I’ll never forget all the people and places I’ve seen in New Zealand. I’ve been constantly blown away over the last 6 months at the kindness and hospitality of people here. I could never begin to repay it. I really hope some of the people I’ve met come to Canada so I can invite them into my home and show them some of the Canadian wilderness and wonders. And I’ll miss everybody so very very much. A good friend of mine once told me it’s better to say farewell, and not goodbye. I can’t assume I’ll never see the people that have filled my life the past 6 months again, that would be to painful. So instead I said all of my goodbyes while looking forward to when our paths cross again, where ever in the world that might occur.

It’s funny how we end up certain places in the world. Sitting in the Dunedin airport with my Canadian friend Madelaine we recounted how I ended up in New Zealand to begin with. Two and a half years ago when she was trying to decide where to go on exchange in NZ a friend of hers told her about the OUTC, and that made her decide to come to Dunedin. She met somebody and moved back to New Zealand after her year of exchange there. I’d heard lots of stories about Dunedin and the tramping club from Madelaine and it sounded like the kind of place I would enjoy, so I decided to spend some of my year of travel working in New Zealand. 6 months ago I stepped off the plane with only my working visa in hand and a good friend to pick me up at the airport. No job or place to live, just a general faith that things would work out as they always have during my travels.

And they certainly did work out, incredibly well. In fact looking back on everything it’s a bit hard to believe how well things worked out. Within a month of arriving in NZ I had a job at the University of Otago and a place to live. I’d done my first couple of tramping trips, visited some old friends in Christchurch and was beginning to get involved in the OUTC. I’ll always remember that first trip with Madelaine, 5 days spent in the Borland Mountains in Fiordland. We didn’t see a single other soul. Perhaps that’s what blows me away the most about New Zealand, wherever you go in the wilderness you just don’t see any other people, and all of the sights are absolutely incredible. It was an exhausting trip, on day three I sat tired on a rock and asked Madelaine “are all the trips in the tramping club this hard? Because if they are I don’t think I’m going to survive.”

Turns out they weren’t, the OUTC was as much a social club as it was about tramping. And it became the social center of my life for 6 months. It’s been awesome, and it’s the people that made it that way. From David and Madelaine, to whom I will never be able to repay the kindness I received in getting myself set up in New Zealand. To Claire who informed me of everything I needed to know to survive in the OUTC and regaled me with stories of years past (I can only hope I have made it into her tramping club story books). My flatmates who must have thought I was a bit nuts going away every weekend, “that crazy Canadian”. Tim and Sarah with their quircky sense of humour and velociraptor awareness. Nick, who I went on several trips with and had great chats with about all things OUTC that drove me nuts. Rowan always asking me to make him breakfast in bed on tramping trips and making fun of me for my teletubby booties, jacket and anything else he could come up with. Colleen, for her random but true observations about the world and never exaggerating. Erica, for being American. Cleo, for always being super happy and upbeat, and just loving tramping. Peter for stirring shit up, Brittany for the random acts of kindness. Sarah and the Saturday trips to the farmers market. Paula for always saying exactly what was on her mind. Of course then there are all the places I spent time with and met these people. The Cook for Tuesday happy hour, Eureka for better happy hours and Tonic for good beer with David. Clubs and socs, the gear room and the Otago room for all the trip planning insanity that went on there. And all the wilderness, Paradise, Fiordland, the Borland mountains, Mavora Lakes, Luxmore Hut and the Kepler Track, Te Anau, Christchurch and TWALK, Copeland, Arthurs Pass, Otehake, Golden Bay, Alex, real fruit ice cream in Cromwell, the lake at Wanaka, Mt. Aspiring Hut, Big Hut, Mt. Brewster, Rock and Pillar, Flagstaff, Mt. Cargill, even Gore. I will miss all these people and places. I also know I’ll cross paths with at least some of them again. They will always be my friends and remembered fondly with a smile and a laugh.

