New Zealand - South Island 2018

If you ever go to Queenstown, always take the window seat. As you near the runway, the aircraft first runs parallel to a mountain range and then takes a U turn showing an amazing view of the Wakatipu lake before finally descending down. The entry was very spectacular.

Day 0 - Queenstown
Tahuna Pod was our first hostel experience ever. NZ stays are in general very expensive.  So it has to be hostel. Tahuna was a delightful stay - very clean, cozy and ample showers. We did some little shopping at the market. I purchased an expensive trekking pole, rented a sleeping bag and some other stuff. We had dinner at Fergburger - a place which had 5K+ rating of 5 star. It was good. We also did some walking around the Wakatipu lake but it was getting cold.

Day 1 -
We started our day early. We had a Milford cruise reservation at 3 pm and awesome things to cover on our way. Drive to Milford was indeed very beautiful. On our way, we had our breakfast at Te Anau after picking my hut passes.  We had breakfast at Sandfly cafe where we discovered few New Zealand quirks -
1. Their Americano is extremely hot because they make Long Black (Two shots of expresso) and add insanely hot water to it.
2. Their native vegetation is Kumara (Sweet Potato) and Pumpkin. All veggie options will have one of the two by default.
3. Their diners do not have an option for Omlette in most of the places. They can make it scrambled, poached, fried etc but not an omlette.

At Te Anau, we were even stopped by a traffic police who had received a complaint against me. I denied it and later on (after 7 days), we got an email from him that his investigation has not led anywhere.

The drive was very beautiful. It gets even better post Te Anau.  We stopped at Eglington Valley, Chasm, Mirror lakes on our way to the Milford cruise. The cruise was decent. Eglington valley and Chasm were very good.

On the way back, we did the Lake Gunn Nature walk which was blissful. The trail is in between these amazing trees and it was all quiet as there was no one else. Our night stay was at Fiordland lodge. Fortunately for us, there was no one else at the lodge and we had the lodge and the entire kitchen for ourselves. We made the ready to eat rice + dal tadka + spinach soup and called it a night.

Day 2 - 

After dropping Kanishka at Te Anau, I went to Divide shelter to start my trek. We packed Subway for both our lunch and dinner.  Kanishka decided to do the Kepler day trek which passed via Dock bay and another one - it was relatively flat but scenic. I will describe Routeburn in detail here - 

Routeburn track started with an slight aggresive climb.  My first point of interest was Summit hill and it was worth to climb up there. While Routeburn definitely had great views, the trail itself was very varied and interesting. Sumit hill gave awesome views of the entire valley.

From Summit hill, I started my descent and reached Howden hut and had my first subway there. Howden hut was on a lakeside and it was very peaceful there. From Howden, I started my 3 hr trek to Mackenzie Hut which was my destination. I will admit that I was pretty tired 40 mins before reaching the Mackenzie hut. The trail was tiring. But along the way, I crossed this amazing waterfall - Earland Falls. It was just majestic to look at it. It was falling from 174 metre above. While it was very beautiful, it was very cold and standing next to the waterfall, it made it very chilly. So, I tried to capture quickly with my eyes and camera and decided to move on. 

Mackenzie hut was also next to a lake but it was too cold and I was too tired to walk anymore. I cooked dinner and went to sleep.

Day 3 -
The next morning, we woke up with slight rain which quickly converted to a snow fall. My hopes for helicopter ride was damped but the hut ranger told that the helicopter will indeed fly today as there is good visibility today. But we have only 4 hrs to make it to the top (Harris Saddle).  The way up was very beautiful but because of snowfall and freezing conditions and a deadline, I had to rush.  But the climb was very beautiful. We could see our hut becoming a smaller as we climbed the hill in front of it. We even saw a rainbow

At Harris Saddle, we were treated with hot water from the rich shelter organized by a private company. After the heli ride down, it was all downhill and I was at Routburn falls hut by 2:30 pm. I tried to find a ranger to check if I can go to the next hut but could not find him. I slept for couple of hrs and then made a dinner of Indian cooking. It was nice and warm.

Day 4 -
I woke up early and left the hut by 6 am all packed to end the hike. It took me 4 hrs to get down. I was really tired by the end of it. Day 3 hike had great views and a nice green-bluish stream flowing next to the trail.  Early morning views were amazing. That moment when the first rays of Sun hit the snow covered mountains and the mountain just shines - it is a wow moment. The camera pics below can not come close to capture it.

