February 24th- Feb. 28th
*Disclaimer: This is a novel...prepare yourself.
There is a checklist on our fridge of places that we need to go and sights that we need to see before leaving New Zealand, so Amanda and I decided that we might as well get started on our first weekend all together! We decided to head down to Stewart Island, about 60km south of the South Island (confusing, right?) since the weather isn’t going to get any better and we didn’t want to be hiking in the cold or rain. Never having planned a 4-day trip, much less one in which you need to carry everything on your back, we just dived right in and started searching on Google for buses to get down to the tip of the South Island and then ferries to get across to Stewart Island, where we would start our hike. There is only one ferry service, unfortunately, so they are able to charge rather exorbitant rates but swimming didn’t seem like the greatest option, so that narrowed things down a bit. Both Amanda and I decided to buy 15 hour bus passes, which will force us to use them to travel more in the future, oh darn! Lonely Planet was a huge help in finding a good hostel in Invercargill, which conveniently enough was one of the stops for the bus that would take us to the ferry the next morning to start our tramp!
Of the nine “Great Walks” in New Zealand, one of them, the Rakiura Track, is on Stewart Island. It starts very close to the town that the ferry lands and departs from and is a 3 day tramp, rated easy-moderate. This seemed like the logical choice, so there we go! After a few technical issues in finding buses and ferry times that would get us there and back at reasonable times and leave plenty of time to complete the whole track, we got everyone together (figured we should all meet each other before we set off on a four day trip together…) and let everyone know what we had found and finalized our plans. There ended up being 7 of us for the trip, myself and 3 flatmates (Amanda, Leslie, and Ford), the other girl from St. Olaf, Sarah, and her flatmate, Jesse, and his friend from school, Emily. It was difficult to pack for this trip, but fortunately both Ford and Amanda have both backpacked a little before and were able to guide the process. Our flat decided to buy all of our food together and then split it into individual packages to save on cost and space. The very organized and professional shopping method we used consisted of wandering down every aisle and picking out things that were a) cheap and b) would hopefully survive 4 days unceremoniously stuffed into a backpack. Most gourmet purchase? Cans of “Budget” brand spaghetti and baked beans for the low low price of 69 cents! That, along with peanut butter, trail mix, apples, and dry muesli would be the staples of our diet for the next few days…here we go!
I had a minor moment of panic when we arrived at the bus station on Thursday, all packed and ready to go, and my name wasn’t on the passenger list…oh dear. The woman behind the counter didn’t seem perturbed, however, so I sat down until the line was gone and then she was able to sign me up without any more problems, phew! The bus was a little over 3 hours through New Zealand fields and rolling hills filled with sheep and cattle and rows upon rows of hay bales. We arrived in Invercargill, where we would spend the evening, around 6pm feeling very hungry, which had been aided by our talk of nothing but food for the past hour and reading about all the good restaurants near our hostel. Conveniently, there was a Turkish and an Indian place right across the street (so diverse!) so we were soon filled with kebabs and curry and much happier. I decided to be brave and try my first taste of lamb and my first kebab all in one go; it was definitely a good decision J
After wandering around a rather empty Invercargill for awhile, we stumbled upon what must have been most of the population watching Shakespeare in the Park. We tried to sneakily watch a little, but unfortunately it was about over, so we headed back to our hostel to check out a movie and relax before our real journey began. Since Amanda has never seen “The Return of the King,” we decided that she needed to watch it, seeing as how she might be traveling where it was filmed. They had it at the desk, but there was already a man watching what we found out was “Executive Decision,” a very dramatic movie starring Kurt Russell as he attempts to save a plane which has been hijacked by terrorists. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I won’t give away the end, but it had some great(?) one-liners and kept us right on the edges of our seats, let me tell you! After that cinematic wonder we decided to call it an early night so that we could fully enjoy our last night both indoors and in real beds for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the combination of excitement, nerves, and what sounded like elephants running around the hallways was not very conducive to sleep so we were not quite as well-rested as planned.