I’ve come home because I want my normal life back; however crazy that might seem. One with my friends and family, I’ve learned how important those close connections to home are to me. I guess in the end I chose those over the fun of travel because they’re more important to me then all the new experiences and places in the world I might see. I don’t know if this is the end of Tracy Travels yet or not. I might get itchy feet again in a year or two, but for now I’m going to stay put somewhere familiar for awhile and just love life as it is here in Van with the mountains and ocean, my family and friends.

Me on my first NZ tramp in the Hunter Mountains

We decided to have a lazy weekend, which meant instead of the usual Friday night madness of packing up, buying food and trying to get out of Dunedin by 6pm we got up at a reasonable hour Saturday, went to the farmers market to buy our weekend food and drove the 1.5 hours to the Rock and Pillar range just outside Dunedin. This was my brand new (used) car’s inaugural trip. Driving the winding skinny highways in NZ was proving to be a new driving experience for me. Having learned to drive in a big city I’m not so experienced with highway driving. And my car mates Cleo, Colleen and Erica never ceased to miss a chance to make fun of my driving. The most memorable moment being when Cleo (a kiwi) informed me that I should probably look both ways when I crossed railway tracks to which I replied “there have been railway crossings?” (they aren’t nearly as well marked as they are in Canada).

View over the Rock and Pillar range heading up to the hut.

We arrived at the trail end just as the last mist was burning off the mountain tops and started the trek up to Big Hut. Cleo had warned us that it was steep, but had failed to convey just how STEEP that meant. We slogged up the track for a couple of hours until it wasn’t so steep anymore, then came across some really cool ice formations on the tussock and scrub. Everything on the hillside had windblown frozen ice on it, which made some really unique formations. We arrived at Big Hut just before sunset, and enjoyed the orange, pink and yellow glow over the ice encrusted mountain top.

Sunset over Big Hut

Big Hut was originally built as a ski lodge for downhill skiers before they moved on to bigger and better things in the area. Now it’s a great place to head up for a night and just chill out (literally, the place is an ice box). As huts go it’s pretty fancy with a fully equiped kitchen and a ping pong table! We played several rounds of X-treme ping pong to keep warm before heading outside to watch the stars for awhile. Once our backs were frozen enough from lying on the ice enjoying the perfectly clear night we crawled back into our sleeping bags.

We got up early in the morning to watch what turned out to be a non-existent sunrise, then trekked back down the mountainside and were back in Dunedin by 6pm despite my brief 2 seconds of pulling out onto the wrong side of the highway when we left Rock and Pillar. Driving on the opposite side of the road really messes with your head. It was great to get away for a weekend and come back before midnight on Sunday! And my car (and passengers) all survived the weekend so I was happy with my new purchase.

Sunset

We camped the night at Cameron Flat and woke up the next morning to perfectly clear blue skies surrounded by snow capped mountains, a rare sight close to the West Coast in NZ. After a breakfast punctuated by explaining to the 30 odd Japanese tourists that pulled in for a photo op that “yes we really did camp here last night” and “yes it was very cold” and “yes us four girls really are climbing up that mountain over there” we were off to Brewster Hut! The tramp began with a foot freezing river crossing, followed by a 3 hour slog up through beach forest. And when I say up, I mean 1000m straight UP. But when we broke the bush line it was incredible. You don’t often get such perfect views as we had, I couldn’t imagine a better spot to eat lunch.

Me with Mt. Brewster in the background.

After lunch we threw on our crampons, picked up our ice axes, took some photos attempting to look way more hard-core then we actually are and began walking up the ridge. We took it slowly as one side was a sheer cliff and the other side a long icy slope that ended in another cliff. The views were nothing short of spectacular the whole way up. There’s something about snow capped mountains, glaciers and alpine scenery on a clear day that just can’t be put into words. Even Colleen who NEVER exaggerates about anything, and at most has described scenery in New Zealand as “pretty good” put it it as being “amazingly beautiful”. About an hours way up the ridge though we came to a particularly steep, icy bit and after some consultation decided none of us felt safe climbing up it given potential to fall several hundred meters to the valley floor if we slipped. So we stopped and enjoyed the sun and snow for awhile before starting back down before it got dark.

