Friday - Sunday: May 4-6: Nelson Lakes Track

Friday morning I left to St. Arnaud (about 1.5 hours from Nelson heading south) to do a 2-day track at Nelson Lakes (2 very nice lakes). The track ended up being a "Daniel Track" - namely, there was more excitement than I had bargained for (Argentina comes to mind). But let me start with the beginning:

Day 1 - Friday:

I hooked up at 10:00 with Maria (girl I met at the kayaking in Abel Tasman). By the time we started the hike it was 11:45. Day 1 was supposed to be a 5-8 hours hike depending on the weather. In our case it was quite good. Altitude gain - about 1200m. 20 minutes into the walk I recalled that I had forgotten my toothbrush. So she went along I went back to the car and ultimately caught up. Later, I realized I had also forgotten toilet paper (didn't go back for that one). We made it to the hut after 6 hours. There were there 3 Americans: Chris, Tyne, and Meredith (however that's spelled), and a dutch - Joris, who used to work for the DOC for some 6 months. Nothing to exciting - just played some Yaniv.

Day 2 - Saturday (exciting day #1):

Woke up and realized the weather was shit More precisely , it was very foggy with some sparkling rain and heacy winds. BTW, this is the first track to which I did not bring a wind breaker, since the DOC people promised the weather would be good... So then things got exciting. I told Maria the weather was too bad for tracking. There terrain was mountainous, and given the winds and lack of visibility it seemed to me like an unnecessary risk. She, however, had her plans set from before hand (which gave her an extra 4 days of doing nothing in Christchurch) and got upset an irrational. So some tears came out, some voice raising (never on my part of course) and some bad mood (maybe it was that time of the month, who knows...). The only real problem was our severe lack of food (we never planned for an extra day, and in fact, I thought originally we were each gonna get our food, and then we shared and bla bla bla). Still, I figured better be hungry than dead. Ultimately, Mr. Dutch (Joris) had extra food and was kind enough to share. Also, I have to say my Argentina experience came in handy in assessing the situation and realizing there was no big problem. Hell, we had water, we had shelter that had wood and coal so we could keep a fire going, and there, ultimately, was food. So - no problem.

The whole day was spent playing cards really. I learned a new pretty cool russian card game from the Dutch guy. Later, a 58 year old Kiwi showed up. He'd been tracking for 8 days! One more thing about this day. For whatever reason Maria kept bitching about the situation and for whatever reason blamed me (go figure - seriously). So Kiwi guy (his name is Max) said we were like a married couple? Can anybody imagine that? I sure ain't her boyfriend and most certainly not her husband - and yet she needed to vent..

Day 3 - Sunday (exciting day #2):

The weather turned out very well today and so off we were. The plan was to meet Joris at the car park at 15:00. We left at 9:00, and we and him went on different routes. As it turned out (5 hours later) we went on a wrong one that led us to the very nice Rotoroa lake some 7.5 hours away from the car park (in nearly the opposite direction. Specifically we arrived at Sabine Hut). The reason for this mistake was a, I think, a bad sign early on - but most probably my fault. Anyway, I need not comment about the mood some of us were in. Option 1: Spend another unexpected night on the track. Option 2 - Catch a water taxi $60 per person and then a ride somehow for another 45km.
(Option 3 - if were on my own I would have simply gutted the whole thing - but this was not an option.) We went for option 2 and were lucky to catch a ride with some local (the place was Rotoroa and it has some 10 houses...) for $20 a person. So our little detour resulted in $80 per person plus 1.5 hours of being late and missing Mr. Dutch, as we managed to get to the car at 16:30 (not bad given the situation).

We drove to Murchison (60km west) and stayed at a place called "tThe lLazy Cow" - the only BBH backpacker in this tiny little town. It's pretty coasy and nice. Dinner was damn good (I'm in the chef position now..), expecially in light of the fact that we had to buy groceries in 1 minute, since the "supermarket" was closing. Mash sweet potatoes with onions, stir fry, and a shakshuka. Wasn't too bad.