Docko: This Bud Beard's For You

Not only has word reached me that Docko is hankering after something to mock me about (and I've got one word for you, boy: receipt) but it strikes me that all the photos so far have been of the "pretty but dull" (or possibly "pretty dull") variety.

So, in an attempt to satisfy those with a preference for the kind of stories where I fall in a river and also provide some visual variation, I've pulled out all the stops, stayed up late into the night, cranked up the laugh-o-matic and produced the finest joke to appear on this blog - hell, any blog - so far. Click the text below and prepare yourself for something even funnier than Jim Davidson.*

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

Close to spectacular, I'm sure you'll agree. My nearest and dearest have no need to dread being seen with me in public however - no more than usual, anyway - as I shaved it off the other day (they were going to make me leave the country otherwise).

The Facts Behind the Beard:

1) It took a month to reach the state you see above.
2) No, seriously, a month.
3) Yes, there's a hint of ginger there, a fact that saw me briefly consider untying the bungy rope before I jumped.
4) I have no idea what the whole thing with the tongue is about. I could have sworn I had a decent picture of the damn thing but after I'd shaved I only had this one on there, which I couldn't even remember taking.
5) No trimming of any kind occured during the growth period - any bare patches are simply a testament to my lack of testosterone.
6) A girl in Queenstown said it suited me - conclusive proof that subtle humour in the younger generation didn't disappear with the rise of the chav (who would, no doubt, simply have described it as "well gay").

* Jim Davidson strapped to a pool table and having his bollocks used by John Virgo to practice a particularly complex trick shot, that is.

Hungover in Dunedin

First things first: Happy Birthday to my bro Ceej (aka C*Bob), sister Paps, mum and granddad, on the 22nd, 29th, 25th and 28th April respectively - have a great day, I love you all and presents will be forthcoming once I get back to Blighty.

Right then. Click here and have a look at the picture. See the position she's holding? Replace the slinky, leather-clad kung-fu babe with a porky Englishman with a large backpack, a woolly hat and a manic expression and you've got a pretty fair idea of what I was doing every ten minutes on Wednesday.

Allow me to explain. I started the Kepler Track on Tuesday, for once lacking such distractions as crippling hangovers, busty Swedish sexbombs, spectacularly mangled feet or a gnawing sense of guilt. Unaccompanied even by my Official Great Walks co-hiker Danny - who'd moved on to Dunedin with Jane and Jill - I was looking forward to an uneventful walk, and so it proved. For the first day, anyway.

Day two was a touch more eventful. I'm not sure exactly when one of the Chuckle Brothers became a weather forecaster, but believe me, the words on the board in Luxmore Hut the next morning - "moderate winds, rain in the evening, otherwise fine" - could only have been part of Barry's latest crazy scheme. The second I left the hut I was being buffeted by gusts strong enough to knock me off the track a couple of times. Within fifteen minutes the mist closed in, and then it started to rain. Ahead of me lay 10km of exposed alpine trail. Bugger.

After a pretty miserable hour - including one memorable moment when a particularly strong gust combined with a turn in the track to give me a splendid if not entirely welcome view of the valley beyond the ridge - I arrived at the first emergency shelter and stumbled in gratefully. After a while I was joined by another couple, and ten minutes after that pretty much everyone that had left the hut that morning was crammed in there. Happily, that included two experienced hikers who said that they'd never walked in winds like that before, which went some way to allaying my fear that I was being a complete buttercup about the whole situation and there were more rugged types out there laughing manfully at the light breeze and feeble tourists. (To be fair, I was being a buttercup - this was the Kepler Track, not Mt. Cook - but humour me, ok?)

When we finally peered out of the shelter the sun was out, but the wind, if anything, had strengthened. The next section of the track ran along the top of a ridge with sharp drops either side, and it was here that often saw me adopting the Trinity pose. It was mind-buggeringly windy up there, and a backpack catches those gusts a treat, so every time a particularly strong one threatened to tip me over the side I had to drop to the ground, one foot planted against the wind, until it passed. Strangely enough I enjoyed myself immensely, and I had a big grin on my face along the entire ridge which only vanished when the descent to Iris Burn hut began and it started to absolutely chuck it down.

The next morning I sneered at Barry Chuckle's dire warning of heavy rain - and rightly so, it was glorious sunshine all day - and stuck to my really rather stupid plan to walk all the way back to Te Anau, about 37km away, and so it was that my last multi-day tramp in New Zealand ended once again with - you guessed it - blisters.