 

Upon reaching Glenorchy, I met Kanishka who was staying at this Kinloch lodge and it was very beautiful. This part of Glenorchy-Kinloch was the most beautiful visual scenery of our trip. It was surreal. New zealand has this green carpet covered mountains with sheep on them. Here there were snow peaks in the background, green-ish blue water and no humanity in sight. It was very pretty.

We then did the Lake Sylvan trail hike for couple of hrs and then went to Glenorchy town to do the Lagoon Board walk. Lagoon board walk at Glenorchy is very pretty and were we not tired,  we would have done both loops instead of one. Board walk is a walk on a artificially created  structure over  the swamp of a lagoon. We could see ducks there, mangroves, all in the backdrop of now covered mountains. They had also made several benches for us to sit and enjoy the view.

We drove back to Queenstown and did some more shopping. We stayed at Melbourne lodge for the night. It was ok but completely full. At night, we drove to the Onsen pool to relax our bones and muscles. Onsen pools also have a good option for stargazing but as luck would have it, it was raining there and totally cloudy to have any view at all. But the hot pool was definitely very relaxing.


Day 5 - 
We decided to not explore anything in Queenstown but to drive to Mt. Cook Village and explore Wanaka on the way. At Wanaka, we had this amazing lunch of a Burrito from this Mexican truck - it was inexpensive and probably the best meal of the trip. At Wanaka, we went into the typical touristy mode and clicked pics at the #WanakaTree and also visited the Puzzling world for some interesting 3d puzzles. We also stopped at the Bra rope where many women had hung their bra in support of breast cancer research.

While leaving Wanaka, we say signs of Lavender farm and decided to check it out. Farms were not completely blooming but it was not all brown either. We clicked some snaps and did some Lavender shopping before checking out.

The last 1 hr of drive to reach Mt cook village was the most amazing drive that I did in the entire NZ. It was a never ending road, next to a lake and as you go inside, the views of mountains just keep on getting better.  By 

The day was from over yet. We had a nice big pizza for dinner. Post that, we had booked the stargazing tour. Our lucky streak continued and we got a full clear sky that night. The sky tour was one of the top 3 highlights for both Kanishka and me. That there are so many stars, all visible from naked eye was amazing. With telescopes, we saw the Saturn ring, moon and a big star gas. It was very cold, very dark but an amazing experience. Our tour guides also shared a lot of knowledge and local Maori anecdotes.  Sadly there are no pics but somethings are better like this.

Day 6 - 

The day started with the beautiful Hooker Valley trek. At the end of the trek, we are standing next to a melting glacier which was probably formed when the last ice age came and we could see and hold floating ice masses on this lake. It was a surreal experience.  

After the trek, we started our drive to Christchurch. We were so full with the scenery of Mt. Cook that we totally bypassed Taupo and went straight to Christchurch. Our stay was booked at this Jailhouse hostel which used to be an actual jailhouse.  We had a nice Arabic dinner and slept early to catch up on the lost sleep for yesterday.

Day 7 -
At Christchurch, after having a delicious breakfast at Addington Coffee Co-op, we went to the Botanical gardens and spent an hr or so walking the gardens and watching the peacock fountain.  The botanical gardens were indeed very green and serene. We could have sat there forever but we had to move to the next important thing - the local farmers market of Christchurch. Farmers market - as they all are, very lively and lovely. We had a gala time tasting cheese melts, drinking coffee, local cookies and some other dishes. We had packed our dinner too, we were swamped with food. Yes, ofcourse there was music. I remembered my Mountain View days. We spent good 2 hrs there before hitting the road to Picton.

We crossed Kaikoura where we had some plan for dolphin watching but the tour operator himself said that there are no dolphins visible this time around. So, we ditched it and went strait to Picton. Near Picton, we did a short 45 min walk that took us to an amazing view point for Perillous Sounds. The short walk was very beautiful, very high ROI in terms of scenery and shortly we finished, it started to rain.

Our stay at Picton was at Anakiwa lodge which again was mostly empty and we had the full kitchen to ourselves. We heated all of our Farmers' market food and had a very amazing dinner.


