Hot Springs and Hut trips

With our weeks here winding down and the winter darkness upon us we are still trying to squeeze in a few weekend getaways. First we took a quick weekend to Hanmer Springs, a little alpine resort centered around some natural hot springs. The Springs are now manged by the district council there and seem to me a cross between Glenwood's Hot springs and Thornton's Waterworld. It was quite fun, we lounged in the pools each day and took quick walks in the exotic forests above town and Carolyn use the opportunity of actual stores to shop in to pick up a swim suit for our Cook Island stop on the way home. But hey also had these great Fatties to rent:

Which would have come in handy on this past weekends trip to the Heaphy. We had walked a day hike on the Heaphy, one of the Great Walks of New Zealand, in January and encouraged by Kristen and Angie and their  ROuteburn tramp, we had decided we could manage a backpacking trip as well.

 This was the first actual backpacking trip for Carolyn other than our snowshoe hut trip last winter, in many years. But New Zealand has this great Hut system and the Heaphy hut is brand new and like a castle.

 This is Carolyn when we arrived at the Hut. It had bunks with Mattresses,  6 propane stoves, LED light that came on at night, a wood stove for heat and pre chopped wood. It is supplied by the Dept of Conservation via helicopter. It was very Plush, and with everything supplied, we had much lighter packs than we would on a tent self contained trip

 The hut overlooked a beautiful river outlet into the Tasman Sea. One of the other trampers organized a giant Bonfire on the beach. Most of the other folks spending the night in the hut were bikers, as the Heaphy is open for mountain biking in the winter, It is a rugged 2 to 3  day trip across the mountains and those fat tire bikes would sure of been handy on the sandy segments by the beach the last en miles or so.

 There were four cool suspension bridges on river crossings during the hike and I kept thinking how I could slash the cables after I crossed to watch all the Orcs chasing me fall into the Chasm below. But every time I look back it seemed I had lost them so I left the bridges standing, or suspending, for others to enjoy.

 It was incredibly green and wet though we somehow were lucky enough to make the entire trip with only a bit  of rain.  When we got back to our car Sunday it immediately began to pour. 

ALso, though tattoos are big here, perhaps due to the Maori influence, it certainly was evident at the Hnmer SPrings Pools, If I got one it would be this NZ icon:

Martinborough wines, Old Friends and musings on work

A bit of time has passed since the last blog and we put that down on our work schedule. When we are here and short staffed and on for the weekend, work pretty much occupies our time. And for you Northern hemisphere folks, remember our days are quite short in Mid autumn, so no after work bike ride or hike. But to complain about my hours is silly, I see men and women at the fish processing plant work 70 hours a week and the people up at the Mine work tough 7 days on and 7 off schedules. We have it good, though our recent visit to see Duncan, a friend from our freshman dorm at Stanford, raised the work issue as well. And not just because David Beckham

I

is retiring at age 38 but because Duncan has now a nifty lifestyle farm in the Greytown Carterton area north of Wellington with his partner Jan

SO Duncan has now traded his academic hat for a pick and shovel and an infinite number for projects around the farm. And though I am tempted to post a picture of Meatloaf here as that is one of the cows name, the fat Meatloaf's drunken support embarrassed Romney and totally eliminated the 1.3% chance that Nate Silver predicted he had of winning the election, and I do not want to popularize him again to the 4 readers of the blog.
Actually I was thinking of Kurt Vonnegut and Cat's Cradle and the tenet of the fictional religion ( is there a non-fictional one/) Bokononism called Karass.  A karass is a group of people who lack the common socially acknowledged ties like Cheeseheads, Rotarians, meadows club members, Boy Scouts, Boulderites, etc but actually seem to have an undefinable close tie. That's how it felt visit Duncan and Jan, though we have  only visited Duncan now three times in thirty 34 years or so, it was immediately familiar and warm. And that was not just the Wine talking

Though the Pinot Noir at Ata Rangi was excellent. I hope we can get together more often in the next 30 years, though I do not know if retiring to a lifestyle farm is really retiring or not.
And speaking of close friends, our returning flight to Westport was cancelled due to a giant storm that shut down the Wellington airport and Mark and Linda Baxter came to the rescue with  their hospitality and provided us with an excellent dinner, bed to sleep in and great company. All the more reinforcing the Karass tenent.

Milford road and Mutton

Views of Milford sound from the water.

Mitre Peak

So the Road to Milford sound is as fantastic as the sound itself, which is actually a fiord. But the road is still a road and not a highway or street. Along the route from Te Anau are multiple places to stop for extraordinary views and Flora and Fauna

At Gunn Lake walk you will find the most amazing lush green forest that you will ever see. The chlorophyll is overwhelming. It is like wlaking with an oxygen mask. The fabulous Beech trees covered in moss were the inspiration and models for the ENTs in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Their trunks do indeed resemble giant mammalian pachyderm type feet and they tower above the forest quite magnificently.

On the way in it was raining and we saw literally hundreds of waterfalls that cascaded hundred of meters down the sheer cliffs along the road. Once we were on the water of Milford the waterfalls were even more stunning, Though Milford lacks the wildlife seen at Doubtful sound, It has a slightly more spectacular geology and that make the walls of the valleys steeper and the waterfalls more spectacular.

Though not to be outdone by the Tolkienesque surroundings and Ent inspirations, The Baxters put on an ANZAC day feast in Wellington worthy of any Hobbit Elevenish meal. And though there were no Dwarfs to eat the hosts out of house and home, the guests did a remarkably good job on the cases of wine , beer and the roast mutton. A feast that only the Baxters could host this side of fantasy literature.