set out thurs. morning with tim's trusty moonstone peeping bag, blades and a change of clothes. got a ride out of dunedin with jo prince and her friends who were going on a tramp north of lake wanaka. they made their leisurely way out there stopping just north of clyde for a game of touch rugby by the highway and then for a bite in cromwell. got dropped off in wanaka where they turned and went north as it was getting dark. bladed about the city for a while and then found this backpackers spot called the purple cow. kiwi backpackers are typically 17 bucks for the night. this place was very homely. the backpacker culture is quite a counterculture in itself... evenings sitting around with books, cooking up a little hot meal, being friendly, smiley, cheery, writing up their days adventures into little diaries, planning the coming day, hitching or making reservations on the magic bus or the kiwi experience. communicating with one another, setting up remote rendezvous through their hotmail accounts. the internet has revolutionized backpacking. hotmail and yahoo are the backpackers link to civilization as they know it... the days adventures and photographs diligently scanned and instantly transported a million miles away to the vicariously travelling near and dear. my first exposure to this culture was a couple of weeks back when craig picked up this girl sarah in te anau who stayed with us for a few days and arranged to hook up with a travelling partner from ireland at the fat ladies one evening. the purple cow epitomised it all. was shown to my room, which was a big suite shared by 6 people. 3 girls in one room and 3 boys in another. the guys were out but i talked to these two new england girls who were zipping about for a while after their recent graduation from ucsb... "o my god, you spent some time in santa barbara. thats so rad! blah, blah"... american tourists can be quite irritating and it irritated me that it irritated me but i could not quite help that. the third girl was a temporary fire fighter from northern ontario who was absorbed watching some soap on the telly. changed and got the hell out of there... played a game of pool in the main lounge, spoke to some people from the magic bus and cruised out to a place called paddy's that had a live band playing everything from hoochie coochie man, brown eyed girl, sultans of swing to kenny rogers and some inbetween. the guy who was playing apparently owned the joint or so i was told knowledgably by this english guy gordon who had spent 2 months there doing odd jobs at the purple cow to earn his keep. we were joined by another english girl and a crazy belgie. moved from paddys to kingsway which was a more club like place and opened out onto the street where dreadlocked folk played with fire and danced about. was tired but just sought of sat about. then the place closed and the next i knew i was walking up the hill to some friend of gordons place, this girl with a peacock feather sticking out her head. the flat was like a commune and undoubtedly all the fire people showed up before long and this swiss girl raffaela was playing flamenco style guitar and some other guy mohammed was bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee to his own tune. i could barely keep my eyes open, so it must have been about 4 in the morning that i walked back to the purple cow with the english/spanish girl belin. snuck in as quietly as i could and slept well. woke around 9, showered as the american girls were leaving... they offered me a ride into queenstown but i declined wanting to see more of wanaka. got a toastie in town half of which i donated to raffaela and her posse that were up and outside the fish and chips place looking hungry and broke as ever. cruised around town some and tried to get a ride some 5 kms out of town to the foot of the trail up mt. roy. no luck whatsoever... i figure its because i did not have my blades on. took an hour to walk out to the trail... which was 8kms. straight up... supposedly a 4-6 hour tramp, which my getting into shape self figured i could run up... started around 1 but with the sun beating down, i was cramped and dehydrated by 2 and ready to go back down when i met this japanese guy coming down, who was kind enough to leave me with a gambatte kudasai and a bottle of something i had sworn never to try... "pocari sweat". cherished every drop of it as i made my way up shortly past 3, listening to cajun moon all the while. the view was worth the climb. there were two brits at the top paul and zoey and a young swede philip who paul kept calling viking. found myself mediating an argument where paul was explaining his celtic knot tattoo saying the celts kicked viking arse and philip countered by repeatedly saying mats sundin, whatever bearing that may have had. stayed at the summit till about 4 and then wound ones way down. grazed my knee a bit trying to jump a paddock fence but we were down by half past five. got a ride into town with paul and the others, spent a quiet night by the lake... and the next day nibbling on camembert and contemplating tracks of one sort or another. bladed out of town in the evening as it was getting dark. got a ride 5 kms. outside of wanaka in a big boat of a truck until cromwell. had an hours wait till 9pm for a bus to queenstown but got a hitch almost immediately... these two guys luke and andrew were going into queenstown for the night on their way up to their airplane mechanic jobs in ashburton. queenstown was packed... a japanese invasion to say the least. ended up sharing a motel room with these guys right by the lake. stayed out just after midnight after which andrew and i left luke to his partying in lieu of some sleep. woke leisurely parted ways with the two kiwis and wandered around town. did a skate along the pier, built up some courage and signed up for the big hackett bungy 71m down skippers canyon. the ride out in this giant landrover to skippers was suicide in itself. there were about 8 of us, two aussie honeymooners, 4 rugby clubbers from england and a