You can’t simply use repellent and hope they stay away. They are mindless but ferocious creatures, entire platoons thirsty for blood. I killed them, slain them all. You can either hide in your tent (which is nearly impossible to put up when bullets are flying next to your ears) or car ( but they come in anyway), or you counterstrike and use the repellent like a kind of mustard gas. I had to use both tactics together when I entered the lair of the enemy near lake Rotoroa, the biggest of the two Nelson Lakes. No mercy was to be shown and now there’s a battlefield strewn with black corpses on Dashboard Plateau. Bringer of death and destruction, that’s how they will remember me.
After such a heavy battle, a man needs some time to think about his cruel but necessary deeds. A nice day walk to the Sabine hut at the other side of the lake on a real trail, not a wheelchair road, seemed perfect. Only, it was 15km to the other side, which meant at least 30km return. Actually I liked this single hike more than the whole Abel Tasman. There was just nobody out there. You follow this tiny trail through a beech (beuk) and birch (berk) forest just next to the lakeshore, jumping over or crawling under fallen trees, crossing little creeks, up and down all the time. It really seemed an ambush of Uruk Hai’s was waiting for me somewhere in that massive forest. In all my enthousiasm running up and down, the last few centimeters where my sole was attached to the front of my shoe came off. It just looked like a big flapper and guess where I saw this before. Yeah, somewhere in Céüse last year, the infamous T.D.D. had a remarkable flapper to. Well walking with a flapper isn’t easy, and sometimes you stumble over your own feet as the flapper folds under the shoe, but I arrived at the hut, and there was nobody, again. I think I was the first and only person that day. Chill, a big hut only for me. Going back I felt really really tired, and was welcomed by a sand fly retaliation attack. Time to move on.
1OOkm to the west in Westport, salvation awaited. The first shower in 10 days. A record and you feel like reborn afterwards when you can wash of all edible and non-edible things that you have been backpacking all the time. Under the shower I thought I had became blind. I was closing my eyes for the soap, and when I opened them, I couldn’t see a thing, only blackness. WTF! I turned around and could see some emergency light. Looked like there was a timer or something. Getting out of the shower naked and wet looking for the door and turn on the light, which was not easy. After that straight to the backstreet laundromat to wash my clothes. I don’t like to wash my clothes in laundromats, because they always smell more afterwards than before, and they are never really clean. At least I could read about a woman who suffered from a rare skin disease, losing all her skin over her entire body, in the local Story, of course with some vivid close-ups. And also about a fat woman who lost her fat. Westport is pretty boring. There is some historic mining things to visit in the area. The whole west coast was actually turned upside down in the search for gold, coals and all that stuff, but me not wanna pay to see all that. So moveuh.
On the way to Greymouth, I stopped in Charleston, nothing more than a couple of houses. There was a parking next to the beach, but you can’t stay anywhere overnight on these carparks. And in the 0,01% chance they find and catch you, paf 200dollars poorer. But I saw a little gravel road leading to a cemetery just before entering the village. Ok, let’s check it out. It turned out this was an old graveyard with people who died 150 to 200 years ago. A perfect spot out of sight. But I felt slightly discomforted with the whole idea. Ok there is nothing going to happen, but just sleeping between all those graves. Yeah right, back in the car, and getting out of here. But after 10m, I stopped, thinking this was a nice opportunity to see how the human imagination might work. On top of that, it was full moon tonight. Great, mister lycantropicus meets lady sepulchral ghoul. Once in the tent, it was getting dark soon. I managed to fix my shoe with Selleys shoe glue, ideal to repair, and got almost high from all the vapours in the tent. After that playing a few rounds of blackjack with virtual computer characters, wasting virtual money, symbolizing my own life. But now it was too late and unsafe to break up the tent. Time to go to bed. Not that I felt scared, but you really can’t imagine how focused you listen to every single sound. Birds, wind, grass. My beard rubbing against my sleeping bag. I had my little hammer ready next to me, just in case. I really had strange dreams that night. About a kind of factory volcano in the middle of a city that exploded and one single flying rock just destroyed a whole skyscraper, and more flying rocks followed. So you couldn’t stay in the buildings, but also not outside of them, but I can’t remember what I did then, but inside the volcano it was freaking hot. Next morning I woke up next to my mattress and realized that this was pretty soft. How much luck can you have when you are dead!
