Kiwi Tracks (5 page)

The Routeburn Track brochure states, in its ‘Winter Dangers’ section: ‘The benched track above Lake Harris becomes a dangerous steep slope crossed by avalanche paths. Deep snowdrifts cover the Hollyford Face. The zigzag above Lake MacKenzie freezes and becomes covered in ice … Avalanches can occur between Earland Falls and Routeburn Falls. The risk is highest in late winter and spring, after heavy rain or snow.’

Great. I’m here in spring, with the heaviest rain and snow for decades. Makes for exciting tramping. I should have brought crampons and an ice pick with me. And a helmet too.

Walking with rain and snow entirely obscuring the views for which the Routeburn track is famous, I have nothing better to do than practise saying out loud a laconic ‘Ah yeah,’ in the Kiwi accent. All day, as I walk through rainforest and climb the dangerously icy steep slopes crossed by avalanche paths, I chant ‘Ah yeah,’ repeatedly to myself like a mantra. I change the inflection in my voice, the pronunciation, the tone and the timbre. Sometimes I almost sound like a Kiwi for several ‘Ah yeahs’ in a row and
then suddenly I lose it again, saying ‘Ah yeh,’ or ‘Ah yuh,’ or ‘Ah yah,’ or even ‘Ah ye.’

At Harris Saddle I eat a picnic lunch consisting mostly of chocolate bars. While being dumped on by heavy snowfall, I hold conversations with myself, designed to give as many reasons to respond, ‘Ah yeah,’ as is socially possible. A few more days travelling alone like this and I will be a babbling idiot. Any eavesdroppers would have reached that conclusion already.

Members of a fluorescent-clad Japanese family pass me by as I munch on a third chocolate bar. They lean into the wind while shielding their faces from pelting hailstones. Their private Kiwi guide leads them, her radio cackling. There are two classes of trampers on the Routeburn, just like the Milford, except here they can walk in both directions. The young son of the family stops to talk to me, determinedly practising his English. Pretending to be a cool Kiwi, I reply with sufficiently close approximations of ‘Ah yeah,’ to his numerous questions. He continues asking me questions, thinking I am the genuine article. Trouble is, I can’t say anything else in Kiwi, so I answer all his questions, no matter what, even if it’s the wrong answer, with ‘Ah yeah.’ He finally gives up and scurries through the hail after his family.

I zigzag down the icy hillside, through snow-covered dense rainforest as thick as I have seen anywhere in New Zealand. Lower down, nearer Lake MacKenzie, amidst the verdant undergrowth where shrubs, lianas and ferns drip on the forest floor, I am the only thing that is not a shade of brilliant green. Small creeks and seepages are smothered with flourishing layers of mosses, lichens, liverworts and filmy ferns, nurturing a damp underworld where fairies surely must thrive. The cushion of greenery absorbs the sounds of nearby waterfalls.

When I reach Lake MacKenzie hut, the warden asks me for my pass.

‘You’re English aren’t you?’ I ask.

‘Naw I’m not. I’m a Kiwi.’

‘Ah yeah,’ I manage to say, phonetically successful for once. ‘Since when?’

‘Ah yeah, four years ago?’ He has that distinctive Kiwi upward inflection at the end of each sentence, but seems to be exaggerating it. At least he has the off-hand ‘Ah yeah,’ down pat, which is more than I can say for myself, despite practising it all day.

‘Ah yuh, you sure picked up the accent fast,’ I say, flubbing the ‘yeah’.

‘I’ve worked at it so the Kiwis don’t pick on me for being loopy,’ he admits.

‘Loopy?’ I repeat, sounding like a North American. He does not look loopy to me.

‘Loopy means a foreigner. Like you,’ he says smugly.

Return to beginning of chapter

Back in Te Anau and after a day’s rest, I bound around the lake. It’s a breezy clear day and I’m feeling good about the physical process of tackling another track. That’s one good thing about tramping for hours every day: I’m so tired, I fall asleep each night despite the thoughts stuck in my head, like the frayed strands of a thread jammed in the eye of a needle. The sound of waves lapping rhythmically on the stony beach reminds me of camping on the shores of lakes in northern Ontario, but the ringing calls of unfamiliar birds render the experience exotic. On the far side of the lake I climb up a wide path carpeted with the delicate brown leaves of beech trees, native conifers like the rimu, which grows as high as sixty metres, miro and kamahai. I stop to watch a tiny bird, a male rifleman, as it chases a female: they dodge in and out of the hanging vines and bearded moss, around tree trunks and through the ferns. Further up the path, the thick bush does not peter out but ends suddenly at over one thousand metres above sea level, in open meadows of tawny tussock grasses covered in a layer of snow.

While I am making dinner in Mount Luxmore Hut on the Kepler Track, Eisaku, a young Japanese, offers me a sushi roll: rice with crunchy salmon skin inside. He sits with me and talks.

