Great Walks

While we used to wake up to romantically babbling rivers, softly bleating sheep, or kiwis rustling around our bus, reality has caught up with us: a big construction site next to the campsite, smoke from the factory above us, and thundering airplanes from Nelson Airport! Welcome to the North Island! But back in civilization, we can also make use of its achievements, sitting in the sun and finally posting a text for the neglected blog. While Helmut is exacerbating the ongoing water shortage and taking a hot shower!
So we drove up the West Coast, that was your knowledge. I will add a few pictures to the previous post. A really beautiful stretch of coastline. People argue whether it is more beautiful than the famous Highway No 1 in California. But the Maori spirit has definitely ensured that no one, once they get out of the car, lingers too long: either it's pouring rain or the little devilish sandflies immediately start biting you! If you ever want to train your self-control, come here and let yourself be bitten. Not scratching is the great art. If you manage that, the bites stay small, if you don't, they become wonderfully inflamed and annoy you even longer. Or eventually, your body gives up. After 5 bites on my right hand, my wrist became so swollen that you couldn't see a vein anymore and my hand fell asleep at night! You should also avoid disagreeing too much with your travel companions, the constant itching triggers a slightly irritated mood. It's a bit like going grocery shopping together when you're hungry!
But enough of the suffering, the post is called Great Walks and I wanted to talk about hiking here.
The New Zealanders have established so-called Great Walks on both islands. In total there are ten. They are set up at particularly beautiful natural phenomena or great scenic spots, on foot or by kayak, always multi-day trips, always to be booked well in advance. Overnight stays can be in a tent, often they are not circular routes, the return transport is then done by water taxi, car or sometimes by helicopter. The New Zealanders have a fairly well-developed hut system everywhere along the hiking trails. However, these huts are not serviced, but equipped with simple beds, wood stoves and a water source nearby. This is also the case on the Great Walks. For a mere €48 you get a spot there, of course you bring your own sleeping bag and mattress. The attentive reader will remember our hiking descriptions from Chile. The difference now: we even have a tent with us. Still, somehow we are not drawn to the crowded trails. Kepler Trek, Stewart Island, Abel Tasman... We pass them all by because the options here are simply different. There are so many trails and so many huts. In the guidebook we come across a small hint about the Angelus Hut trail. 6 hours uphill, just under 1000 meters, a beautiful hut with a lake. And so we drive from the coast to St. Arnaud, where even some New Zealanders asked, where to!? The campsite in the forest is wonderfully deserted and the next day we walk the trail with a maximum of 10 people. It's a bit like in the Alps, you walk, overtake each other, meet up after the break and finally at the hut. A German couple who have already experienced New Zealand confirms to us that this is much more beautiful than any Great Walk. We jump into the ice-cold lake and quickly get out again, us Germans naked, the New Zealanders in their underwear, which flutters in the sun on the balcony railing to dry. In the evening, everyone cooks on their gas stove. Creative, what is being brought along. The young hut volunteer hands us freshly hunted mountain antelope.
The path down the next day is like the Finnish Expo Pavilion or rather: designed for the Bundesgartenschau: across meadows, along the river, across it, through the jungle, through the forest... We have become masters of crossing rivers on stones, balancing on tree trunks, trudging through the muddy source area, climbing over rocks or fallen trees. Okay, in the end the path through the forest back up to the parking lot is long and we are really sweaty and exhausted with our heavy backpacks. But it was great!