Next day, some more brave stories. First stop: Fox River Cave. A small, but free cave, only 1,5h walking from the parking lot. The area here looks pretty much the same as the karst rocks in China. You follow a river upstream through a nice gorge, just to a big hole in one of the rocks. There was, again, nobody. You put your head torch on and continue. Once in the cave there’s only one way to follow, and it’s easy to walk, but you would start crying if your torch broke. I tested it, and it’s so dark, you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face. Unfortunately deeper in the cave the trail was flooded. I tried to continue, taking of my shoes, but it was so cold, and a little bit further you almost had to crawl on hand an knees. Better to return, if something happens here, with no cell phone coverage or without anyone knowing where you are, you could easily become the next Gollum. And being alone far from civilization and surrounded by total darkness in a cave aroused again a slight discomfort. It’s all about bravery man, it’s all about bravery.
At the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks this hero could again act as a real tourist. The rocks have been sculpted by the sea and the rain over millions of years, forming thin layers on top of each other, just resembling pancakes. The process is called stylobedding, but there are still some mysteries around it. There is also a blowhole, but the sea
was too calm and it was low tide, so no show here. Moveuh!
Now I’m looking over Lake Brunner to the Southern Alps, thinking about the adventures that await me there.
1OOkm to the west in Westport, salvation awaited. The first shower in 10 days. A record and you feel like reborn afterwards when you can wash of all edible and non-edible things that you have been backpacking all the time. Under the shower I thought I had became blind. I was closing my eyes for the soap, and when I opened them, I couldn’t see a thing, only blackness. WTF! I turned around and could see some emergency light. Looked like there was a timer or something. Getting out of the shower naked and wet looking for the door and turn on the light, which was not easy. After that straight to the backstreet laundromat to wash my clothes. I don’t like to wash my clothes in laundromats, because they always smell more afterwards than before, and they are never really clean. At least I could read about a woman who suffered from a rare skin disease, losing all her skin over her entire body, in the local Story, of course with some vivid close-ups. And also about a fat woman who lost her fat. Westport is pretty boring. There is some historic mining things to visit in the area. The whole west coast was actually turned upside down in the search for gold, coals and all that stuff, but me not wanna pay to see all that. So moveuh.
On the way to Greymouth, I stopped in Charleston, nothing more than a couple of houses. There was a parking next to the beach, but you can’t stay anywhere overnight on these carparks. And in the 0,01% chance they find and catch you, paf 200dollars poorer. But I saw a little gravel road leading to a cemetery just before entering the village. Ok, let’s check it out. It turned out this was an old graveyard with people who died 150 to 200 years ago. A perfect spot out of sight. But I felt slightly discomforted with the whole idea. Ok there is nothing going to happen, but just sleeping between all those graves. Yeah right, back in the car, and getting out of here. But after 10m, I stopped, thinking this was a nice opportunity to see how the human imagination might work. On top of that, it was full moon tonight. Great, mister lycantropicus meets lady sepulchral ghoul. Once in the tent, it was getting dark soon. I managed to fix my shoe with Selleys shoe glue, ideal to repair, and got almost high from all the vapours in the tent. After that playing a few rounds of blackjack with virtual computer characters, wasting virtual money, symbolizing my own life. But now it was too late and unsafe to break up the tent. Time to go to bed. Not that I felt scared, but you really can’t imagine how focused you listen to every single sound. Birds, wind, grass. My beard rubbing against my sleeping bag. I had my little hammer ready next to me, just in case. I really had strange dreams that night. About a kind of factory volcano in the middle of a city that exploded and one single flying rock just destroyed a whole skyscraper, and more flying rocks followed. So you couldn’t stay in the buildings, but also not outside of them, but I can’t remember what I did then, but inside the volcano it was freaking hot. Next morning I woke up next to my mattress and realized that this was pretty soft. How much luck can you have when you are dead!
Next day, some more brave stories. First stop: Fox River Cave. A small, but free cave, only 1,5h walking from the parking lot. The area here looks pretty much the same as the karst rocks in China. You follow a river upstream through a nice gorge, just to a big hole in one of the rocks. There was, again, nobody. You put your head torch on and continue. Once in the cave there’s only one way to follow, and it’s easy to walk, but you would start crying if your torch broke. I tested it, and it’s so dark, you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face. Unfortunately deeper in the cave the trail was flooded. I tried to continue, taking of my shoes, but it was so cold, and a little bit further you almost had to crawl on hand an knees. Better to return, if something happens here, with no cell phone coverage or without anyone knowing where you are, you could easily become the next Gollum. And being alone far from civilization and surrounded by total darkness in a cave aroused again a slight discomfort. It’s all about bravery man, it’s all about bravery.
At the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks this hero could again act as a real tourist. The rocks have been sculpted by the sea and the rain over millions of years, forming thin layers on top of each other, just resembling pancakes. The process is called stylobedding, but there are still some mysteries around it. There is also a blowhole, but the sea
was too calm and it was low tide, so no show here. Moveuh!
Now I’m looking over Lake Brunner to the Southern Alps, thinking about the adventures that await me there.