‘I have been studying in Auckland for eight months. Now I am tramping around New Zealand.’ He is pensive. ‘Yeah,’ he adds with a perfect Kiwi inflection. ‘I want to stay here. Maybe find a job. Here, is very nice for me. I like New Zealand.’

Eisaku conforms to the stereotypical workaholic image of the Japanese by diligently going through a book full of algebra problems. ‘Good fun!’ he says. They are indecipherable hieroglyphics as far as I am concerned. I unsuccessfully tackle a problem, much to his amusement.

Outside, it is snowing heavily.

It must have snowed all night. Several centimetres of fresh snow cover the ground. This is not what I had expected when I migrated from the northern hemisphere’s upcoming winter to New Zealand’s summer. Although there are enough warnings about the variable weather in the mountains, many of the backpacking-through-Asia-and-Australasia crowd hardly seem equipped for these conditions. The hut warden, another retired teacher, advises those outfitted only with running shoes, jeans and small daypacks to retreat to Te Anau. Others stay in the hut to wait it out for another day.

I elect to go on, perhaps even thankful that the others will not be crowding the track. Eisaku asks if he can join me as far as the next hut and I lend him an extra pair of gloves and a woollen hat. I am happy to include him with me, for the safety factor. We climb the exposed ridges for which this track is well known. The route is snow-covered, and in places it has collected into deep drifts. In good weather, the Kepler Track provides spectacular views on either side but now it is bitterly cold with a howling windstorm. We are well above the tree line, with nothing to protect us from the blast of the wind. At fifteen hundred metres, where a narrow saddle joins two peaks with steep drops down icy slopes, the gusts are strong enough to knock me off balance, despite the weight of the heavy hundred-litre backpack.

Visibility is negligible. I deliberately slow down, taking my time breaking through the fresh snow, making sure Eisaku is always within sight, only a short distance behind me. We trudge through knee and thigh-deep ice-cream curls hanging over the ridgeline, following the faint traces of the track indistinctly marked by the protruding tips of steel rods. The wind accelerates, thumping against the hood of my Gore-Tex jacket. The waterproof cover for my external-frame backpack flaps even louder, like a mainsail in a gale-force wind. I can hear little else. The track twists and turns, rising and falling with the regularity of a roller-coaster ride, and the wind blowing in our faces reinforces the comparison. It demands our respect until we descend through the tree line back into the protection of the forest.

At Iris Burns Hut, the tall bearded hut warden booms at us: ‘Clean up after yerselves in the morning. I’m not yer bloody mother.’ He gives each of us the evil eye. The other trampers in the hut have come the other way, up the valley and have yet to go over the exposed palisades of the Keplers. ‘This morning I had to run after a bunch of Israelis who left their rubbish here. Caught them at Rainbow Reach.’ He looks fiercely around the room. It will be spotless in the morning judging by the faces avoiding his stare; nobody wants him loping after us with our forgotten rubbish. He leaves it to our imagination what he did to the Israelis. Turning to Eisaku and me, he says: ‘You two were a bit of a worry; lucky to make it over the top. Full on up there, mates. Was talking to Mount Luxmore Hut on the radio at three this afternoon and only just able to hear them. Blizzard conditions. Worst spring weather we’ve had in over a decade.’

And that, in Fiordland, says a lot.

Next morning I eagerly extract myself from the warmth of my sleeping-bag and wash my face in icy-cold water. Although I enjoy pitting myself against demanding weather conditions, it would be nice to have a view of the surrounding mountains. The
weather is better than yesterday – the cloud cover is above the mountain peaks. Rather than continue on the track down the valley, I decide to go back over the ridges. Crazy as it may seem, I want to see the Keplers again on a clearer day.

Eisaku decides to complete the circuit. He gives me a gift of Japanese food, instructing me how to cook it. His last words are: ‘Please, you must be very careful.’ They ring in my ears for some time after I set off happily on my own. The patches of clear blue sky reveal fresh snowdrifts and pristine white peaks arching over the ridges, like ocean rollers flash-frozen at the crest just before they collapse. When the sun shines, it is as if millions of diamonds have been left scattered on the bed of fresh snow. If I could, I’d collect them all for a rainy day.

The trek seems to take forever and my tummy growls with hunger. I fantasise about a dinner of lamb chops,
kumara
(sweet potatoes) and corn on the cob, with a dessert of chocolate and ice cream. I can see Te Anau below, corrugated roofs shining prettily amidst the rivers snaking across the glacial delta. I am so hungry I can almost smell the food in the restaurants. Of course, if I was in a real rush to stuff myself with food, I could always pump up my biceps and return to the pub with the special sammies.

‘Are you the guy who stomped out of here in a huff last time?’ the barmaid would enquire, before wrapping me in a wrestler’s lock. I am faint with hunger and that bit of horseplay would probably finish me off.