New Zealand: The Rhabdo Edition

8 days. 3 treks. 105 kilometres. 6,052 metres elevation.

Mileage wise it doesn’t sound like much. But throw in 20kg packs, 100km/hr gusts of wind, horizontal rain, sub-zero temperatures and terrain so steep we had to literally climb up the vegetation, and it takes a little more shape.

You know how you have shower thoughts? Hiking thoughts are also totally a thing. Especially on the long days with a full pack and an ache in your feet that’s nauseating with every step. But when you stop to scan the sky for the helicopter you can hear and realise it’s flying below you, or sit and watch the sunrise from ABOVE the clouds, it’s pretty easy to work out why we keep coming back for more.

Before we get to the heart of the adventure, can I please just take a moment to acknowledge the fabulous woman at Sydney International Airport who keenly handed over her 750mL pump bottle of hand wash at security and then looked on in shock as it was confiscated. The staff explained to her that liquids need to be under 100mL, to which she apologised profusely and declared at the top of her voice that she thought it had to be OVER 100mL.

Yep. I wish her well on her future travels.

Our eight days of adventure were absolutely epic. There were screams of disbelief, fear, trepidation, utter exhaustion, and mind-blowing scenery like something straight out of a movie. It’s hard to truly convey what those days were made up of, but most importantly there was coffee, thanks to my latest purchase, the Wacaco Nanopresso. Oh. My. God. Hello coffee on the track. Hiking life completely transformed.

I’ve taken it upon myself to send this picture to Wacaco. My gift to the marketing world.

The Kepler Track

Three days, two nights. In my head NZ is like this “trekkers paradise”, free from any form of wildlife likely to increase your heart rate.

Incorrect.

Night one we avoided what would have been a serious crisis. It turns out every tent, except ours, was invaded by mice. Like I’m talking legit, ate their way in, and woke up the occupants when they crawled across their faces. The chick who later told us this story also calmly relayed how she tried to catch it in a cup, before gracefully guiding it back out the hole it chewed into her tent.

I just need to speak to this for a moment. Because let me tell you, this would have gone VERY differently if said mouse was in my tent. We were camping on a beach. Tent pegs are only so strong. If I had woken up to a MOUSE, ON MY FACE, there would have been so much fucking commotion and flapping around that the tent would have been ripped out of the ground and sent rolling down the sand into the glacial lake. Which I can’t imagine would be all that helpful for swimming. Goodbye mouse. And Eva.

Anyway, the next morning we packed up camp at 4am to try and avoid the 110km/hr winds forecast for the afternoon. They would have closed the ridge line (which is like the BEST part of the track). As it turned out this was an awesome decision. We made it to a hut in time to wait out some atrocious weather that would have obscured every possible view, and made our longest day on the track pretty uncomfortable. So like good job us.

Even still, we were totally broken by the time we pulled into camp. I didn’t even have the energy to laugh when these randoms rocked up and pitched their tent on top of Chantel’s. She was so pissed off she pulled her fully pitched tent clean out of the ground and stomped over to my campsite with it in her arms. I wish I got it on camera.

We sat down to make dinner and this super happy ranger came over (I assured myself he most definitely had not just walked the track we walked, and that my current state of being absolutely shattered was entirely justified) and beamingly told us about the Kea and how they will eat their way into every tent they find.

Chantel and I stopped in our tracks.

He was like “oh you’ll totally be fine, but just make sure you don’t leave anything that has any form of scent in your tents, and don’t leave your tent unaccompanied. And if you hear them eating their way in then don’t just shuffle them on cause they’ll move on to the next tent. You have to get out of the tent and shoo them away properly until they fly off”.

I was like ummmm, what? How has this not been a thing in all the #keplertrack picture perfect images I’ve seen?! Who are these man-eating birds?! Why the fuck are they EATING into our tents? Where the fuck am I?!

As it turns out, I miraculously woke up to the Kea attack, and managed to move it on rather successfully. I only ended up with a small hole in the bottom of my tent (thank you inconspicuous empty cup-a-soup wrapper) that thankfully wasn’t at all enticing to any mice.

Ball Pass Summit

I don’t even know how to write this part. The day before we started Chantel asked me whether I knew what we were actually doing on this trek. I reminded her she booked it.

I know, it’s not something I’d forget either. But this from the woman who literally ordered a salmon bagel every time we made it to a cafe, told me how she’s madly in love with them and how Krispy Kreme make a mean one and every time she gets an air ambulance transfer after night shift she buys one. Then one morning as she’s eating her eighth salmon bagel for the trip she tells me she’s so glad she discovered them cause she’s never had one before.

I know. I too was speechless. I thought she was joking, but nope, dead pan serious.

Anyway, Ball Pass. We had no idea what we were in for. There had been a massive landslip on the access route normally taken to this track, resulting in the need to take a three hour detour, 300m up a heavily vegetated canyon that was so steep our guide named it “Free-Vegetation-Soloing”, and down a whole lot of scree that rolled away under your feet with every step. That sounds almost helpful on the downhill, but when you’re staring down the face of a 300m drop it’s far less comforting.

It was literally three days of thinking our guide was joking. But also three days of being immersed in an environment I have never encountered before: mesmerising sunsets, remote alpine huts, epic glaciers, seemingly bottomless crevasses, and an opportunity to push myself right out of my comfort zone. Words don’t do it justice.

Mueller Hut Track

It’s funny how perspective changes things. This was a 1,000m climb to an indescribable hut, that literally felt like a walk in the park after the last 6 days.

I also have to say it was quite the relief to be following a trail. In fact we were so relaxed about this one we schlepped two beers to the summit.

The standout on this track was the sunrise we witnessed the following morning. Sitting above the clouds, I have never quite seen views like that before. It was kind of a reminder of how far we had come this trip; how much we had conquered. Sipping tea in the minus three degrees temps, we sat there talking about how lucky we were this trip. Everything – the weather, the experience, the salmon bagels. We could not have asked for more.

A massive thank you to my nutbag partner in crime Chantel, for being the most epic travel buddy on what really was a mega adventure. I can’t think of anyone else who would have been able to stick to such a crazy itinerary and keep smiling, whilst still managing to lose every game of chess, take me on a 50m plummet down a glacier (her crampon game was on point with her chess game) and never fail to let me know when she was off to evacuate her bowels, as she so eloquently put it.

And on that note, that’s a wrap from New Zealand! As I write this I’m perched at Sydney Airport (domestic, bulk liquids allowed) waiting for my flight back to Griffith where I’ll do one more week of work. From there it’s off to Ballina for three weeks with Sexy Lexi (standby for Joaney’s visit aka Mum and Dad) before the next crazy adventure, a week with the Blue Mountains Climbing School! And oh do we have a week planned – it’s literally five days of ticking off some mega bucket list items, including a night on a portaledge. Stay tuned!

Eva X