Pack Travel Part III

(This is part 3 of my holiday season South Island camping trip. For continuity, it will probably make much more sense for you to read parts 1 and 2 before reading this...or not, do whatever you want.)

As we descended from the heights of Mueller Hut, a chapter of our trip came to a close. It was palpable. Within 24 hours, we would be picking up (Dr. Dirty) Michael from the Queenstown airport. Our 4 member group to that point had a kind of equilibrium to it - Joe took pictures, Lee was the forward thinker, Keegan ever optimistic and knowledgeable of walks/hikes he wouldn't be able to go on...and I drove or something. I'm sure the others didn't think about it, but I wondered what the addition of a fifth person would do to the group dynamic - especially when that person is already pretty damn dynamic. I mean, I had just gotten used to sleeping on the ground in a small tent next to Joe and his hairy skull, and now I had to add another dude to my cramped sleeping quarters?

But before all that, we had yet another picturesque drive south to Queenstown, stopping for a much needed and delicious burrito in the town of Wanaka. The locale is also known for its large and eponymous lake, where people in the area go to get away. This was a bit confusing. For those of you who don't know, Queenstown is where everyone in NZ goes to get away. So I guess that makes Wanaka a vacation spot from tourists for locals. Anyway it's a small oasis tucked into the mountains. After a brief trot around town made mostly for digestive purposes, we went to Lake Wanaka, with it's elongated beach line, plethora of bikini-clad denizens of all ages, a random painted van or two, and a tree sitting out in the lake.

Kids will do anything for a high nowadays.

It's not just some normal tree. It's out there, like 100 meters into shallow water, just kind of growing and being a perfect foreground to the sharp background peaks. It's name is the Lone Tree, and it's the 'most photographed tree in New Zealand.' I'm not sure who monitors those statistics. Probably Google.

Joe taking picture of Lone Tree:  "Lone Man and Tree" -E Schrauben 2015, asking price $12,375

After a brief stay in Queenstown, which I'll write more about later, we picked up Michael from the airport and drove south. This was the 'free-form' portion of our trip in which we knew we wanted to see Milford Sound, but that it wouldn't happen for a few days. 

We meandered toward New Zealand's South Coast, stopping on the way to see a free glowworm cave. Clifden Caves are naturally carved into private property limestone, a (you guessed it) sheep farm, but are totally free to the public and really easy to access. Glowworms are awesome (like a truly unique sight), twinkling in seemingly uninhabitable places. In the depths of these caves, they provided an astral setting when the headlamps were switched off. Unfortunately the lack of light for proper visualizing of glowworms also means that good pictures are hard to come by, especially with a phone's camera.

Cool Beans.

Silk hanging from glowing butts. Anyway you'll have to take my word for it that they're really cool.

The road from there was unplanned; we didn't even have a place to crash for the night. Luckily for us, I'd gotten some good advice on an app that lists all of the camping spots on a map in New Zealand, with pictures and descriptions and prices and facilities. Very helpful. We settled on a free beach side camp spot. It was way way down south (46° S!) near Pahia. It's mostly meaningless, but that was definitely the most south (the southest?) we had all ever been.

The campsite itself was just a patch of grass, somewhat guarded from the ocean winds. We settled right in and made a big community pot of chili and hot dogs. We all really enjoyed eating out of the community pot together:

How quickly humans can become feral. You might not be able to see all of Michael since he's in his jungle camouflage sleep roll. 

An actual campsite fire? So rare in New Zealand. And despite the best efforts of the wind and wet wood, we were able to make a nice burn. I was clearly unimpressed.

So south and right around the longest day of the year that the sun didn't set until ~9:45 pm. You get a lot of serious thinking done over the course of an hour long sunset.

The sheen of receding tide and light.

Cheers!