The next night in Queenstown a bunch of us went out for a couple of quiet drinks, which somehow stretched out to six hours and included a near-fight with two Irish guys over whose turn it was on the pool table (as I argued with one of them I was sidling over to the nearest cue, figuring that I probably wouldn't have time to take off a sock and pop the white ball in it), a load more drinks with the same guys after a fiercely contested game of doubles, and a pleasant incident for the lead singer of Busted (he introduced himself as Frederick from Switzerland but I wasn't fooled, the enormous eyebrows gave him away) when a Kiwi girl walked over, sat on his lap and started kissing him. After about five minutes they strolled off to the toilets - no doubt to discuss the pros and cons of the first-past-the-post electoral system - and I, not envying the young, handsome bastard in the slightest, had his drink away, chucked his passport in the fire and sat in the corner muttering darkly to myself. I arrived in Dunedin the next day with no new friends whatsoever, having spent the entire journey at the back of the bus reeking of ale, with my earphones in and my hood pulled over my eyes.

Right - we're up to date, time for some pictures.


Mounts Cook and Tasman reflected in Lake Matheson. Big version.


Somewhere along the Routeburn. Big version.


Lake Harris from the top of Conical Hill (worth mentioning cos it was a bugger of a climb). Big version.


Cruising on Milford Sound. Big version.


Mitre Peak at Milford Sound. Big version.


A purty rainbow on the Kepler track. Big version.


More of the Kepler, with the path not looking nearly as narrow as it did when I was on the fucker. Big version.


And yet more Kepler goodness. Big version.

"I'm telling you, the hut's just around the next bend"

Howdy peeps. In the last few days I've completed the Routeburn Track (and half of the Greenstone, more of which later), and been out for a cruise on Milford Sound. Both were stunning - the weather as we crossed the Harris Saddle on the Routeburn was as clear as you could ask for - and at some point I'll post a few choice snaps of each. You lucky, lucky people.

For now, though, I want to tell a tale from the last day on the Routeburn.

At the start of the track I met Danny of Heaphy Track fame, and two girls that we'd met in Franz Josef. They'd not done any tramping in New Zealand, had heard of the fabled alpine scenery on this track and signed up. Danny - who seems to be on a mission to misinform as many people as possible in NZ, telling anyone who'll listen that only 6 people have ever climbed Mt. Cook - told them there were pots and pans in all of the track huts, and so they didn't have any of those. They didn't have their own stove. They didn't have quite enough food for what they wanted to do (a 5 day combination of the Routeburn and Greenstone) and they didn't - sweet fancy Moses - they didn't have sleeping bags. One had a 'snuggle sack' - ie, a sleeping bag liner - and the other had some blankets out of her car. For the first two days, we took it in turns to use my billy can to cook our oh-so-delightful noodles, and at nights Danny and I dug into our packs and produced Polartec sweaters for them to wear to bed.

On day three, Danny walked to the Divide at the end of the track, and hitched a ride to Te Anau. I had a very short day, having been grossly misinformed about the time required to get from Mackenzie Hut to the end and thinking I'd need a night at Howden Hut, one hour from the Divide, in order to make my 11 o'clock bus to Milford Sound. The girls - call them Jane and Jill - had decided to walk to the second hut on the Greenstone rather than the first, thanks to their food situation and the fact that the O.C. was on on Friday night.

We arrived at Howden Hut at 10.30, and Danny set off for the Divide. I dropped my pack off at the hut, had a muesli bar and then started walking the Greenstone with Jane and Jill, slightly concerned about the fact that they still had about 7 hours of walking ahead of them. To try and set a decent pace I helped with their packs, carrying one for an hour or so and then the other. This behaviour was not - honest guv'nor - due to any sleazy, sexist or even gallant motivation. The fact was that they were giving me a lift to Te Anau on Sunday, so I had a vested interest in getting them to the hut safely (transport to Te Anau is bloody pricey). At the first hut on the Greenstone, we spoke to a lady walking in the other direction who'd taken nine hours to reach it from the hut we were aiming for. Urk. We grabbed the bags and set off at a quicker pace.

I finally left them at around 2.30. We'd been walking for over four hours and I hadn't brought my torch and so needed to get back to my hut by sunset. By our calculations they had about three hours of walking left. I waved them off and started jogging back the way I'd come.