Enjoying the amazingly beautiful views!

We were a bit bummed out at not making the hut, but knew it was the right call to make given our level of experience in such situations. And enjoyed a warm dinner and some mulled wine after returning to Cameron Flat for the night. The next day was sunny again (2 sunny days in one weekend, almost unheard of!) and we took a short walk to the Blue Pools (which weren’t that blue) before heading back to Wanaka for a relaxed lunch by the lake and then real fruit ice cream in Cromwell. One day of gorgeous mountain top views followed one day of yummy food in the sun by Lake Wanaka and good company made for one of the best weekends I’ve had yet in NZ.

Playing around on the ridge. (from top: Erica, Colleen, me, Cleo)

Before going to Aussie I left my car at my friend Sam’s place in Christchurch. This meant he could conveniently pick me up upon my return to New Zealand. After which we had planned to do a weekend tramp before school and work started again for both of us. In a nice turn of events my friends Colleen and Erica from Dunedin turned up in Christchurch randomly on the Thursday I got back from Aussie so I invited them along on our tramp.

We had a relaxed Friday of shopping and packing before driving into Arthur’s Pass. I quickly became much less relaxed on the icy, windy roads through the pass but we made it to the DOC shelter, cooked ourselves some dinner and went to bed for what was a freezing cold somewhat sleepless night. The next morning was bright, clear and very cold. I went into the DOC office to ask about the levels of the Otira river that we would need to cross to get to our tramp and the DOC lady proceeded to inform me that the track we wanted to do would be “very hard” to follow and that she had done it last summer and “gotten lost several times”. Now I’ve become pretty good at finding my way on overgrown tracks/routes this past year but wasn’t to keen on it given the 2 feet of snow on the ground. So I asked her if there were any other options in the area she could suggest. To which she replied “well … you do realize it is winter right now and will be very cold if you go tramping”.

At this point I should have sarcastically said something about how I hadn’t realized that, and I was from Canada where 2 feet of snow on the ground was like a balmy summer, and walked out. But due to a lack of sleep my brain wasn’t functioning that quickly so I went and conferred with Sam, and we came to the decision to ignore DOC since they tend to discourage anybody with a North American accent from tramping and continue with our plans.

We drove out of Arthur’s Pass, and managed to locate the beginning of our tramp in the Taramakau Valley, which was described as “indescribably dull” in my route description. Cows followed us along the fences for awhile as we picked our way through scrub to the Otira river, which was actually quite low and we managed to keep our feet fairly dry. On we went up the Taramakau Valley and up Pfeifer Creek to a lovely spot by the creek for lunch in the sun. It was after this that the going got a bit tougher. As we scrambled around Lake Kaurapataka we lost the route a few times, but managed to backtrack until we reached the gorge that we were to follow on to the hot springs.

It was starting to get dark, which was a bit disconcerting given the sketchy trail markers so we quickly hurried on, picking our way across the STEEP edge of a gorge above the Otehake River until finally descending onto the river bank. At this point the route description simply said “follow the hints of sulphur in the breeze up to the hot pools”. We spent another hour wandering around the river banks trying to follow our noses to the hot pools. When we finally found them it turned out they were on the other side of a waist deep river! So much for our attempts to keep boots dry. Then I had my first ever real New Zealand river crossing. But what a reward we found on the other side – the best campite I’ve seen in NZ! Flat, tree covered tenting spots, fire pit with dry wood, and clean, clear hot pools situated in a river valley with mountain views all around. It doesn’t get any better then that.

We made a fire (which was a serious challenge with only beech wood to burn), pitched tents, ate dinner and then went to the hot pools for a well deserved soak under the stars. Apparently the Otehake Hot Pools are only the 2nd best pools in NZ (to the welcome flats pools at Copeland), but I’ve been to Copeland and these ones were definitely better in my opinion.

