nice accommodation and had a tower burger for dinner! Yep! I didn't finish it. There is something wrong with me :)


After this day we were very tempted to hitch hike to Pelorus bridge to avoid another horrible road section. But my horrible rash on my feet got better, we ate a lot of green lipped mussels and we were very positive, so we made it. Another 20 km or so on the road and in the end farmland. Never again... Happily we arrived to nice campsite in Pelorus Bridge and had a SHOWER :)


From Pelorus bridge guess what? Another 18 km to start the Richmond Range...on the road! But in the middle we met a guy...who is doing TA from the south and was just soooo positive, doing 50 km a day sometimes and he gave us a lot of energy, so we finished the 18 km just in about 3 hours. And then we entered The Forest. Richmond Forest...






How I can tell you about Richmond Range...It starts nicely, around beautiful river full of emeralds and turquoises. Forest all around you and you start to walk on nice footpaths. Then it changes to horrible route on the steep edges over the rocks, fallen trees and rocks. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. And bloody challenging :) 
We didn't really see the river during the first 3 days except for morning and evening next to the huts. From the huts we did a lot of scraping up and down the hills and eventually the mountains when we finally did the first big climb up to Starveall hut (more like stairway to heaven hut :) This was the first time it started to rain heavily in approximately half the climb. We we soaking wet from the sweat already so we didn't bother wearing our jackets. And later on we could squeeze our tops and bottoms so many times :) It was a hard climb, but spirits were halfway high and we did see the hut in the end. We decided to spend one more day in the hut after this long day.











It was a very good decision to stay one day put in the hut. During the day we were trying to find the bloody rat and were in clouds. We didn't see anything from the top, but the next morning a miracle happened. We could see EVERYTHING! Nelson, The Sounds, Blenheim and all the Richmond range. although we've just started our walk it was quite impressive to see where we've come from - the distant contours of Marlborough sounds were just so amazing. And it was only the beginning of the day. This was a very hard day but the most beautiful we think.
From Starveall we climbed to Slaty Peak and then walked a long time on the ridge. We could see where we were heading - Old Man and Mt.Rintoul - the whole ridge and valleys everywhere. Just wonderful. The rest of the day we climbed and descended 3 more mountains - Old Man, Little Rintoul and Mt. Rintoul, which is the highest of the whole Richmond Range track. The weather was great but when we reached the top there was a friendly cloud waiting for us. There's nothing you can do about this kind of thing. Just enjoy what you can see. The descends were very very steep and sometimes I felt like shitting and brick :) but it went well and we were safe :) just a fabulous day.
We arrived to Rintoul hut just in time. It started to rain 20 minutes after.



Next day we just moved to Mid Wairoa Hut. Over the hills again and down the valley in the end.
You have to go up so you can go down and you have to go down so you can climb again. Sometimes you'd like to have a big bridge connecting the mountains so you can avoid it, but unfortunately this is the law. What a law sometimes ;)


For last 2 nights we had a nice company - Another TA hikers - section trampers Eileen and Dave. It was great to have their company, they are very nice and friendly and it's simply great to catch up about the trail in the afternoon with someone who suffered the same :D Dave gets up really early, around 6 am, so we don't have to worry about alarm :) It's good to have early start, it's not too hot in the morning and you can do a big bite of the day's walk. Well, the "big bite" in Richmond range can be 8 km. When we did around 17 km a day in this terrain and elevation, it was a good day. 


The final section waiting for us in Richmond Range were the Red Hills. We could see them in distance many days ago. Big Red mountains. Some geological specialty, very rare. Very beautiful. And very hard to climb as we were a bit afraid (lot of "edges phobia" :D ) From Mid Wairoa hut the climb started quite steadily over many river crossing until we reached Top Wairoa hut. We crossed the rivers mostly by jumping on the boulders. The boulder fun continued on different colour boulders later as well as we started the final climb to Mt.Ellis on the Red Hills - so you assume right, the boulders were red. the view from the saddle and under Mt.Ellis was just breathtaking... completely different, wild and savage valley with river flowing down there. If there were no trees, the combination of red and blue rocks would remind me of Iceland. This is the kind of "remedy" for all the pain you experience during the walking time. Just amazing. We arrived to hut after another 2 hours of fair walking in the beautiful valley with pristine blue river with red stones in it.


And then, the last day came. This day's elevation profile told us we'd be going up and down all day all 18 km. We knew it was the last day so had high hopes to arrive pretty early and we set off with a good walking pace. The trail really was up and down and sometimes straight up! It was getting very hot as well, but hundreds of Bellbirds around us were trying their best to make it really pleasant for us. Hopes were high and although the hut played tricks with our eyes in the end, the distant fata morgana became real and we arrived safely to the Red Hills hut and finished this section of TA South Island about which many people say is the most technically difficult from the whole Island. 
From all the hiking in many different countries and NZ as well we do agree with this opinion. It is very harsh and long track and it will not let you pass easily (...bloody edges... :) but the views in exchange are definitely worth the hard work. 
Yesterday we found it very easy to walk to St.Arnaud on the road. We are having a rest day today with lot of bloody sitting on the computer :D And tomorrow we move on to Nelson lakes National Park to hide in the woods again.






PHOTO SECTION 

Marlborough Sounds
Krasne Marlborough Sounds / the beautiful Marlborough Sounds

First day faces


Find your spot :)


Climbing the gorse tree....posledni kopec pred Havelockem. Uf

Om nom nom... The capital of green lipped mussels! aaaah nam nam
 Richmond Range

dosli jsme do Pelorus Bridge...we made it to Pelorus bridge!

one of many swingbridges over the Pelorus river / jeden z mnoha lanovych mostu pres reku Pelorus. Je to luxus, pak uz nejsou :)

Priklad "rimsicek" :) tahle byla jeste velmi mila/ the example of "edges" but this one was still fine :)

Starveall hut - Roman making some firewood

Sunset at Starveall Hut

jedna z prvnich z nejlepsiho dne/ one on the early ones from the best day

Romcovi se to taky libilo :) / Roman also liked it :)

Vzdalene Nelson Lakes / distant Nelson Lakes


Z vrcholu Mt. Rintoul 1736m / From the Mt.Rintoul top 1736m with the friendly Mr.Cloud

Tam jdeme taky...off we go there as well

Red Hills climb

Red Hills saddle

Red hills

posledni den, tam na konec udoli nejdal/ the last day, the end is at the end of the valley in the distance

Dosli! A jde se dal.../ We made it! and off we go again...