“Bye bye Dunedin” and all those mixed feelings were yesterday- exciting adventures are awaiting (and happening)! I am feeling very comfortable to be on the road again. Heavily packed car, enough boxed food to be equipped for spontaneous over nights/ hikes/ bikes etc, no address, all we own with us. Our first day drive brings us (back) to Wanaka in Central Otago, where we visit our former flat mate Alisa and her partner. They pour their skills into various sectors of the skifields of Wanka these days. Skifields! Still find it hard to believe that this actually exists here, but it does in its whole luxurious attractiveness including fancy style shops and bars and verhängte kiffer boardertype, skateparks, all in one tours etc.:). We are generously given a cozy, tiny Harry Potter corner not under but on top of the staircase and spend two night here. Ski holiday feeling in New Zealand in cozy Chalet style house that looks like a piece of a Toblerone.
After getting cold hands and feet even being inside a house, we decide to ditch our climbing ambitions (the temperature hovers around 0 °C)and head out for a walk instead. The next day we drive out to Mt. Aspiring National Park (where we spent that Weekend with Sarah who turned 30); swap from car to the bike after ford Nr. 6 and make it to the entry point for the Rob Roy Glacier walk. Our expectations are high- after being told from various respectable people that this walk is astonishing, breathtaking AND fantastic. Well. It is nice. The bush we walk through is definitely the sort of alpine jungle forest that is very attractive to us. But at the breathtaking top (which is a pretty random point above the tree line) we find more interest in the clever mice, who live right under the pebbles where everybody sits and eats and crumbles their snacks, than in the view. You just can t promise us a walk that lasts for 4 hours and then only takes 2. The mice and the views were really nice anyway :).
After some bike fixing (Louie found a new clever way to put them on the rack- turned out not to be such a clever way after all) we re off to the Westcoast the next day. Thats the drive we were looking forward to for weeks. The Haast pass leads through an incredible wild alpine area. The mountain flanks tower over the narrow valley; a sheer 1000 meters vertical rise. At this time of the year, the tops of those colossal rain forest covered giants are dipped in icing sugar which adds greatly to the spectacular scenery.
Incredible that there is a road leading us through this massive landscape. Our car is tiny. We are tinier. The road falls and rises and winds through this world of other measure and spits us out into a different world: The dense rainforest pours down into the narrow flat area that lies in between the ocean and the bearded, snowcapped giants and with it layers of different vegetations and shades of green, it is hard to describe the beauty of this new land.
Haast, the first little place after this pass- 3 hours drive from Wanaka and about 2 from the next tiny place- consists of a few houses, a DOC office and a hotel. We head on along the cost to find a place for the night. After realising that it is too late to hike out to a nearby hut, we pitch our tent on the same DOC campground where I spent a night about 10 years ago during my first trip in New Zealand. Same same but different: This night we are getting some special visitors that keep us awake and busy: We wake up from a weird nibbling sound close to our heads. After several unsuccessful attempts to scare the intruder off, I finally pop my head out and solve the riddle: Two cheeky Keas hop away from the light. Thats bad news really. Keas are known to be very curious and the thing that attracts their interest often gets destroyed. They pull insulation out of houses, rubber trimming out of cars, eyes out of sheep and so on. In our case, they are nibbeling holes in our tent. After a bit of swearing we cover the whole tent with a massive tarpoland (@Melina, Brüsche, Sorbus: Erinnert ihr euch an den Riesenplasik? Den:) ) and crawl back in our sleeping bags, expecting the crazy birds to either pick their way through the plastic and keep destroying the tent fly or find a way under it. They do start picking on the plastic but it seems to be less fun that the tent and fortunately they take off after a while and let us sleep for another few hours.
Adventures with the wildlife. I don t like Keas (anymore)!