The bus came at 8 on Friday morning to take us down to the port of Bluff, from where the ferry would take us across to Stewart Island. We’d heard from others who’d crossed via ferry (my Canadian cousins included) that the journey could be a bit rough so we were all slightly concerned that the doggy bags provided would have to be utilized by at least one of the company. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and though the ferry zipped along at around 60 kph, which led to rather large up-and-down swells, there wasn’t any more rough water than that and we got to see not one, but two rainbows on the hour trip before we even got to the island! This seemed like a very good omen J We also got to see some people on a small boat going down in a cage to observe the great white sharks which apparently swim in the bay where we were headed…that certainly discouraged me from going for a swim, even if I’d wanted to brave the freezing water.
Once we’d landed on the island, we headed for the Department of Conservation (DOC) office to register that we were headed out so that they could give us some directions and send out a search party if we didn’t come back on the day that we planned. Since we arrived so early in the morning, the man there told us about an additional track, Ryan’s Creek Trail, which we could take along the coast before we started the official Rakiura track, which would have gorgeous scenery and only add 3-4 km to our hike. Being young and still enthusiastic about hiking, we decided to go for it and started off through town (only about 400m) and off into the bush! It was definitely worth the extra kilometers to walk along the coast for awhile before heading into the forest. Some of the best views of the trip were through the trees to gorgeous beaches and rock formations in the bright teal water. The colors were so vibrant, it almost didn’t look real! We were very luck in the weather for the whole trip, the only time it rained was to sprinkle on us a little as we started off on the first day, but this led to yet another rainbow, the end of which we could actually see coming up out of the water. Another good sign? Definitely J
When we reached the actual beginning of the Rakiura Track, the sign pointed us in the direction of North Arm Hut, which is just a little farther than the first campsite: 11.5km and 4.5 hours away…better get moving! After this the trail moved off the coast and into more wooded areas. It was really interesting how the trees would change type all of a sudden, from huge ferns to tall skinny trunks with leaves only at the very top, then into more bushy foliage again with no clear reason that I could see for the transition. Parts of the trail were very wide and easy to follow, but a lot of the time we were following a narrow trail that was fortunately marked by frequent orange triangles to point us on our way. By the end of about 5 more hours of hiking up and down hills and steps and climbing our way through the trees to avoid the muddy sections of the path, all of our packs were starting to feel rather heavy, not to mention the dents that had begun to form in our hip bones from weight of the bottom strap wrapped around them. Suddenly, after only a little ways over more mud and up more wooden steps, we came around a bend and to our delight were greeted by the sign for Sawdust Bay campsite! Hallelujah! We saw a little path leading down to the actual bay, but decided to set our packs down before braving any more trails. The campsite consisted of a small shelter with a sink, a couple benches, and a large reservoir with water filtered (hopefully…) straight off the roof of the shelter. Ready, set, rough it. There was also a metal port-a-potty, for which we had fortunately brought our own toilet paper. At first, we were rather distressed because the outhouse seemed to be locked and we were worried that we’d be using the nature latrine for the night. But, with a little working of the lock with a handy stick and the proper leverage Jesse managed to get the door open, much to the girls’ relief!
It was around 5 when we arrived at the campsite so we decided to go down and explore the bay before dinner. It was low tide, which was really cool because we could walk out a long ways and around to a small rock bay on the far side. We could see what looked like the remains of some rusted submarine or train car back in the little bay, so Jesse, Sarah, Ford and I went to investigate! It was a pretty easy climb over some rocks to get to the back where we were able to get a closer look at what appeared to be two extremely old train cars that had been abandoned long ago. A little farther back, there were two really pretty little waterfalls; totally worth the climb! After we got back to the main beach we were all getting pretty hungry so we walked back across the sand to the shoreline. Unforeseen difficulty: the beach was so expansive at low tide that we couldn’t tell where we had climbed down from above…uh oh. We walked along searching for the path to get back up to the campsite and contemplating how difficult it would be to climb up through the trees and whether or not we’d be able to find the trail or the camp. Luckily, we were eventually able to find the little path back up to the top and so avoided any unnecessary bush-whacking. 