couple of scots. wont go into great lengths over the bungy experience. a couple of things though... there was not much screaming as you might expect... almost everyone, myself included went down without a peep, and only let out a cry the first time the cord caught, after which the cry turned into whoops with subsequent sproings. it was a two for one deal. the first time we all just dived face forward, were picked up by jet-boat and transported up the river only to clamber to the top and back to the bridge to give it another go. the ones were nuts enough to do it twice all went backwards. once again, wont go into the jump except that it does not get any easier the second time around. harder if anything. the second jump was not a dive but a hop off the bridge standing upright, much crazier. the blood rushes to your head instead, and there is quite a spin as you flip when the rope catches. the aussies had done a skydive the day before and said it was a walk in the park by comparison. rode up front on the way back with simon the driver, who traded japanese onsen stories with me and apparently among other jobs had worked as a rigger on floyd's division bell tour. bumped into belin at the hackett shop on the way back... backpackers apprarently travel a well beaten track and keep crossing tracks. grabbed my free t-shirt had a shot at rolling a double six to get my money back, failed and had a yummy pepper steak for dinner in town. ran into raffaela and her posse outside the retro bar. they had made it into town to busk for the evening and were doing better now that this yank michael from nyc had joined them and was belting out some pretty good tunes. spent the night roaming the town, met up with the aussie bungy'ers for a bit and the jap guy ken who was in the bunk below me at deco backpackers for the night. ken, the traveller... a backpacker extraordinaire with his suit bag hung by the bunk and his rental car outside as he spoke of owning a turban and beard both of which he had bought in india and his everlasting love for the sari as an article of clothing. all the while his hands were clasped together and swung like a pendulum in anticipation of tomorrows golf outing. woke around 9 in the morning, checked out and climbed an hour to the top of the hill the gondola operates on. rode the luge at the top a couple of times and then took the gondola down. picked up my pack and blades and headed out of town. got picked up a few clicks out of town by an orange beetle driven by this microbiology chic from otago, andre, who took me out as far as frankton. another 10 km down the road this english guy alex in a red 4wd stopped and took me as far as cromwell on his way to christchurch. talked rugby the whole way but mentioned he had been on a rees/dart track tramp with some mates from dunedin. skated out to the dunedin, wanaka fork and watched a number of packed cars pass me by. was about half an hour before a car finally stopped... andy and sarah redfearn headed out to dunedin... they chatted about their travels through india and that they had a farm now in brighton near dunedin with a few sheep, pigs, chicks and a couple of cats. then they mentioned they were originally from england and had just been on a tramp on the rees/dart track with somebody whose sister they knew... i told them i had got a ride with another guy who had been on the track this weekend. was he really into rugby and drove a red car and went by the name of alex, they asked... got into dunedin around 6 bought them tea at ruby in the dust and bladed home from the octagon fairly knackered but adventured. its sort of funny but the more disorganised you might try to get the more slotted you are, like backpackers, seeming to have no plan but basically like sheep following the flock around with the perception of a window of individuality.

fiordland revisited. left friday evening with craig and roy for homer hut at milford. the weather past gore was atrocious and we drove through steady snow, stopping in te anau to sign the d.o.c. backcountry logbook. danilo was taking a group of a dozen people out to the tutuko valley in a van. with the weather worsening we stopped for the night at the divide shelter. once again the moonstone proved to be quite warm. given the weather conditions we decided to do the greenstone/caples track which though longer than planned had a cozy backcountry hut at the end. 3 yanks and a kiwi of danilo's group asked if they might join us, less for the challenge and more for the idea of crashing at the upper caples hut. started around 9 in the morning and made fairly good time despite an hours detour out to the key summit. the valley was covered in fresh powder but the sun was out so it was spectacular. perfect snowballing weather. had to wade through a couple of pools just past the turnoff for mckellars hut and that was the end of dry boots. tramped through swamp and then ascended a km straight up to mckellars saddle which was white as. lunched and then descended through a stream of water after which it was another couple of hours out to the upper caples hut got there around 5. had a pretty good dinner of pasta, zucchini, mushrooms in a tomato sauce, stones ginger ale, cheesecake... the coal burning stove was very welcome, the wet milford logs burning quite well once the coals had kicked in. slept warm and well and were off by 9 next morning. kept a pretty steady pace stopping for a short lunch break well past the mckellar saddle at howden hut. a lot of the snow had melted and the way back was as wet. hit the divide by 2:30 and fired into milford for a few hours. walked around scruffy, like tramping snobs, scoffing at the tourists on scenic flights and cruises and the backpackers with their wee packs. driving through the homer tunnel to milford was unsurpassed, like one of the disneyland ride tunnels except in a pickup truck with 7 scrunched people and cat stevens on the stereo. met up with danilo in milford, offloaded his flock and headed back to dunedin. like roy said, fiordland never disappoints, eh...