In New Zealand for two more weeks

I know it's been a while since my last post. Really though nothing too crazy and exciting has happened in the last few weeks. I went on two more tracks in the week and a half after my last post. I tramped both the Kepler and the Milford tracks and both of them were a ton of fun. On the Kepler I met some extremely nice french canadians traveling around the world and also a canadian from Ontario area. Even though both are canadians and under the same goverment they definitely believe they are from different countries. We got along well and hiked and played cards most of the time. This was not the first time I did the Kepler track. While I could have done a track I hadn't been on yet I wanted to do the Kepler for sentimental reasons. In 2005, when I visited my sister after her first experience to Antarctica and future bro-in-law Matt, we all did the Kepler together. During that three days the weather was miserable, I got some of the worst blisters on my feet I've ever had, and was still recovering from bronchitis I had the winter before. However, it was one of the best three days I spent doing anything. At the hut the first night I remember meeting a people from all over the world. There was a swiss family, an american couple, a german, some australians, four israelis, and two very nice women from the UK. Over the next three days I had a great time getting to know this group of people and make it through some pretty rough conditions. Ultimately the entire trip to New Zealand in 2005 gave me the idea to try and make a trip around the world. Those three days probably influenced that idea more than any of the other experiences during the trip. So when I knew I was going to be back traveling New Zealand I definitely had to do the Kepler again. This time the weather was better, not perfect, but definitely nicer. I got to see some of the views I missed the first time and while I didn't meet as many people on the track this time I was able to remember the past and recall the great memories of completing the track the first time.
From the Kepler I went on to the Milford track about a day and a half later. I ran into a bit of bad luck though on the last day of the Kepler. Either a sand fly bit me near my eye or a eye lash decided to grow inward. The result was a sty on my eye that started to hurt and only got worse. I got some eye drops at the pharmacy in the town before starting the Milford but they didn't help. By the time I finished the Milford my eye was in pretty bad shape and sore as can be. The Milford track though was fabulous. Normally it rains almost every day on this track and it can be a lot of rain to the point where you just can't get dry. I lucked out on the days I chose because there was no rain for the entire four day hike and hardly clouds in the sky. The Milford track is New Zealand's most popular track and it is because of the beautiful mountain pass and because of the amazing waterfalls that can occur from high rain fall. I missed out on the waterfalls they spoke of in the guide but I was sure happy to stay dry the entire time. Plus I did get to see the 4th largest waterfall in the world on the track and it was coming down pretty good despite the dry weather. The Southerland Falls had to be the highlight of this trip. On the track I also met some really cool travelers and hung out with two Israeli's guys, a dutch women, two german women, and some more french canadians. It was nice because the Israeli guys and the dutch women were all by themselves as well and so we created a group and hiked together for the entire four days. In those four days we had perfect views of the mountains around us, watched the sun set atop the murchison pass, swam in the river, dunked our heads into two waterfalls, and had perfect views of the stars at night. For the big falls we were able to scramble on the moss ridden rocks behind it and around it. It was a fantastic walk and if it wasn't for the Kepler a favorite because it was my first, the Milford track definitely would have been the best of them all. Just spectacular views and a lot of fun with the people who happened to be on the track at the same time.
After the Milford track I had to go see a doctor and after a small price to pay (Healthcare is so cheap here and so much easier to deal with) I was able to get some anti-biotics. I had been planning on meeting some friends, Gretchen and Ben, who were on the ice with me and so I made the long trip back to Christchurch. They were headed on to Nepal and had a few days in Christchurch to organize before they left. It was really good to see familiar faces, especially people who know more than just the basics of where your from and why your traveling. We spent a few really low key days just eating and catching up. I also used the time to get my eye to heal up a bit. After they left I had planned on getting some things of my own done and little Ivan needed to get inspected in order to be allowed to drive the roads for another six months. Originally I had only planned to stay in Christchurch for about a week but those plans changed quickly when the car failed the inspection and a lot of work was needed to be done on it. Getting the van in a few days after arriving in Christchurch, having to take it to two separate shops and having to deal with another New Zealand holiday cost me some time and I stayed closer to two weeks in total by the time I met Ben and Gretchen and when I left just yesterday. Christchurch is a great city and I love the older style feel of it. However, there really isn't a whole lot to do in Christchurch. After a few small museums and the Botanical Gardens the only thing left going on in Christchurch is the night life. And while it would have been fun to go out every night it would have cost me a fortune to do so. Plus little Ivan has turned out to be a big expense!! I played it pretty low key for the whole time I was there. I met up with the Dutch women from the Milford track for a few days and also met a very sweet Japanese girl at the hostel and spent days hanging out with them. In a way it was nice to have some time to just relax and not do much because in some ways I was starting to get tired of the life of a single traveler. The single traveler is one who doesn't have a friend or a significant other to travel with and in order to make the experience great is forced to make friends of other travelers along the way. I have met a lot of wonderful people throughout New Zealand and I am very thankful for that. However, I definitely began to tire of having the same conversations over and over again. Most of the travelers I've met will spend on average three days at the same hostel or track and then we move on our separate ways. It has been hard to just keep talking about the same things and I realize how much I miss my really good friends from back home and the friends from the ice. Friends that you can go out with and you really don't have to talk, you just know each other.
Now I've got just about two weeks more to go in New Zealand and after being recharged a bit from the long rest I'm ready to finish off the trip. I hope to do one more long track, do some more day hikes, and see some different towns. So little Ivan and I are once again cruising this beautiful island.

