Here is a brief photo accompanied account of the journey... you can also get the same, yet different story, from Clare's blog.
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Day 1
We set off on the circle trail loop from this point here. The control gates. They are only one part of New Zealand's largest hydro electric generation system (this is just one of two lakes involved!).
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It was at this point that I seemed to set the trend for myself on this hike. Which was less than brilliant.
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Immediately I lost my hoodie getting out of the car, and caused a 5 minute delay to retrieve it. This made sense as I had been an idiot and just threw the thing into a loop on my pack. I didn't tie it or anything. Everything else was nice and secure and the hike could now go on with no incident... Or so I had thought.
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Somehow Clare's waterproof bundle fell off about 2 metres from where we noticed the hoodie incident. This was quite puzzling and infuriating. I had specifically tightened this bundle and my own quite tight. Yet somehow it had gotten loose. Worse yet it took us about a kilometre to realize it. So I had the opportunity of seeing the first km of the trail 3 times as I had to go and retrieve it.
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Fortunately for the rest of day 1 there were no more incidents. I was mistaken at the time in hoping there'd be no more the rest of the hike...
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So much of day 1 was us hiking through lovely kiwi forest like this. I just love it. On most levels my favourite part of the trip._
There is a whole Traumador storyline in the works for later in 09 that was shot here during this hike, but I shall reveal nothing more for now...
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Here is Clare. Doesn't she look happy she is in the forest.We had a lot of the forest to enjoy. Some 4ish hours of it. All the while we were heading steadily uphill.
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When we set out we knew that there'd be a lot of uphill involved on Day 1, but knowing it and walking it are totally different things...
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Finally we made it to the 3/4 marker the Limestone Bluffs. They were cool, but sadly slightly diminished due to our being slightly worn out and tired by this stage.
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As you climbed past the bluffs suddenly the forest changed into a more lichen filled Beech forest (compared to the earlier fern dominated one below).
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Despite the unrelenting upward marching the landscape continued, if not slowly, to change and thus show we were making progress. Here we finally made it into the Alpine range, and mercifully the Hut was only an hour into this._
This was our concluding view on Day 1. We were at the top of the Te Anau area. The end of the "worst" day was over. Setting our packs down, and claiming our bunks we decided to wander off to see the cool side attraction by the Hut._
Just 10 minutes away from the Hut was a limestone cave that you could go explore. Apparently the cave goes for about 2km, but 1.75 of that you have to crawl/squeeze through some pretty tight spaces. I was having trouble enough due to my height and beer belly with just some of the slight obstructions in the open part of the cave (though my legs being really tired didn't help either)._
I worry that the climbing around in the cave may have contributed to the next day's problems. As on the walk back to the Hut my knee started to unbearably hurt during the last 200 metres of the walk.
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Day 2
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The weather of the first day had been perfect, and we were slightly sad to see clouds on the morning of the second day._
However within 20 minutes of resuming walking it cleared up. Revealing some amazing views. These were indeed the best part of the day, and are certainly the reason to do the trail. I still love the forests the most, but I'd already done them as day trips in "winter" (remember NZ winter is opposite to back home). The views of day 2 are the reason to do the full hike if you're thinking about going. In other words check to make sure the weather lets you see around you or there's not much point! _
Sadly for me troubles began in the first half an hour. You see despite what we thought we'd understood about the hike, the second was far from an easy flat walk. It turned out to be as much uphill as the day before. If not more!
A lot of the scenery of day 2 lent itself to a very Middle Earth feel. Despite New Zealand being the land of Lord of the Rings, it is often difficult to see/feel it. Due to the digital manipulation in that film, I've been to places they filmed at and you can hardly tell.
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In the movies mountain ranges were changed or added to chots, sky and plant colours were tweaked and adjusted (a process called digital grading... oh how I want it bad!) that makes them look totally different than real life, and there is typically signs of modern civilization visible (this is more cause I'm lazy and stick to easy to access sites).
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This was one of the first times and places I truly could have believed that I was suddenly transported into Middle Earth. Though not really anywhere significant (minus a few Rohanian feeling spots) other than some of the incidental locations from the fellowships travelling montage in the first film.
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Sadly for me troubles began in the first half an hour. You see despite what we thought we'd understood about the hike, the second was far from an easy flat walk. It turned out to be as much uphill as the day before. If not more!_
If you look carefully in this picture you can see the trail we're on winding up the mountain on the left. Clare and Anne are there in the foreground, for uh scale I guess...
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If you couldn't see the trail before, here is a closer zoomed shot. The tiny specks you see along the trail in the distance, those are people._
This was the first major uphill, about a kilometre from the first Hut we left behind. It was at that point on the right side of picture where the trail disappears into the cloud that my knee COMPLETELY gave out!
