Finally - Milford!

The day for starting the Milford track finally arrived - with a huge dose of deja vu. Picking up tickets at the Te Anau DOC office, strolling along the lake front, getting onto the boat at Te Anau Downs - all things we did back in April.

But this time we actually got off the boat!


(Click on any picture for a higher resolution image)

Start of the track at Glade Wharf.

Day 1, following the Clinton River (5 km). Pretty easy going – flat, wide track, comfortable temperature.

Nature talk given by the ranger at Clinton Hut, pointing out key landmarks, flora and fauna

Day 2: Walking up the Clinton River valley to Mintaro Hut (16.5 km). Started off mostly flat with a climb at the head of the valley. In places the vegetation cleared to reveal steep slopes on both sides, waterfalls, and snow on the tops. It was really hard to judge just how high the peaks around us were – average around 1500 m above the valley floor.

Reflections in the Clinton River

Clinton River

Waterfalls. Who needs rain to make the Milford Track special?

MacKinnon pass in view to the left, just after Pompolona Lodge

Even though the weather forecast for the next day was good, we didn’t want to take our chances, so after arriving at Mintaro Hut we continued on to the top of the pass (extra 8 km, 560m climb).

Memorial cairn at MacKinnon Pass, with Mt Hart (1769 m) in the background

Memorial cairn and view across the tarn to Mt Wilmur (left, 1749m) and Mt Balloon (1847m)

Day 3: Mintaro Hut to Dumpling Hut (14 km). Tackling the pass again, this time with packs. Fewer clouds than the previous day, but we decided it had still been worth going up because of the different lighting in the evening.

View across the head of the Arthur River Valley from MacKinnon Pass

View back down the Clinton Valley from MacKinnon Pass

Descent from MacKinnon Pass into the Arthur River valley looking back up to the cirque at the head of the Clinton valley with Mt Hart on the far right.

The descent to Roaring Burn was hard going – long and rocky. 970 m descent from the pass to the hut that night.

Sutherland Falls, at 580 m, the highest waterfall in NZ – well worth a visit if you’re in the vicinity...

Topo map of the area around MacKinnon Pass. Each thin orange line is 20 m elevation (thick lines 100 m elevation); each blue square is 1 km to a side.

Day 4: Dumpling Hut to Milford Sound (18 km). Reflections in the Arthur River. At the start of the trip, the weather forecast for this day was rain, but as you can see, we didn’t have any.

MacKay Falls. Apparently MacKay and Sutherland flipped a coin to decide which of them this waterfall would be named after, and after MacKay won the toss they agreed that the next one would be named after Sutherland...

Arrival at Milford Sound by boat from Sandfly Point. We made it!

We spent the night in Milford Sound and took a cruise early the next morning, the idea being to beat the rush of day trippers from Te Anau. It worked – there were only 6 of us on the boat.


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We are now back in Te Anau to recover, wash our gear, restock food and get ready for Kepler starting on 30 Dec. At the moment the weather forecast is not fantastic, but there's still time for it to change...

June-November

A quick update to fill in the gap between the last post and now:

The jaw is ok, not great. I've made an appointment to see the specialist again early in the new year. When the DOC hut bookings for the Great Walks opened in July we booked tickets etc. to do Milford and Kepler over Christmas/New Year.

Work has been reasonably good. I had several months with no synchrotron trips (hence no blog posts), but that gave me more time for some hefty data analysis and writing papers. I've also been invited to give a plenary talk at the Small Angle Scattering conference in Berlin next September (a conference I was planning to attend anyway). There are still changes afoot but not a lot of clarity.

Church has been good. Raewyn and I went through an apologetics series (of topics we chose) with the youth, and they all seemed to get a lot out of it, which is good to see. If I can get my butt into gear I'm thinking of posting the lesson plans (or more formalised versions thereof) on my other blog so others can use them also.

We took part in the Brisbane Bridge of Hope marathon for a third time, joined by Jan, another lady from church for 27 km of the walk. Raewyn and I raised over AU$8000 between us, which has meant that we have been offered the opportunity to travel to Nepal sometime next year to see the Bridge of Hope in action. Still trying to sort out the details on that one (including how much trekking we want to do while we are there).