Some rain and colder weather

So this entry is going to be far shorter than the last few. Really not a whole lot to write about. I went on my 5 day and four night hike and it was nice. I only say nice because I finally ran into bad luck with the weather. The Routeburn hike is generally described as one of the most beautiful walks in New Zealand. It is a relatively easy hike so anyone can do it and it goes into the alpine areas of the mountains. I can imagine it was a beautiful place if one could actually see it. I ran into three straight days of rain, one day which was absolutely gorgeous, and then rain again on my last day. In some spots the clouds and the fog were so bad that you couldn't see much more than 50 feet off the ridge I was hiking on. Every once in a while the clouds would clear a bit and I would get a good view of what the area looked like. It would have been much better perfectly clear but it was still quite a spectacular view. I met some really nice people on the hike and we hung out and chatted each other up in the evenings. There were a couple Australian people, an Italian, and an Israeli. They were all good people and fun to be around.

They decided to do only the Routeburn and so we left each other on the third day of the hike while I continued on to the Greenstone hike to make a loop and head back to Queenstown. The day I did have good weather it was about the best day I have had since I've been in New Zealand. The temperature was perfect and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The two huts on the Greenstone were not crowded and I met and talked with a couple from the North Island and got a lot of reading done in the book I brought along. People thought I was a bit crazy carrying around in my backpack to book I did. I've been trying to finish War and Peace and the behemoth of a novel is 1301 pages long. Carrying around this book is a bit foolish because of the weight and shear size but I've been drawn into the book so that I had to make room for it in my pack. So I am now within 100 pages of the finish and will likely finish tonight. I'm hoping for a good ending on this one because it has been a long road reading this book as shown by the receipt I'm using as a bookmark. The receipt shows that I bought the book in July 2000!! It's almost been eight years. I've always wanted to read this book but not until I started reading it in the last few weeks of being on the ice could I give it the focus it needed. There were three occasions in which I've read the first 100 or so pages of the book over the last year and half but could never fully get into it because of the numbers of characters and the confusing events in those first chapters. I became hooked this most recent attempt and I'm almost there. It has been one of the best reads. Sometimes novels that are fiction are just pleasure reads and there are really no benefits to reading it. This book has quite a lot of character development and tries to explain why the characters think the way they do. In some of those descriptions I have certainly taken away some ideas to ponder about life in general and how to approach living it. I usually think I'm good at not worrying about small, frivolous things but after reading this book I believe to be even better at it. I'm already planning on reading some more Tolstoy right after finishing this one.

I got done with my hikes and I sort of got pulled into the life of a city again. So these last few days I've been back in Queenstown and have been enjoying going out at night and eating some good food. However, most of my days aren't spent productively. I spend most of my time recovering from the night before, relaxing, and getting some errands done around town. Because I'm not being productive and feel that there really is nothing more for me to see around Queenstown, I'm leaving today for a new place. I'm going to head down to Te Anau for a little while to do another hike or two and to also wait for the Milford trek starting April 11, which is the most popular of all the treks to do in New Zealand. So I'm pretty excited about getting out and seeing something different. That's all I've got this time.