Day 8
Next morning, we checked out at 8 am and then did a 2 hr hike before boarding the Picton ferry. We also had to return our rental car and pick up a new one at Wellington. The hike was decent. We couldnt get to view point as we were worried that we could get late.  The ferry was nice and huge. I slept as I was really tired with lots of driving. It was also quiet cold outside.


The ferry ride was the end of our South island trip. It was indeed better of the two islands. I would recommend that everyone should first do South and then visit North. There are less people here and people too are more friendly. In the Routeburn track, I met a New Zealand couple who lived in Auckland and were doing their first great walk. They also concurred that south was better than north. They also mentioned that they hardly knew any local NZ who has been to Hobbiton. 

There are many spots where LOTR was shot but looking at the local scenery, I realized that they might as well have shot anywhere in New Zealand. It is beautiful everywhere around. 

New Zealand 2018

New Zealand was always a bucket list destination. An LOTR destination :) . What I did not expect was how awesome it will be from a National Parks point of view. New Zealand great walks is something that amazed me instantaneously. Kanishka and I devoured countless hours on researching our travel plan. Two weeks before the trip, I had done so much research that I thought I had already visited the country.  Our trip went from a 12 day trip to a 17 day trip because we were trying to pack in so many things.  Yet, I knew if someone could pull it off, it could be only us.

New Zealand blog is going to be a three part blog post. In this post, I will share about the planning phase and the resulting plan. In the next one, I will cover our South Island trip followed by a post on the northern island.


Which Great walk to do? 
Researching NZ, I came across their Department of Conservation(DoC) website, it is similar to the National Parks concept in US, and its notion of Great Walks. Great Walks are multi day hikes in New Zealand but the trails are fully marked and DoC has built huts along the way for hikers to spend the night. These huts have mattress, portable water, toilet facilities and the best part - a gas connection with lots of stoves for hikers to cook their own meal. There are a total of 10 great walks as of now. It is a fantastic concept and I knew I had to squeeze one of the great walks. The question was - which one?
Milford track was ranked the highest but it was already sold out. Great walks open in last week of Oct but the hut passes can be booked 6 months in advance. Milford track was sold out till December. We began the research on which one is the next best and finally settled on Routeburn track. Pointers -
1. https://jontynz.com/2016/05/01/new-zealand-great-walks-ranked-2/
2. http://www.themissingyear.com/archives/3299

Routeburn was available on all dates of our itinerary. Routeburn is not a circular trek and then posed question of - Should we go from Routeburn shelter to Divide or Divide to Routeburn shelter. We decided to go from Routeburn to Divide side.

Where to land in New Zealand?
Most common itineraries talk about landing in Auckland, doing some stuff in North island, then catch a flight to Christchurch/Queenstown and explore South. Most of the treks that we had wanted to do were in South, so we decided to land in South island. We wanted to get the long hikes out of the way first so that we can then enjoy touristy side of NZ. But as we got down to planning, it was walks and hikes everywhere that were looking so awesome that we decided that it will be a very nature biased trip. But we were afterall in God's second best country :)

So we decided to land in Queenstown and make our way to northern part and then finally depart from Auckland.

Which all walks to do?
The toughest question of all. I had assumed that picking the great walk will the most challenging decision. But I was wrong. Designing an itinerary that covers nice hiking trails is something that just took insane amount of time.
Hooker Valley track in Mt. Cook village was rated very high and I closed on it. But this meant that I will not be able to cover the Franz Joseph glacier and hence was a hard call. This also meant that we will drive via Christchurch to Picton. At Picton, there is this beautiful Queen's Charlotte track and I hoped that I will get some time to spend 4-5 hrs on this track.
On the Northern island side, Tongariro alpine crossing was closed as a day trek. It looked awesome, had the Mordor mountain of LOTR and was ranked as one of the best 10 day walks in the world. It had to be done. Then of course there was Coromandel cove walk.

Abel Tasman is a beach trek and was rated very high but I discarded it as I had just done some beach trekking in Gokarna and wanted to be closed to the mountains.   Bay of islands, some 5 hrs north of Auckland also had to be discarded as I will not be able to fit it in my schedule. Tough decisions had to be taken.