I signed up for the Taupo Cycle Challenge again this year, specifically the 160 km solo road course around the lake. This was to test whether the Huka Challenge (which I did last year) is on par with the Solo, as claimed by the organisers. I finished it in 6:38, and felt quite good at the end. I formulated two conclusions: (1) the Solo is easier, (2) I'm not a road cyclist.

At the beginning of September, Raewyn got stroppy with a door in the middle of the night and kicked it. In mid October she found out that it was actually broken... (where have I heard that before?) At the time it put our Milford plans in doubt, but a few Sunday afternoon walks and a weekend up in the Tararuas satisfied us both that she would be able to do it. Which brings me to the next post...

Update on the trip

I went to see my GP on the Monday after I got back from the trip, as the doctor at the medical centre in Queenstown had said if my jaw hadn't settled down in 2-3 weeks I might need to see a specialist. He poked and prodded and agreed to refer me. I rang up to book an appointment at a private clinic a couple of days later, and was told the earliest appointment they could make was the 24th of... June. But they also offered to put me on the 'short notice' waiting list. Since my work hours are quite flexible, this was not a problem. A little over a week later I got the call asking me to come in the next day (Tuesday 13th). They did a CT scan of my jaw, which showed that it was actually broken.

The good news is I don't have to have my jaw wired shut, or surgery or anything at this stage. There is a bit of a kink in the bone at the fracture (which is located about level with the earlobe on the right hand side of my face) but providing I don't chew too much and refrain from contact sports and don't fall off my bike again (just as well it's winter ay?) it should heal reasonably well by itself. The soft tissue in the joint will supposedly sort itself out but might take a year or two.

I go back for a quick check on 4 June.

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In other news...

1) I'm now an auntie to Aaron Stuart, born 24 April. Congrats to Stu and Nicola!

2) This weekend we start training in earnest for our marathon walk in Brisbane on 2 August

3) I go to Melbourne next week for a workshop and to give an invited talk

South Island day 23: Kaikoura to home

The good thing about autumn is you don’t have to get up super early to see the sunrise.

Not much to report on the rest of the day: we drove from Kaikoura to Picton, had lunch, and got the ferry back to Wellington. Again it was a pretty smooth crossing.

Once I got back home I collated all the GPS data. Here are the totals:
Driving: 2599.5 km
Biking: 325.2 km (of which the rail trail was 268.5 km)
Walking: 8 km (we did more than this, but most of the time they were such short walks I left the GPS in the car)
Boats: 452.3 km
Shuttles: 337.6 km (i.e. other people driving us)
Trains: 77.2 km
Planes: 129.1 km (not counting the helicopter ride at Franz Josef; I forgot to take the GPS)

Total: 4197.4 km!

So that's all folks. Until next time. We will be back, as we have unfinished business with the Milford track...

South Island day 22: Dunedin to Kaikoura

Today was a long, long drive – about 550 km. We left Dunedin around 8:30 in the morning and arrived in Kaikoura around 6:00. We had a few stops along the way at the Moeraki boulders and Oamaru, and at Ashburton for lunch.

We were tossing up whether to bypass Christchurch or not. Neither of us had visited since the earthquakes, and since we were making fairly good time we decided to have a wander around. I’m glad we did, if only to see for ourselves what the central city is still like. Buildings in various states of falling down, the new Cashel St mall made out of shipping containers (which are looking semi-permanent), people wandering around getting on with their lives despite the cracks in footpaths and walls everywhere.

Cashel St mall

What's left of the cathedral

Visitor centre

South Island day 21: Otago rail trail, Kokonga-Middlemarch-Dunedin

The final day of our rail trail journey, and we knew it was going to be a long one distance-wise. However it was also mostly downhill, so we were able to make good progress. The weather looked ominous as we started out, and within half an hour or so it started raining. This was the first rain that we’d really had (apart from some light drizzle on the way out to St Bathans and riding through the fog up to Naseby). But 20 minutes later the sun came out again, again giving us some pretty cool cloud formations. Lunch was at Rock and Pillar Station, and shortly after leaving there we needed our raincoats again. The last 10 km into Middlemarch it started to get quite windy and cold along with the rain which showed no sign of letting up, so it was a case of head down, keep grinding, not far to go now. We all made it, and found the place where our shuttle would depart from without too much difficulty. After some initial concerns by Raewyn’s dad earlier in the week that we might not arrive in time, we actually got there nearly 2 ½ hours early. That gave us plenty of time to change and warm up before all loading up in the ute that was to drive us back to Dunedin.

