GOING ALONE

So I have just finished the Routeburn trek. A three day hike through some of the most beautiful scenary in the South Island.

When Donna and I were planning our honeymoon trip, we thought that after four months spending every day together, we might like to have a little time apart. So I picked the Routeburn track, an old Maori path through the Southern Alps and one of New Zealand's 'eight great walks' while Donna decided to spend three days in Queenstown.

A three day trek has some advantages and some disadvantages. There is something magical about getting away from civilisation and exploring into the wild. Turning up to stay in the little huts you spend each night in the middle of nowhere, feeling like you are on an adventure, that you are miles from the nearest road, house or shop, when there is no light pollution at night except for the full moon and you are completely exposed to the elements and nature. The disadvantage is that you have to carry everything you need for three days in a big heavy pack on your back that weighs a ton.

I was a little bit, shall we say, arrogant about the whole thing when I waved goodbye to Donna on the first day. 'Oh it is not really that far. Only four or five hours a day. Let's go for a beer before we head off as it won't be that hard.' Unfortunately the whole of the first day was uphill. And when it wasn't uphill, it was uphill a bit more. Suddenly, I realised quite how heavy three days worth of pre-cooked pasta and tuna actually is. Perhaps I should sit down and eat it all now then my backpack would be a whole lot lighter.

A three day walk by yourself might be a good excuse to meet more people. However, I have a fairly healthy dislike of people who go on three day hikes and so did my best to not talk to anyone for the entire time. This is nothing personal. It is just that the type of people who do three day hikes tend to only have one topic of conversation and that is the stupid amount of money they have spent on equipment and gear. For example, I don't really care if you have spent three hundred dollars on a pair of waterproof, all terrain, walking boots. My canvas trainers will do just as well thank you very much and I don't look like a d*** when I am wearing them. How about your very expensive North Face waterproof jacket? I managed to pick up a second hand 'Napier High School for Boys' anorak for fifteen dollars in an op shop. Yes it might make me look like a paedophile given I have no affiliation with the school, but it keeps me just as warm. And if you dare knock my dollar shop bright yellow poncho that did a very fine job of keeping me marginally dry when it was pissing down with rain then I will be very upset.

This avoiding talking to people for three days solid was achieved by a) constantly having my earphones in; and b) deliberately sitting in the huts as far away from anyone else as possible; and c) getting completely engrossed in the cross stitching set I bought to occupy my time while I wasn't walking.

Ahh cross stitching. One of the problems with a three day hike is that you don't actually walk for that long. You tend to get up early due to staying in a hut with forty nine other people. Forty nine other people with a penchant for farting and snoring a lot (probably caused by all the special dehydrated walking food they have eaten). When you are awake, there is not much to do apart from walking so you tend to reach the next destination by about lunchtime. Without a good cross stitching set, I think I might have gone mad. As it was, I was quite happy spending all afternoon and evening, stitching away watching the view.

Was it beautiful? Well, yes. But it can be quite hard to appreciate beauty when it is also incredibly uphill. It is almost as hard to appreciate beauty when it is downhill because that is almost as difficult on the old knees. Why can't the world be beautiful and flat? But when you see the hut you are staying in for the night and you realise you don't have to walk any more that day then it is beautiful. Or when you take a break, (taking that stupid backpack off for five minute) on a rock on the edge of a cliff with nothing but snowcapped mountains around, shyly playing peekaboo behind drifting clouds, then yes it is worth it.

The walk finishes at a place called the Divide. In a strange twist of fate that you can only appreciate if you look at a map of the South Island, I had walked all of thirty five kilometers yet, by road, it was more than three hundred kilometers to get back to Queenstown. The cheapest way to return was to join a tour that was going to visit Milford Sounds which would then take me back to Queenstown afterwards. It was a strange and surreal experience, after being on my own in the wild for three days to find myself back on a tourist bus, full of fifty tourists, boredly listening to a bored tour guide giving boring descriptions of the beautiful countryside around. Although I did appreciate the warmth of the bus after being in the freezing cold rain for the last eight hours. Ok my cheap yellow poncho wasn't that good.

When the tour bus dropped us off at Milford Sounds and we boarded an overcrowded boat in the pouring rain to go sailing around the Sounds, I started to question things. Milford Sounds is meant to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, yet all I could think of was what was I doing there. Maybe I had become blase. Maybe we have been away too long but it all felt like an expensive waste of time stuck in a tourist trap. Maybe it is time we started to head home.

But then the dolphins turned up. A whole flock of them flying beneath the keel of the boat. I stood there watching them, trying to not spill my cup of tea in the driving rain, as one turned and swam on its side looking up at me and then flipping playfully onto its back before diving down again. And then the clouds cleared and the sun came out and all the glory of the Sounds could be seen. Milford Sounds is incorrectly named as they are actually fjords rather than than sounds. Fjords carved by the last ice age; towering cliffs hundreds of metres high, coated in a thousand glistening waterfalls. And I thought. Yup, I could do this for a bit longer.

Lots of love

Jim

PS Our original plan was a mistake. After four months together, I had no desire to go and spend three days away from Donna. Every day I want to spend more and more time with her. And so it was on the trip. I missed her every moment I was away from her. When I was happy, I wished she was there with me and when I wasn't I wished I was there with her. The journey back from Milford Sounds was the longest in the world as I couldn't wait to be back with her.

INTERESTING KIWI FACT OF THE DAY

Kea are New Zealand parrots. They are unique in being the only alpine parrot in the world, living in the heights of the Southern Alps on the South Island. They are big and green and beautiful. They are also inquisitive and have a massive beak and are therefore quite scary when you encounter two of them at the top of the mountain who are looking very longingly at the jam sandwich you are about to eat. I found the best method to avoid confrontation is to stuff the jam sandwich in your mouth and run like hell.