A twist in the leg and hence the tale
After confirming that we will be doing the long hikes, Tongariro one is 19.6 km with an elevation change of close to 4000 ft., both Kanishka and I got to the business of training ourselves. I went up to 75 floors of steps - up and down. Walking to Hotel Dwarka in NR colony meant walking 13 kms and treating ourselves to the best Khali Dosa in town. As part of this, we did one 15km run/walk around Agara followed by some 50 floors of stairs on the next day. This was too much in too little time for Kanishka's feet and she developed lot of pain which the doctor later confirmed to be Fascicia and some tendonitis. The doctor strongly advised rest for 4 weeks but our trip was due in  the same time. While the brutal pain went away in 1 week, it would resurface upon standing for long hours or walking few minutes.
Kanishka started applying the gel and doing heat massages twice everyday to get back. But two weeks before the trip, it was becoming difficult to figure out on whether she could handle the long distance walking or not.  The hut passes were not cancellable two weeks prior to the stay date. Hence we had to make the call.

We decided to take it easy for her and I would do the trek alone. But then the itinerary had to be modified. Earlier, we were taking buses to reach the trek start point and the bus was our way back. With this, we decided to spend more time together and take a rental car. Earlier the plan was to do Routeburn in 3 nights, 4 days but now I cut it down by a day and decided to do it the other way.  This would give us good time to enjoy the Milford cruise. We hired Trackhopper to arrange for a vehicle relocation from one end of the trek to another. It costed a good amount but it gave us some great flexibility in our planning.

The Visa 
Amidst all this planning, I had already applied for Visa. Visa application was simple. But can we book flight tickets before getting Visa? Visa processing time was around 3 weeks and we had a total of 8 weeks before the departure date. One of my office colleagues advised that one should wait for visa. The ticket prices was increasing every day. Plus Oct-end, Nov is the start of season in NZ. Hence it was getting expensive. I took the risk and booked flight tickets before Visa was approved. The cheapest flight with luggage option meant that we had to go via Sydney and Australis also requires a transit visa.  Damn!
We could not apply for Australian transit visa until we had confirmation that we can enter NZ, that is our NZ visa. Some anxious days were spent. One of my office colleagues applied a week after me but got his passport back before me. It drove me more anxious. But fortunately, everything was resolved in due time and it all worked out. NZ visa came in 4 weeks. I submitted my Austrailan transit visa the very next day and got it in 3 days. We were all set.


The final plan - 

We will land in Queenstown on Oct 27th and stay there.
28th Oct - Drive to Milford and take the Milford cruise there. Do as many hikes in Milford as possible.
29th - 31st - I do the Routeburn hike and meet Kanishka at Glenorchy.
31st - We spend time in Glenorchy/Queenstown
1st - We drive down to Mt Cook and spend the night at Mt Cook village. It is a 3 hr drive so we have the morning free for other sightseeing and probably a Gondola ride in Queenstown.
1st night - We had booked the stargazing event at Mt. Cook Observatory.
2nd - We do the Hooker Valley track and then drive to Christchurch. Along the way, we may want to do something at Taupo
3rd - It was an open day. We had to drive to Picton which was a 4 hr drive. But other than that, we can explore ChristChurch/do something at Kaikoura/do some trails at Picton etc.

4th - We take the morning ferry from South island to North island. We will have the 4th evening to spend in Wellington
5th - We explore more in Wellington and in the evening, we drive to Tongariro national park.
6th - I do the Tongariro alpine crossing trek. Kanishka had the option to spend another day at Wellington on 5th and meet me at Tongariro on 6th.
7th - 8th - Rotorua needed two days to fully do justice to the geysers and amazing geo thermal activity here.
8th - Hobbiton - Yes, we had booked a tour and then drive down to Coromandel cove and do the walk.
9th - Explore more in Coromandel cove and then drive to Auckland
10 - Explore Auckland in morning and then take the flight.

Auckland became just a carrier destination in the end. I am sure the city needed more time.  But we made a conscious call to spend more time with nature. The trip was intentionally biased towards driving. You have to go to the nature, not the other way round.

Life In July 1 - Oct 15

A period of calmness and taking things slowly. Not worried about goals and directions. Enjoying life at its pace and be okay with every moment. No guilt, no lofty goals.