(Total distance biking: 44.4 km, 268.6 km cumulative)

Raincoats on

The sun coming out

Raincoats off

Awesome sky

Ominous clouds

We made it!

The final stamp

Drying off

South Island day 20: Otago rail trail, Ranfurly-Kokonga

Kokonga is not that far from Ranfurly – about 18 km. Our first choice of accommodation for the night would have been at Hyde, which is about equidistant from Ranfurly and Middlemarch. But unfortunately everywhere in and near Hyde was booked out when we started planning the trip last August. Naseby is about 14 km from Ranfurly, making it a nice side trip for a day and then a reasonably short ride along the trail to our next stop. So actually it worked out quite well in the end.

Why go to Naseby? Aside from being another picturesque little town, it is home to an all-year indoor curling rink. Basically like bowls, on ice. Raewyn’s parents hired a car from Ranfurly, and her uncle and aunt happened to be on holiday in the area too, so they came and joined us. It was lots of fun, although a bit frustrating at times because you would think that you delivered the stone with about the same amount of force, and one time it wouldn’t get over the line and the next time it would go out the back.

Although it was quite foggy when we were biking up to Naseby, by afternoon the fog had all burned off and we had some very cool cloud formations. Our accommodation at Kokonga was in a homestay with four other people who were also biking the trail.

(Total distance biking: 47.2 km, 224.2 km cumulative)

Riding through the fog to Naseby

Raewyn and her dad showing teamwork in sweeping

The motley curling crew

Back on the trail

Scene between Waipiata and Kokonga

South Island day 19: Otago rail trail, Lauder-Ranfurly

Today was going to be a pretty long day as well, as we were meeting up with Raewyn’s parents in Ranfurly. The trail from Lauder to Oturehua passes through a gorge with some impressive viaducts and a couple of short tunnels. In other words, a number of photo opportunities. We arrived in Oturehua at around 11:30 and decided to have an early lunch there. This also gave us time to visit Gilchrist’s General Store, the longest continually running store in New Zealand and, like the hardware store in Invercargill we visited, was half-museum half-shop. They had some old-style lollies for sale and we couldn’t resist availing ourselves of some giant Jaffas (remember them?).

From Oturehua it was a bit more of a climb to the highest point on the trail. From there it was downhill to Wedderburn, about 8 km away, which we managed to ride solely on gravity and a tailwind – no pedalling! Then from Wedderburn to Ranfurly we were averaging around 30 km/hr across the Maniototo valley. Here the trail is dead straight and slightly downhill, and we still had a tailwind. We passed a number of people battling into the wind going the other way, and basically smiled and said nothing. What can you say? ‘Only 25 km to go...’?

Raewyn’s parents had also made good time and arrived in Ranfurly in the early afternoon. We rewarded ourselves with a break from cooking dinner and went out for a meal at the pub instead.

(Total distance biking: 49.9 km, 177.0 km cumulative)

Light and colours at the Poolburn Gorge

One of the Poolburn Gorge tunnels

Raewyn on the Poolburn Gorge viaduct

Gilchrist's general store, Oturehua

The sign says it all!

Riding across the Maniototo plains towards Ranfurly

South Island day 18: Otago rail trail, St Bathans

Today we parted ways temporarily. Raewyn and I were staying two nights at Lauder, then biking from Lauder to Ranfurly in one day, while her parents were taking two days on the trail to get to Ranfurly, overnighting at Oturehua.

We headed off on some backcountry roads to St Bathans, an old gold mining village and site of the Blue Lake, once the largest man-made pit in the southern hemisphere. Again it was uphill going there and downhill coming back – although we only really noticed the difference in that we were able to go about 10 km/hr faster coming back.

(Total distance biking: 55.5 km, 127.1 km cumulative)

Heading up to St Bathans

Blue Lake

Blue Lake

Riding through the 'moonscape'

Better weather coming back to Lauder