Returning to our tents we found that possums had raided the campsite. And when Sam realized they had eaten his scroggin (gorp in North America) many threats were made as he wandered into the woods with a boulder in hand hoping to squash the offending possums. There wasn’t much luck killing possums that night.

The next day we had a long conversation about how many possums each person in NZ would need to kill to eradicate them all (turns out it’s not a very feasible plan to get rid of them). As we picked our way down the Otehake river we found a much better (read: less wet and deep) spot to cross before tramping out. The drive back to Christchurch was one of the sketchiest of my life, with the car slipping on ice all the way down from the pass, and almost white out conditions with a cliff on one side and a gorge on the other but we made it back safe and sound. All in all it was a fabulous trip.

This story begins last November when I was in Chile. During a 3 week mountaineering course in Patagonia I met 2 girls who were both doctors from Melbourne. Together we spent 21 days in the Patagonian wilderness battling the elements, and survived to tell the tale. Strong friendships can be formed in very short periods of time under such conditions and I was pretty excited to be reunited with Holly and Amanda on the other side of the world from where we had met. In addition when I was in the Galapagos in December I had met Aaron and Diem from Melbourne, who by one of those wonderful travel coincidences were best friends with Holly.

Seeing as I had so many great friends in Melbourne, I hopped on a plane and went over for a visit. When I turned up at the Christchurch, NZ airport with only my passport in hand – no flight reservation #s, no printed e-tickets, no copy of my Aussie or NZ work visa – while the friend I went to the airport with had an entire folder full of her itineraries, I realized I had become a pretty relaxed world traveler. I cleared customs easily much to the shock of my friends who told me stories of being held back for hours because of some dirt on their boots, piled into the car and drove to Aaron and Diem’s place on the first proper highway I’d been on in months.

It’s funny the things you don’t realize you miss from home until you have them again. My first day in Melbourne I took the train “into the city” as they put it (not “downtown”, which I was laughed at for saying). Within minutes of stepping of the train I was loving it. The hoards of people, general busyness, crappy public transit, skyscrapers, shops that stay open past 5pm, sushi and coffee shops everywhere – it felt like home. I’ve never thought of myself as being a huge “city person”, but it turns out that I am. And I had really been missing it while living in Dunedin.

Day 2 I found my way to Amanda’s chic apartment in the city and over chai latte’s we decided to head to the “cake district” of Melbourne with Holly. Off we went to an entire street filled with fancy cake shops where you window shop for your treat of choice and then enjoy it over delicious lattes and cappuccinos. That afternoon we hatched our plans for the cakefight of the century the next evening. We went to Safeway and bought out all of their reduced to clear cakes, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, tarts, pavlova and flour (Amanda’s idea, apparently cake ingredients are allowed in cake fights). We were all set for the next evening.

The next day was the perfect example of how without any travel plans whatsoever, a few friends, and a sense of humor you can have the time of your life. Amanda had to go to a friends wedding, so I went along and crashed my first wedding ceremony (which we were late to) and reception (where I enjoyed the yummy food and drink). At the reception I met a girl who was doing her PhD on the effects of weather on kangaroos and she invited me to go kangaroo tracking the next day! So without even trying I had set myself up to spend a day running around in the wilderness tracking down roos. Perhaps not everybody’s cup of tea, but definitely my idea of a great vacation. After the wedding we met Holly at a Russian vodka bar named “After the Tears”, which we felt was quite appropriate for our Patagonian reunion (we all cried on that trip, some more outwardly than others). The first 8 pages of the menu consisted of unpronounceable vodka drinks. After some fabulous food and a taste of absinthe we headed back to Holly’s for … THE CAKE FIGHT!!!