The first bit of guilt kicked in when I made it back to the Howden hut at five o'clock. I could've easily walked with them for another 45 minutes or so, giving one of them more time without a pack and getting them a bit nearer to the hut. Bugger. I spoke to a guy who had a Greenstone map, a proper map with distances on the tracks rather than estimated times - damn the DOC trackmaps - and realised that where I'd left them was still about 11km from the hut. I think I was slightly delirious from lack of food - nothing but an energy drink and that fucking muesli bar all day - but I started to panic then, convinced that they'd never make it to the hut in time, the sun was nearly down and they had 11km to walk (in my state I completely forgot the 2.5 hours it had taken me to get back, which of course they'd hopefully spent progressing along the track). It was only after I'd eaten my dinner that I calmed down. Of course they'd made it. Two and a half hours from when I left them, and another hour and half until the sun went down. No problem.

The next day I strolled over to the Divide, caught my bus and spent the day at Milford Sound. I got back to my hostel in Queenstown that evening and checked in. As the chap behind the counter swiped my credit card, I glanced at the visitor's book. The top two names on the latest page were Jane's and Jill's - hurrah, they made it! A knot in my stomach that I'd barely even noticed suddenly loosened. Then I looked at the last field in the book - 'What's the scariest thing ever?'

Jane had written 'tramping'. Jill had written 'sleeping out in the forest for a night'. Oh fuck. Surely not - had to be a joke.

"Excuse me, what room are these two in?"
"Number 26 mate, next door to you."

I dropped off my bag and went next door. Jill answered.

"You didn't, did you?" I asked.
"We're never going tramping ever again. Jane can't walk anymore from blisters, she had to borrow someone's sandals to get to the end of the track."
"Jesus Christ," I said, frantically checking my memory to see if I'd ever told them about the Heaphy shenanigans. "What happened?"
"We got to a junction at 5 o'clock that said the Greenstone hut was two hours away, but we took the wrong fork. We ended up wading through a river because we thought we saw a hut - the water was up to our waists - and then the sun went down and we were off the track in the middle of the forest."
"Fucking hell."
"We built a fire and put on every piece of clothing we had, and had to sleep in the woods for the night. We were both crying all the time and thank God we had yours and Danny's sweaters. We got to the hut in the morning and this woman gave us some of her food, and then we walked straight on to the end. We're never tramping again, we thought we were going to die."
"Holy shit."

Morals to draw from this story:

The Scouts are right.
Don't let helpful bag carriers leave you before they absolutely have to.
If you're feeling guilty about something, there's probably a bloody good reason.
The O.C. is not worth dying for.
Eat more than a muesli bar unless you want to stagger back to Howden hut in a slightly manic state, face muddied and clothes ripped from the occasional lurches into the bush that come from dramatically weakened legs.
You don't need to stay at Howden hut to get to the Divide before 11.

Slippin' and a-jumpin'

Things you don't really need to hear, particularly in fairly quick succession:

1) "Yeah, I heard someone died on Fox Glacier about a month ago, just lost his grip and fell into a crevasse."
2) "Hi guys, I'm your guide on the ice today. We'll go round the group and introduce ourselves, ok? My name's Brendan, and I've been guiding people up the glacier for about a month now."

Eeep. By the time they got round to me, it was all I could do not to cry out "My name's Ben and damnit I want to live!" and fall to my knees, sobbing pitifully.

I wasn't convinced that the tale of glacier death was anything more than the backpacker version of an urban myth - see also the bungy jumper who lied about his weight, with spectacular results - but I restrained the urge to employ Google to find out, because Kiwi news reports can be a bit colourful and I didn't fancy reading something like:

"...witnesses say the guy fell for a fucking age, bouncing off razor sharp lumps of ice on the way down and giving the rest of the group an excellent idea of how deep the crevasse was with his agonised screams. Mary, 46, from Christchurch, said:
'What was left of him flowed out of the glacier terminal face like a strawberry slush puppy. I got a great photo of it - want to see?'"

The leaflets describing the Franz Josef glacier hiking experience proudly tell you about the patented Ice Talonz (the 'z' was somehow reassuring, as though if it had been spelled correctly it would have indicated some serious business ahead rather than a tourist attraction), with which you scamper up the ice like the proverbial mountain goat, spikes radiating from your foot at every conceivable angle. You could dance the bloody Charleston and not fall over, for God's sake.

