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The...Express hits Fiordland

Into the fray 27th Decmber 1987. Well here we were, Te Anau. It was mid-afternoon, hot, and Jenny and Iain still hadn't arrived. Marge, Bear and I were about to give up when the car turned up. Iain had found out that Te Anau and Queenstown aren't on the same road, but not for a while! Unpack, repack. How many kilos of milk powder?? Down the road to the 'yellow bus' for our last greasies then onto the floatplane. Liftoff at 7pm, and away. The highlights were the views of snow-sprinkled rock walls at our wing tip, and the tops surrounding Lake Manapouri and the Seaforth track. The bubbling, vivacious Marge of the past three days had become rather pale and quiet tho', nothing a quick bank and dive into Long Sound couldn't fix. Alone! (Well, just us four and 2000 sandflies...each.)

Day 1 Low cloud, pushed along by an enthusiastic northwester, greeted us in the morning. Off up the Richard Burn, moss and boulder scrambling past gorges and through the beech forest. By mid-afternoon it was raining and we were still plugging our way way up to the head of the true left branch, more waterfalls and beech forest. There was heaps of deer sign around and this conclusion was backed up when I virtually walked into a hind! We kept on pluggin' on, the group starting to look just a tad buggered and there were no really good campsites in sight when off to our right there it was - a rock biv! Great! It was here that Iain discovered the lever. The rain kept on falling...

Day 2 Still raining. From our biv we vertically bashed our way up to the bushline for 2 hours. Oh the joy at reaching horizontal open country! Lunch in the rain amongst the forest patches and granite outcrops. Another near vertical bash saw us on the tops, the Cameron Mountains surrounding us and Lake Monk to the south. This lake was first discovered in 1951 from the air by a guy called Monk (surprise!) and had only been visited occasionally since then.

We had a look at our planned route over some unnamed mountains,... and promptly took the other route, over Rugged Mountain. At this point Jenny decided to demonstrate the principle of gravity to us and slid 15 metres down a rock face. This is just great in the hallowed vaults of Victoria University but not really all that practical 80kms from the nearest roadend. We played along anyway, bandaged her gashed hand and than set out to find the impossible: a flat, dry, sheltered campsite on the southern fiordland tops. We found it. Up went the Olympuses and on went tea. The rain kept falling...

Day 3 Pit day while Jenny's bruises developed to their full blown glory. A day noted for the amount of reading that got done and the amount of rain that fell. Need I say more?

Day 4 Hmm, snow showers. Oh well the weather could only get better. Off down to the head of Lake Monk after talking to the keas. Up to a saddle to the east and up onto the tops. These tops were snow-covered and so steep that they didn't even have much tussock on them. Into the next valley then, and off down to the south end of Lake Monk. Unfortunately the scrub a few hundred metres above Lake Monk did not change to beech forest at the lake shore. The ensuing six hours were spent bashing our way round the lake through very slippery old man leatherwood and past bluffs. One fun kilometre. More euphoria at reaching the open country at the head of the left branch of Big River. Down to a bench surrounded by overhanging granite bluffs, celery pine and mountain cedar,where we lashed out by having a whole 500 grams of spaghetti, and chocolate bikkies for tea. New Years eve was spent in an Olympus: four of us, a bottle of Baileys, a 350ml of Drambuie, and numerous renditions of 'Auld ang syne'.

Day 5 New Years day dawned cloudless and calm, and if you looked hard enough you could just,if ya squinted, and thought hard, see the sea down the end of the valley. The day's tramping started a tad late as it was decided that drying everything that was damp was a good idea (i.e. everything).

Yet another bash ensued, down to the valley floor, you can get up and down anything with scrub on it! From the floor we spotted the outlet to Lake Monk, a white fan of water spreading over a shoulder of granite, surrounded by even more overhanging hunks of the stuff. From here we pottered on down the valley, bypassing the occasional gorge and checking out waterfalls (none are marked ). For one in particular that flicked the entire river back and forth we coined the name 'Switchback Falls'.

As we moved down further the deer sign became more and more noticeable and the peppertree more prevalent (especially at face height!). After passing a small lake a campsite was finally found in amongst the moss.

Day 6 Another fine day. Is this really Fiordland? More peppertree and deer tracks. Once page 64we'd passed the confluence of the two branches of Big River the forest opened up where a massive slip had taken most of the vegetation down to the river. Here we spotted even more deer, a spiker and two hinds, that watched us walking towards them before booting it, and another couple of hinds a tad later. Heaps of people thru here obviously.