Yet, with all of this, there was some action -

Travel - 

1. Trip to Gokarna - Documented here - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.com/2018/08/gokarna-trip-2018.html

2. Trek to Kurinjal peak - With Nitin, Ashutosh and Vikram. Full of leeches and in rain . 3 different type of bus transport. Beer and munchings. Very less planning and no expectations.


Books

Have been very slow on this. In the middle of two books -

1. Baburnama - Very fascinating to read .
2. A feast of vultures - Very difficult to read.


Movies - 
Movies at home have been way better than the one in theatres. Here is a list -

- Miss Sloane - 3.5/5 Debut by Aaron Sorkin featuring Jessica Chastain, this was on my list since the day it was released. Very different from usual Sorkin and loved the story. Highly recommended.

- Blue Valentine - 4/5 Wanting to watch a easy film, I picked up this one hoping how serious it could be but it was totally opposite of easy but very well made and a story that is so difficult to capture.

- Our souls at night  -3.5/5 Loved it. Robert Redford with Ritesh Batra. I am a fan. Suburb life and some serious questions in the background.

- Julie and Julia - 3/5 Okayish film. Good one to watch when one wants to watch a light hearted film.

- Her - 3.5/5 Excellent performances and a life imagined with AI as partners.

- Ex Machina - 3.5/5 Truly a thriller film in its execution and a tad cliched in its ending but still very good. Execution gets full marks and scifi bits are very well done.

- Village Rockstars - 4/5 Kind of the movie that grows on you. Very authentic and genuine film about life of kids in one Assamese village. Very moving and the kind of movie where nothing happens but still it stays with you for a long time.

- Mulk - 3.5/5 Movie of our times . Had to be watched to understand what is happening around us. Good performances but it is just the theme that scores more than anything.

- Manto - 3.5/5 About the writer and his life. Movie mixes his short stories with real life in a very clever way. Good performances as well. But because of its structure does not feel complete. Yet it should not be as it is not fiction

- Mission Impossible Fallout - 4/5 Mindless action at its best. Loved the sound track part of it.


Plays
Macbeth what is done is done  - 2/5 Have never enjoyed their Shakespeare based performances.

Board games - 
Learnt Hanabi and  Blokus . Also played Pictionary twice and Poker. Gaining some traction here.

TV series - 
Finished Shooter - 2/5 Will not recommend.
Line of Duty - 4.5/5 Loved it. Have not seen a police procedural with this much level of dialogue. Brilliant.

Book Review - The Guide by R.K. Narayan

The bliss of having read a book before watching its movie version. The Guide movie is a cult classic, ranked #4 in best Hindi movies of all time (some Time list somewhere). Even with this knowledge, to have grown in India and to have survived to get a chance to read the book first is simply to have very good luck. Having said that, I am writing this post with OSTs of the movie playing in background. Hey - SD Burman's music is God level !

The Guide by R.K. Narayan, (sidenote - RK Narayan and RK Laxman - the cartoonist extraordinaire, are brothers coming from southern tradition where surnames are written before first name) is a fictional novel set in Malgudi chronicling life of Raju. The novel, written in flashback style, describes Raju's present times where he has just been released of prison and his transformation into a local guru. In flashback, he remembers his childhood, his job as a local Guide, and how he fell in love with the wife of a tourist, all the way leading him to be jailed.

The scenes describing the transformation to a local Guru are insane yet believable, hilarious with shades of sadness lurking in the background. The writing breathes simplicity into characters and it is effortless to read through the book. Raju's early days as a Guide are so ahead of its times. For one, the profession of Guide at a train station is something that is almost non-existent and yet so cool. Raju's love interest - Rosie's husband is shown to be a man who is interested in studying drawings of early men in caves. He even travels outside India and ends up with a book with his findings. I have rarely read or even seen an Indian movie which talks about such professions.

But the best part of Guide, what makes me recommend this book is the depiction of relationship between Raju and Rosie. Rosie comes from a family of nachnevali, is frustrated with her marriage but ambivalent of leaving her husband. Raju falls instantly in love with her and the progression of a relationship from a casual affair to something totally unique is the best part of this book.

Post reading the book, I searched and realized that Rk Narayan did not liked the movie and called it 'a misguided guide'. To be honest, I do not think that Indian audience is mature enough to have mass level appeal on what goes on in the book. I have read the movie synopsis and clearly, the movie fails to capture the better part of the book.  I will however watch the film just for curiosity's sake.