Turns out that's not the case on Fox. I checked in, slightly nervous after reading the sign saying "a good level of fitness is required for the full day hike" as though the receptionist would eye up my beergut, cock an eyebrow, and pull a lever to send me sliding down to the 'Flabby Amateurs' section, and was presented with a gammy pair of leather boots and some ancient crampons that covered about two square inches of sole just before the heel. The next six hours promised to be entertaining.

Well, sorry to disappoint but I owned that ice like a latter-day Shackleton. I was used to walking on the flats of my feet after the mangling they took on the Heaphy, so the required trudging style came naturally to me. The only time I was close to a tumble was towards the end when the ground was more rock than ice and we were all getting a bit cocky, but even then it was a lad called Tim that came a cropper rather than me. Which is all rather boring, so lets move on to something I was far less confident about - bungy jumping!

First thing to be said is that a 43m bungy jump is about 194 times scarier than a 12,000 feet skydive. With the latter there's no moment of truth, no point where it relies on you having the guts to step up and step off. You're strapped to some gung-ho fella who just sees you as another pack fixed to his front, and frankly he doesn't give a toss if you're having second thoughts about something that seemed like a fine idea on the bus.

Bungy jumping though. Standing on a ledge, toes poking out over the end as a strangely familiar gung-ho fella tells you to smile for the camera - I even managed a thumbs up, probably on the basis that if I lost my balance and fell it would save a lot of hassle - counts down from five and then it's all up to you. I intended to shout "motherfucker!" as I jumped (there were lots of schoolkids on the viewing platform and I wanted to do my bit in making the world a slightly worse place) but as I leapt into the void my voice vanished. Nothing, not even a "meep", escaped my lips until the second bounce, at which point I managed a "yeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhwoooooohoooooofuckinyay!"

It's fantastic - shorter than a skydive, obviously, but infinitely better. A boat at the bottom hauled me in and unstrapped me, and I ran up to the girl on my bus who'd just jumped before me.

"I wanna do another one!" I said, "Sod it, I'm doing the Nevis jump, that's three times as high as this one!"

That might've been the adrenalin talking - I really should stick to my itinerary, which sees me starting the Routeburn track tomorrow - but by whatever fictional deity floats your boat, do a bungy when the opportunity arises, you won't regret it.

Oh, and I just searched for glacier deaths - turns out it was on Franz Josef. Those Ice Talonz, eh?

It has come to pass

The planets have aligned, Saturn is in the twelfth house or some such bollocks, and I finally find myself at a decent computer with a fully charged camera, a USB cable and no new tales of woe and suffering to take up my time (watch this space though, because I've booked a six hour walk on Fox Glacier for Saturday. Six hours! Just imagine how many comedy falls I could fit into that timespan). Behold, then, the awesome glory of my holiday snaps thus far!

Oh, one quick point - some of the descriptions are a bit sketchy, because I can't remember exactly what the picture shows half the time. Whilst walking the Abel Tasman track, Melissa told me that she always takes a photo of a nearby signpost before getting a scenery shot, so she would know what it was. I laughed at the time, adding to the already vast list of reasons why I would never see her fully naked* (right underneath "the time I took off my t-shirt to go swimming in Bark Bay"), but damn me I think she might've been on to something.


Somewhere on the Abel Tasman Track. Click here for a bigger version.


The final day on the Heaphy. Big it up here.


Gouland Downs on the Heaphy. Bigness.


More Heaphy final day shenanigans. Big version (rapidly ran out of alternatives there, huh?)


The Pancake Rocks on the West Coast. Big version.


Peter's Pool in Franz Josef. Big version.


The Franz Josef glacier from Sentinel Rock. Big.


A fair bit closer to the glacier. Big version.


Really close. Just as we arrived at the foot of the glacier a whopping great chunk fell off, causing many a "woo-yay!" and leaving the above view. Big me up!

*semi-naked was apparently compulsory.

Learning is fun

Well now, that was educational. That's why I travel, you see - to learn. A little about myself, a bit more about the country I'm in, and ooooooooh shedloads about common sense and not being a fuckwit.