We began by unwrapping all of our ammo, and stashing it in our respective corners of Holly’s yard. Then began the most epic cakefight I have ever been involved in (actually it was the only cakefight I’ve ever had, but it was still pretty epic). We had enough cake to feed an army, not to mention the family sized pavlova, 7 cans of whipped cream and 3 bottles of chocolate sauce. An entire hour of hilarity ensued, I haven’t laughed so hard that my stomach hurt and I couldn’t stand up in ages. The best part was when a random man over the fence asked us if we had any drugs to sell him to which we replied “of course not, do we look like we’re on drugs”, and then quickly realized that covered in cake and chocolate sauce we probably did (but we weren’t). Now some of you might not appreciate the glory of the cake fight, and to those people I can only say that I feel very sorry for you, as it is definitely something that should be on everybody’s life TODO list.

After awesomeness such as a cake fighting you might think that my trip would become less exciting … but no, I still had kangaroo tracking to come! I headed to a park outside of Melbourne with Jessica (the PhD student) to help her track roos for a couple of days. She had several of them with radio collars on, so we drove around the park looking to pick up radio signals from them, at which point we would hop out of the van and wander in the forest until we found the roos location. I have never seen so many kangaroos in my life! There were sometimes 30 of them just sitting on a hillside chilling out.

I didn’t get around to any touristy stuff in Aussie, but I had a fabulous time. I think travel is best done where you can go somewhere, meet up with or make some friends and then have fun with whatever randomness occurs!

Q: Where are the Silly Isles? (It definitely wasn’t spelt “silly” but we didn’t know the proper spelling)
A: They could be f***ing anywhere, where sillyness occurs!

Q: What is a ostler?
A: An ostrich hustler.

Q: I can’t remember the question, something about the name of a french chicken.
A: The biggest cock in all of France.

Now I’m spending a week in Melbourne, Australia with some friends. Mostly I’m just taking it easy, and enjoying being in a big city again, I hadn’t realized how much I would miss “the big city” living in a much smaller one like Dunedin. Plus Melbourne is a lot like Vancouver, there’s a sushi restaurant on every corner, not to mention all the other yummy cuisines. There are heaps of asian stores, coffee shops and a nice waterfront. Wandering around the downtown core I feel like I could almost be home. I’m looking forward to the next week spent here before I fly back to New Zealand for the next few months. Then my plans are to head back to Dunedin where I’ll be working until the end of October at which point I’ll have to decide whether to stick around for a bit of NZ summer, or maybe head to SE Asia for some sun before coming home to my second winter this year.

Our 6 person successful pyramid before the failed 10 person one.

After a night spent at Princhester Hut we drove to the Mavora Lakes trailhead. The tramp was down through a beautiful valley, with snow capped mountains all around us. The weather actually co-operated and it cleared up a bit on the Saturday so we had some sun. After a yummy lunch in the first hut, Careys Hut we continued on down the valley to Boundary Hut, where we were to spend the night. Once there we made ourselves some mulled wine and proceeded to do “traverses” on just about anything we could find. We began with hut traverses, where you have to climb around and touch all four corners of the hut not touching the floor or the bunks. Rowan and Nick demonstrated their flexibility (or lack thereof some of the time) in climbing around through the rafters while a few of the punters looked on in fear of the hut collapsing around us. Then we moved on to bench traverses, railing traverses and pyramids (success with the 7 man, not so much with the 10 man). After several bruises and cups of mulled wine we moved back into the hut as it was starting to get quite cold outside. 11 of the group members spent the night in the hut, which was quite warm, but Nick was relegated to his tent outside due to his loud snoring from the night before.

We woke up in the morning to snow!

We woke up the next morning to find the ground covered in snow! We packed up and tramped back along the track to the van, stopping for an epic New Zealand vs. Canada, US and Singapore snowball fight, which the foreigners clearly won. When we reached the van again there was 6 inches of snow on the ground, so we quickly drove out of there, praying we were driving out of, not into, the weather. Once we hit the highway we only had to worry about whether or not we’d make it to the next town for gas. But once again blind optimism got us through and we carried on happily to Gore for a feast of pizza and ice cream because we just weren’t cold enough yet. The moral of the story is: mulled wine + good people + yummy food + snow = tons of weekend fun, even if the weather forecast looks bad.