For dinner, we brought out our beans, spaghetti, and sporks (awesome camping utensil which combines spoon, fork, and knife) and the old can opener which had been left in our kitchen by the previous flat owners. As we soon discovered, this can opener had been abandoned for a very good reason: it is very reluctant to perform the sole function for which it was created. Shoot. However, with the proper technique (still not really sure what that was, but it involved a lot of cajoling and threatening of the tool and can alike, on my part) I was able to open (mutilate) the first can enough to squeeze some of the beans out of the top. Success! Unfortunately, I was a bit overzealous in getting the top of the can off and ended up getting sprayed in tomato paste before it came off enough to get at the beans…well played, can. Ford decided to try his hand at opening the spaghetti, but only succeeded in poking a hole in the side of the can and getting rather sticky, from spaghetti tomato paste this time instead of bean tomato paste. Yum. Since I’d already had some success with the now appropriately dubbed “devil can opener” I volunteered to wrestle with it again and this time actually had more success! I managed to cut all around the lid, only having to restart about 10 times instead of 20 and didn’t get sprayed at all! Anna: 2, Can opener: 1. This feat earned me the title of “The Can Whisperer,” of which I am quite proud J Sarah, Emily, and Jesse were rather skeptical of our cold, canned meals so of course we offered to let them try some. The spaghetti was definitely subpar, very sweet and kind of slimy…but it was hilarious to watch their faces as they got their first taste. Since they had brought enough peanut butter for sandwiches for dinner as well as lunch, they didn’t need to try to convince themselves that cold, canned spaghetti wasn’t really so bad, like we did, and so the true feelings came out. But really, it could have been worse. The beans were actually not that bad, and if we’d only been able to make a fire it would have been quite the feast! Kind of…
After dinner we set up the 2 tents, which fortunately were very simple, and then tackled the tent fly, which was basically a big tarp with strings on each corner and in the middle of each side to tie to trees to form a shelter from the rain, if little else. None of us really knew what to do with the large red “flap,” as we dubbed it, so after much contemplation and many befuddled looks we just started tying it up and managed to form a surprisingly pleasing little lean-to, with part of the tarp folded underneath so that we wouldn’t be sleeping directly on the ground. After establishing our little tent city, we went back down to the beach to watch the sunset from some large rocks that we’d seen earlier in the day. By this time, the tide had come in quite a ways so the beach was much narrower and we made sure to keep an eye on our path off the rocks so that we wouldn’t have to do any unplanned swimming. A little surprise: when we climbed up to a large boulder to make our perch, we were greeted by the skull of some animal planted on a stick amidst the ro
cks. Slightly reminiscent of Lord of the Flies and rather disconcerting. Once we got past that, however, it was wonderful to sit up on a boulder, looking out over the ocean with 6 other people, 5 of whom I hadn’t known 2 weeks before, and be able to share something so peaceful and beautiful. By the time the sun actually started to set, the tide had come up enough that we were getting a little nervous about our rock turning into an island so we went back down to the now very small strip of beach and watched the most picturesque sunset over the bay, complete with little birds who looked slightly like penguins from afar flying across the sun right as it was dipping below the horizon. It was just about as perfect as we could have asked for.
Once the sun went down we hiked back up to our campsite and played a few rounds of cards before bed, but we were all pretty tired from our first day on the track and soon crawled into our respective sleeping places. Ford, Jesse, and Emily got the honor of spending the first night in the flap, while Sarah and I shared one tent and Leslie and Amanda the other. We said good night and crawled into our mummy bags, pulling the strings tight so that all that was sticking out were our noses and attempted to fall asleep while listening to the sounds of the woods around us and hoping to hear the high pitched call of the elusive kiwi bird.To be continued…
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