The Heaphy - New Zealand and Australia Post #7

Kiwis take a huge amount of pride in the natrual beauty of their country... duh... no brainer right? Especially when one considers tha fact that most of the country is really just that... astoundingly beautiful... even the ugly parts. The above photo was taken during a beach BBQ at the head of the track that I hiked out on a few days later.

When I finished up my Woofing stint on the farm in Karamea I decided to take a somewhat unique way out of town by hiking over the Arthur Mountain Range in Kahurangi National Park. The route is along the Heaphy Track, one of NZeds "great walks". The folks there are so into their hiking/treking that they've developed the best trails in the country via heavy maintenance and installation of a hut system... ~NZ$20 per night for a bunk, water, pit facilities, and usualy a gas stove... and not having to carry a tent and all that cooking gear... posh, posh. I was able to go out for four days, with food for five and a small emergency shelter, using only my day pack... hot damm says any of you serious hiker types out there... that is a very light load... the route is about 79km long with 1200m of gain. As it turned out I hiked in the opposite direction as compared to about 95% of the traffic for this track. Albeit hapenstance it turned out to be quite fortuitous as I had a hut to myself on two of the four nights that I was on the trail.


An opening shot at the start of the trail... I was in a great mood here and raring to go despite the rain but a bit sad too as my Woofing host Craig had just dropped me off... I had a great time living/working with him and his family and new that I would miss them... sniff, sniff ;-)


The start of the track from the southern end is freaking amazing... 16 flat Km along the rugged coast and through forest trail thick with Nikau plams, punga fern and karaka trees that run right along the base of the mountains.



I t was killing me not to have my surf board here... rumor has it the some of the heartier blokes from Karamea hike up the Heaphy on good days to ride out here.


These cable wire a link fence bridges are very stable depiste their spindly appreance... quite a bit of fun in the wind and rain too.



The tanins from the fallen forest flora turn even the faster running rivers in to amazing shades of tan, brown and this strange black/indigo.


I ran in to this young fellow from the UK at the first hut I stayed in. Adam is a carpenter/joiner who had been working in Christchurch via tha ability of citizens of the commonwealth to work abroad the way we can work from state to state... this kid was a real hoot... super funny and we had plenty to talk about via engineering and carpentry and the fact that his girlfriend is from the US. We also had a blast hanging out with the two gals from Vancouver, BC we shared the first hut with and the siblings (two cute sisters and their younger brother) from Wellington on the 2nd hut stay.

Adam took this and the following photos of me on my 3rd day of hiking. When we had arrived at the hut the night before we missed a horizontal snow storm by mere minutes. Pretty neat that... I didn't realize how good it would feel to miss heavy weather by that close of a margin to share a warm hut with plenty of food and good company... duh!




Some shots of the crosings and scenery on the trail's highest plateau...



Views looking out and in to the oldest hut on the track... it's fairly close to the 1st hut coming from the North so most folks mike it a lunch stop and don't stay for the night... as a result I had the place to myself...




Before the evening fire though I day hiked around a bit and found some... yes I have to say it... Lord of the Rings-esque scenery...



And some time journaling as all estute travelers should...


And a bit too much time alone with my camera...




Alas, the trail must end... and here I am at the end of it...


... but not really. I spent the next few days after I got off the track kayaking/hiking around Able Tasman National Park. Through a series of commedic errors and due to the willful nature of a kindergarten teacher from Germany... I ended up sharing this tandem kayak with her Ozzy military buddy... turned out that he gave me a ride back to Nelson but was a bit too much of a skirt chasing hell raiser for my liking ;-) I also ran in to an aquaintence from Karamea who took these shots... thanks mate (er um Gary ;-)!




One of the highlights of Nelson was the Episcipalian stone church on a high hill overlooking the town...



After Nelson is was a harrowinf lfight back to Aukland to spend a final day with Wade and Dacotah (see a previous post) and then on to Oz and the Famiglia!

Getting Munched by the 'Nar 'Nar - New Zealand and Australia Post #6

Ah Raglan... that storied locale for left-handed point break surf. Yup... been there... "surfed" it... had my ass handed to me. No excuses though as I was nowhere near in good enough shape to handle that place let alone comfortable enough on my board or in the water... makes sense as I hadn't surfed much for the previous year or so... the board was a major problem... bought in haste right after I arrived in NZ... severely undersized for me even if I had been on my game. I didn't so much surf at Raglan as sit just outside of the main break with a ring side seat to some world class lefts and the people who call them home. A few days later I bought a brand new fun shape and moved on.

Over the following weeks I absconded away from whomever I happened to be visiting when the surf appeared to be good and scored good days around Taranaki, the Wairapa and the northwest coast of the South Island. Those days were a combination of long and amazingly beautiful drives, sleeping on the beach, in the car or at the odd and random public house, killer grub and stormy, scary, bigger than I was used to surfing.

Then I went to Australia and things were completely different ;-) I benefitted from my hard weeks of work in NZ. The surf in Oz, albeit fickle for that time of year, was generally smaller, cleaner and warmer. I had some great days on the Beacroft Head surfing with my cousins. The best and most traumatic day was at a place called "Golf Course Reef". A head high to +2ft south swell had come in and the place was firing... and crowded. I waited a while and chatted up some local blokes in the car park to get a feel for the place, show a bit of respect and get the low down on the break itself. I paddled out with a few fellows, caught a couple of great rights and then proceeded to lose track of the line-up and take off on one way, way, way to deep. I ended up hanging on to my board so as not to injure the folks on either side of me... the board hit the water, bounced up and hit me, I hit the water and then the wave rolled me over the rock reef. I paddled out the break zone without any discernible injuries and surfed for another couple of hours. Later that night after I pealed off my wetsuit I noticed some pretty intense left side pain and a big ding in the side of my rib cage. I sleepless night at the family cottage and visit to the local ER the next day reveled a few fractured and separated ribs. Interesting thing to note here is that the ER visit only took about 2 hours and cost AU$180 for the doc, an X-ray and and unltrasound... take that Congress! I didn't surf much after that as I headed north to dive the GBR and figured I'd better heal up a bit first before I paddled out again ;-)

Unfortunately I don't have too many shots as I was offten surfing alone but here are a few...


This room was about AU$10 oer night and came with a great pub and separate bistro downstairs... killer!


Yep... that's really what they call it... and here's why...


View Larger Map
The area is basically the western side of a nearly perfect conical volcano that dominates the landscape of the area... given the surfable area that covers about 180 degrees on the compass there is surf somewhere on Tranaki most days... hot damm!


one of the many breaks at Taranaki.


And another... the paddle out was a bit sketchy here ;-)

I was fortunate to meet up with, camp and surf with some fellow travleres out along the 'naki...

Mauro and Bruno from Brazil...


... and Martin and Gavin from Germany and Ireland. The spot in the background that we surfed that day was interesting... there weren't any rocks when we got in a high tide... ha! Duped again!


A clean, glassy, warm day on the southern tip of the Wairapa.

And now for something completely different... a video postscript... this film was the national winner of the 2008 New Zealand Amateur Surf Film Festival... the creator is currently working on a full length film covering the Sout:East:West:North (S:E:W:N) aspects of NZed wave riding... dig it:



Many thanks to Jan Baur (for introducing me to the maker of this film and sending me the link) and to Nico Brikke for making it and to both for a killer day out at the Wairapa... cheers.