“Are you TRYING to sterilize yourself!?”
- Rowan, in reference to Nick’s multiple attempts at hut traverses through the rafters

Velociraptors at Mavora Lakes

After a good night’s sleep (much better than if we’d camped between the road and the train tracks) we met up with the 200 or so other TWALKers to be driven by bus out to an undisclosed point where the race would begin. It was a perfect day and the location of the event had gorgeous scenery. The bus dumped us off by the side of the road, we were given topo maps of the area with little circles drawn on them for where the clues were placed and everybody took off running.

Team 'Velociraptor Awareness' with our mascot Albi the Racist Raptor

Costumes are popular at TWALK, our team name was “Velociraptor Awareness” and we carried our mascot, Albi the racist raptor (google Albi + FOTC if you don’t get it), along on the first leg. The best costumes though were 3 people dressed as kegs. 17km, 13 of the 14 clues found, many matagari scratches (a plant I have developed a new hatred for) and 6 hours later my group reached the hash house, a shearing shed at the host farm where we could warm up and get fed before heading out on the next leg of the race. We ate as much as we could and then 4 of our 8 team members took off into the dark for the next leg of the race at about 7pm. The rest of us ate and attempted to sleep for a few hours before they came back at midnight having found several clues, but also having fully drained our super bright flashlights for navigating in the dark.

7am after the sun had just come up and we could see where we were again

Only one person in each group has to go for 24 hours, and ours napped for about 2 hours until we headed back out again at 3am. Navigating in the pitch black, with only a compass and a map, no idea where you are, trying to find clues hidden in the bushes was a new challenge to me. After failing miserably on the first clue and falling into the bog we decided to back track and tackle the 3rd leg from end to beginning because the end of it was along fence lines. This would at least give us an idea of where we were. Following a mantra of “follow the fence lines at all costs” we got only slightly lost and ended up on the wrong side of the field we wanted to be on. Fortunately at that point the sun came up, for which we were all very grateful. We found about half the clues on the 3rd leg and returned to the hash house, wrecked physically due to covering lots of kms in the dark and total lack of sleep. It was an awesome weekend though, something I would definitely do again!

“We’re a pretty odd group of people if our idea of fun is to pay 100 dollars to spend the weekend sleep deprived wandering around farms looking for little pieces of plastic with words written on them.”
- at approximately 1am in the hash house, exhausted and sleep deprived

General comments:
-Dinosaurs had nothing to smile about. They lived each and ever day with the imminent threat of magma liquefaction and cannibalization.
-TWO FINGERS! The other three should be tightly clenched. The index and middle fingers should be curved and tense.
-The top lip should be pulled back and tight to expose the teeth. The mouth should be about 65% open, and the lower jaw should be as far as possible to the left.
-Shoulders should be in a high “shrugged” position.
-The head should be tilted to the left. Your cheekbone should touch your shoulder.
-Elbows should be tucked in closely on the sides of the body. Hands (claws) should be about five inches apart, directly in front of the chest.
-There is an enormous amount of literature on leg positioning which I have no time to delve into at present… just keep your feet slightly spayed outward and you won’t get into too much trouble.

Picture of a real dinosaur for inspiration

Standard Face

Profile

Poised and Ready

Attack

Common Pitfalls

Dinosaur transformation/attack (not suitable for minors):

Sincerely,
Cameron

The massive cave we camped out in on long beach

In other news it looks like I’ll be sticking around NZ until at least the end of July, with a couple of side trips to the North Island and Australia. Then I’ll either go and travel around South East Asia for 4 months, or if I can find work here I might keep working in Dunedin for a couple more months and do some South East Asia travel for 1-2 months towards the end of the year. My plans are sort of a work in progress right now.