About myself: sandflies love me. My boots hate me. Given a number of options, I will invariably pick the one most likely to end in humiliation.
About the country: the Heaphy Track is beautiful and incredibly diverse, taking in sub-alpine heights, ancient tussock downs and fantastic coastal scenery in the space of 82km. You can spot keas at Perry Saddle Hut (apparently they like to shred hikers' boots - if I'd known this before I'd've left mine outside overnight) and even kiwis if you venture out after dark and have a torch that emits red light (they scarper at the first sign of normal light).
Fuckwit etc: we're going to need a list for this one:

1) Don't get pissed the night before you start the track. No, not even if invited to do so by a couple of barely legal hot American teens (watch my Google hits go through the roof).
2) When Lonely Planet's Tramping in New Zealand describes the track as "easier than any other tramp in Kahurangi National Park" don't mistake easier for easy.
3) Merrily saying "yeah, 3 nights ought to be enough" in the Visitor's Centre when booking hut passes is rather silly.
4) So is saying, in an equally carefree manner, "I'll take all my gear with me, it'll save getting it shipped over to the other end of the track by bus."
5) So is walking 27km in one day on a foot that resembles a slab of raw meat.
6) For the love of God, take a decent blister dressing. Take two. Hell, take three, because if you somehow grow a third foot on the Heaphy the fucker'll blister quicker than you can say "I swear that wasn't there this morning."
7) Once blistered, don't attempt to spare your feet by fording a river rather than using the bridge 100m upstream. Trust me on this one.

I became something of a celebrity on the trail. Many was the time someone would limp into the hut at the end of a tiring day complaining about their boots only for someone to pipe up:

"You think you've got it bad mate? Check out the state this pom's feet are in! Ben, show 'em your heel!"

I'd duly stick my leg out for inspection.

"Christ, it looks like you're being swallowed from the bottom up by a fuckin' jellyfish! How'd that happen?"

And I'd launch into a well-honed speech about how it had flared up only two hours into the first day, didn't understand it, never had a problem like this before, and thus my legend grew with each passing day, until "least it's not as bad as Ben's" became the mantra for foot-weary trampers the whole length of the track.

Day 3 was when I learned lesson no. 7 from 'Fuckwit etc'. Having procured a stout stick to walk with (and, of course, deploy in self-defence should the occasion arise, although no ruffians needing a damn good thrashing presented themselves, more's the pity), I was hobbling along in a manner somewhat akin to Yoda. I was accompanied on the trail by a German lad called Danny, and upon reaching a river with a number of rocks jutting out that fairly begged to be hopped across in a sprightly fashion, I turned to him and spoke the fatal words:

"I'm not walking a fucking step further than I need to, I'm crossing here."
"You sure? The rocks look pretty jagged, and there's some big gaps. I'm going to take the bridge."
"Fair enough, mate, see you on the other side."

Off he went, and so did I, gingerly poking each rock with my stick to make sure it was stable. I swear to god I'd made it past the hard part. I only had four steps to go, evenly spaced but only big enough for one foot. It was a case of getting my balance, then one, two, three, four and done. I got my balance.

One,
two,
three,
f-
-uck.

On the last rock my foot slipped - bastard boots again - and suddenly I was on my hands and knees in two feet of water, with a fully loaded pack attempting - with some success - to push me under.

"Fuckbollockshittingbastardtwatcrackers!" I bellowed, followed by, "Arrrgh! Camera!"

My camera, you see, was in my daypack. My daypack was on my front. And therefore both were currently taking a bath. I couldn't have jumped out of that water faster if I'd noticed Danny taking a piss in it upstream.

Lesson learned.

That evening was the last night on the track, and everyone had a suggestion about how I could get to the end with the minimum of discomfort. One girl suggested the barefoot approach, and a Canadian guy - who probably wrestled bears in his spare time - favoured the strap-on-your-boots-and-charge method. For a while it was looking like time for the aqua shoes again, and to this end I set about - with great relish - carving out the backs with a penknife, but in the end I settled for plasters, lots of tape, two pairs of socks and my sandals. It worked a treat, and I sailed to the end along what was easily the most beautiful section of the Heaphy, a coastal walk by the fierce Tasman sea, shaded by nikau palms.

Once I got off the track things reverted to more typical NZ form - we were immediately offered a lift to Karamea, saving us $8 and a two hour wait, and checked into a painfully laidback hostel where I was offered a beer within five minutes of arrival.

The next day we hitchhiked down to Westport, and made an unpleasant discovery. Westport is dull. Really dull. So dull, in fact, that I'm ending this epic post right here.

Oh, except to say that the camera was ok. As Rory kindly suggested I have a career in horror writing ahead of me, I saved that news til the end in order to create tension. Piece of piss this writing lark, innit?