Bash, womble, push, step over, slide under, and there before us was the clear, calm waters of Lake Hakapoua. Lunch, sunbathe, and the realisation that the Southern Ocean was only a day away.

The journey down the east shore of the lake meant a negotiation of a 80m high cliff that fell sheer into the water below. Lucky for us Moirs Guide' mentioned a ledge that crossed the face and there it was, about a metre wide, half way up, running under a waterfall. A very useful bit of geology. From here we wandered up to Lake Marshall, and into a very 'sharp' forest (young Dracophyllum and podocarp forest) and almost literally dropped down to Lake Innes. Another wander around a lake, but it was worth it. The campsite was 4-star. We pitched our tents on a sandy beach that gently sloped into crystal calm water. That evening the sunset tinged the high tops with gold, the image reflected in a mirror lake crowded in by sombre forest liberally decked with red explosions of rata blossom. An idyllic spot.

Day 7 The next morning we saw the first signs that people existed, as a Hughes 500 blatted past high over Lake Hakapoua. Off down the Aan River to the coast, thru untouched lowland forest with heaps of Kaka screeching their way back and forth. As we neared the coast the bedrock changed to a mudstone. The combination of this rock and water makes for 'interesting' tramping...the nearer you get the more you're slip slidin' away. All of a sudden there was a swingbridge and the Coast!! Blue sky, white sand, and blue sky with Solander and Stewart Islands on the far horizon. Grins and sandflies all round.

From here we followed the Waitutu track Straight to Waitutu Hut, where we promptly threw ourselves into the (you guessed it) Waitutu River. Ah, clean, ...sort of. It was here we met our first real live other person who promptly served us paua fried in garlic. Another shitty day in paradise.

Day 8 A late start, soft mattresses are hard to get off. We finally wombled off along the track again Straight (and flat) to Wairaurarahiri Hut. Then it pissed down, this is more like fiordland.

Day 9 Today we decide to go via the coast and miss more track tedium. This is cool, we'll catch the low tide and get round a couple of difficult bits, fine. An hour or two into this detour we realised that the tide was slightly higher than hoped, the surf was a little more 'enthusiastic' than is really comfortable, and mudstone forms a nice overhanging aspect when worked on by wave action. A combination of these factors meant that whenever people try to get past these cliffs in these conditions they get wet up to the waist, And wet from the head down as the wave that got their lower half sopping explodes upwards and outwards to join the other waves.

Ah, says Iain, I know how to get around this, I'll wear my raincoat. Unfortunately returning waves have a habit of reaching the incoming ones and shooting vertically in to the air (i.e. Iain gets wet Inside his raincoat and out.). Tramping is such a diverse and fascinating pastime.

On hitting Sandfly point we had lunch and sunbathed - fiordland style, in full storm gears in the wind. Back to the track, and followed an old tramway to Port Craig Hut, an old schoolhouse with a six metre stud and lone Aucklanders tramping in lycra tights. Its got a flush bog too. Our last dinner of the trip consisted of the leftovers - dehy pasta, dehy vege, dehy soup, herbs and spices, and canned fish.

Day 10 Out to 'civilisation'. The first part of the track consisted of a wander out through open beech and rata/rimu forest before dropping down the whata track to the coast. Brilliant white sand, a light surf, forest down to the high water mark, and a lone fishing boat bobbing out in Te Wae Wae Bay in the sun. A few more bays and some negotiation of wierd rock formations between saw us on the gravel road to Tuatapere. The long, hot road bash to follow was a rather depressing way to finish a memorable trip, but it was good to suddenly stumble onto Bear, with the brown Hillman and BEER!! Grins and talking all round, a great wander.

From here we drove six packs and five happy people to Tuatapere for icecreams. Onto the dubious delights of Invergiggle. Motor camp, showers, pub, 'Moas' for steak and chips, and 'He-man' at the movies.

Stewart Island and the Tin Range next, then Mount Cook, the West Coast, life's a bitch....

Thanks heaps for a great trip guys, where to next?

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The crew: Grant Harpo' Harper

Margaret 'Marge' Carpenter

Jenny 'Bruises' Visser

Iain 'Waterfalls' McGlinchy

Logistics: Mike Fee and Grant 'Bear' Singleton

Grant Harper