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I have never had so much trouble walking in my life. The joint just refused to bend, and even when I limped it so it swung around unbent the act of bearing any weight caused me to make involuntary yelps of pain. I nearly just collapsed there, done for the day.
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I have never had so much trouble walking in my life. The joint just refused to bend, and even when I limped it so it swung around unbent the act of bearing any weight caused me to make involuntary yelps of pain. I nearly just collapsed there, done for the day.
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That is if not for the kindness of strangers. Which I have to say immediately, if there is an activity that brings out the best in people, it would seem to be hiking. As everyone who passed me not only noted my gibbled knee, but expressed concern and a desire to assist me.
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One rather nice woman by the name of Susan went a step further. Seeing my anguish she selflessly insisted that I take her walking sticks to ease the weight on my knee. It was a grand gesture, and I was in no shape to refuse it. Though on account of the fact she too had bad knees, and I was unaccustomed to using sticks I only borrowed one for use on my bad side.
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I'm certain I wouldn't have been able to go much further without it.
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Despite the stick it was tough goings to put it lightly. Honestly the only thing making it worthwhile was every time I stopped to let my throbbing immobile knee have a break, the scenery about me was spectacular!_
Simply breathtaking.
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The only bonus of the injury, was taking plenty of breaks I used them as excuses to take TONS of pictures (990 of them in fact!). So I can roughtly reassemble most of the key points in the journey...
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The poor ladies, Clare and Anne, though. They had to take a lot of really long breaks so I could catch up. _
Which is a funny side note. In all my years of outdoor work, summer camp and tour guiding, I every session (or two weeks tour guiding) would have one of my participates suffer a leg or foot injury. I'd affectionately dub them peg leg as I helped them limp on.
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It was interesting being on the other side of the equation (though for the ladies sake I immediately recognized my condition and dubbed myself peg leg for them!).
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The thing was the trail just bloody well kept going up and up. Don't believe me look at it! 
As I walked on, a new problem developed. My good knee was beginning to suffer under the burden of having to do all the work of both knees... Yet I kept trucking on.
At the point where we reached the "top" of the trail, and prepared to make our way down for the first serious distance in the day we hit this highlight. The most Lord of the Rings thing I've been too in New Zealand. I fought off the urge (which with my legs was sadly too easy) to jump under these rocks and hide from a swarm of evil crows...Though they look the part, had I run up to get underneath them, sadly these rocks were hobbit scale. If I were in the photo bent over my back would be JUST lower the top of these outcrops! Still they fit the bill in this photo, and I stick to my guns here.
So there we were. We'd walked for 6 hours along the top ridges of 4 or 5 mountains, and to finish this day off we were going to head down. Right down. In this picture the I was as high up as that yellow point of the mountain on the right. I was going to have to walk down the equivalent distance of to nearly the lake in this photo!There were a set of some 16 stair cases right off the bat on this downhill turn (that I neglected to take a picture of... no doubt due to the most pain I've ever experienced from my legs in my life!) that did my knees totally in. Seriously. For the rest of the trip I just couldn't bend them!
It took me till Dec. 28th before I could bend them both properly again.
Day 3
The last day proved the easy walk we'd hoped the previous day would be. Despite a few slight ups and downs overall day 3 proved a conceptually pleasant walk. The only thing against us was distance. We had the distance of both days 1 and 2 to walk, and me and Clare (though me especially) were not in prime walking condition anymore.
My knees had both ceased to function as they should. Which most of the time wasn't an issue.
Though you'd be surprised how critical bending is to going up even a small hill. Clare was having trouble going down the hills. Meaning we played a funny game of grow apart and than catch up as the up and downs of the terrain played out. The worst point of the day was climbing a naturally staircase of roots around a landslided part of the track. With the steps occasionally being nearly a metre high I was crying out in pain by the last 1/3.
Now before you think I didn't enjoy myself, I did, but this trip was the strongest case of "no pain no gain" I've ever experienced. The two were nearly equal while walking (especially on day 2).
I immensely enjoyed the company of my two hiking mates, the scenery was awe inspiring, and I got the heart warming experience of seeing the decency in people, that is often lacking in civilization, when many other hikers expressed concern over my knee (as they passed me).
At the same time I've done it, and to be honest I think its one of those kiwi experiences that I'll be more than will left done simply once!
1 comment:
OH MY BALROG!! that's Rohan!!
for the rocks on the way to Caradhras you can use forced perspective or whichever way they use to call that.
did you see any warg? time to learn Rohirric, dude! especially if you find any pretty Rohirrim lady around there!
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