Nina Valley and Sylvia Tops. The hike looked pretty good as described in South Island Weekend Tramps. Most solo weekend tramps mean backtracking back to the car, but this one would be a loop. On the outward leg I’d following a “route” over the Sylvia tops, stay at a tiny hut on the saddle, and walk back out the Nina valley the next day.  And I’d avoid the Doubtful valley.  Not that I’ve been there or heard bad tales, but the name is a bit ominous.

I looked carefully along the trail for any sign of a side path. It’s not a DOC track, so I doubted there would be a sign. At a deer trail I cut over to the river flats and got a good look at the beech-cloaked ridge I had determined to climb.

The river ford was tame (dry undies!), but COLD. I wonder how many hours ago that water was snow.

I spent the next two hours looking at moss and beech leaves and scratchy trunks up close. At first I appreciated the lush greenery. Then I remembered that I don’t like bush whacking (or “bush bashing” as they call it here). At certain moments the branches seem malevolent, snatching at my hair and snagging my ice axe. I would find a deer trail only to loose it again. I guess deer aren’t stupid enough to climb straight up hill, like humans.  There are distinct advantages to hiking alone–when the going gets tough, there’s no one else to worry about, and I don’t have to apologize about the non-trail or wonder if I should have been on the next ridge over.  Just keep going up.  

Bah, good riddance to that thick forest, I’m finally out in the thin lichen-clad alpine beeches.

I chose my lunch spot carefully, rearranged my tattered hair, and settled down in the sun with a view.  I don’t know why the beech forest ends so suddenly on the open tops, but I’m thankful.

I enjoyed a restorative cup of tea!

Here, now, is my terrain for the rest of the day. The patches of snow weren’t ice-axe-and-crampon worthy, but it was comforting to think that the extra gear had added to my weight training. I followed the tops of the hills around the basin, stopping frequently for snacks. There were no footprints in the snow; it must have been a while since anyway was up here. It’s a good feeling. Who doesn’t want to be strong and capable and independent? And for a brief moment completely free of responsibility for the welfare of others. My tired thighs reminded me that I’m not a bionic human, and the last decent climb on the map before heading down to the saddle kept me from getting too cocky.

These tops aren’t actually grassy, they’re skinned in a bewildering array of miniature plants. I suspect they belong to familiar plant families, but their alpine adaptations make them unrecognizable (to me).

There was no trail over the tops, and I kept hoping that I wasn’t killing these tough little specimens with my boots. They’re tough to wind and snow and sun, but I bet they aren’t durable to foot traffic. Lots of reds in the foliage mix. Maybe they’re anthocyanins protecting leaves from sun damage?

I guess the bare exposed rocks are cheap real estate, so someone is going to live there. Lichens are super impressive!

Doesn’t that water look COLD? I was conserving leg energy so I didn’t stop to paddle…

If you squint you might just be able to see the tiny hut in the saddle. DOC calls it a “bivouac;” everyone else calls it a “biv” (three syllable words are too long for Kiwis). That’s where I planned to stay the night.

I was thinking about cooking an early dinner and settling down with the latest edition of National Geographic when I noticed the pair of boots outside the door. Two pairs, to be precise. It’s a two-bunk hut. Darn.  

Good thing Nina hut is only 2 more hours down the valley (left in the photo; Doubtful valley is to the right). DOWN, is the operative term at this stage in the day. If I was facing a two hour up-hill slog, I wouldn’t have been so cheerful. I cooked dinner while exchanging pleasantries with the other hikers (hunters), then set off down to Nina hut, wondering if I’d be treated to my first-ever floor berth if the sleeping bunks were all taken.

My dad would have loved this bit of the hike. It’s very green, the brook is noisy and cheerful, and the moss is luxuriant.

There was one space left in the 10-bunk Nina hut, to my relief, and I spent a cheerful evening in the company of some remarkably cordial teenage boys and their dads. I didn’t know 15 year old males did anything but grunt, but these guys pleasantly surprised me with their friendly conversation. They even asked me if I was a “professional” tramper. Ha! What flattery! Nope, I am a foreigner, but I’m just a mom out for the weekend.

The next morning I puttered around taking pictures of mosses (?)

….and grass…..I had two cups of tea and set out late after having done a whole sudoku in one sitting.

On the way out I passed several tui birds. They have a magnificent vocabulary for a bird, from rude squawks to flutey sequences that sound quite exotic. I didn’t hear anyone answer this guy, I think he was just enjoying his own voice.

Now, if my “bush bash” had been through open woods like these, I wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. It’s amazing how much sun actually comes through in the beech forest.

A forest carpet fit for a king….or perhaps an Ent. Goodbye for now mountains. The next restorative dose of wilderness is in November.

Yesterday afternoon when we biked into the Hurunui was sunny and winter-warm, with a mild breeze in our faces

I began to wonder about the Kiwi definition of a public road as we bumped and jostled along the cratered track, past countless sheep, their fleeces snagged smooth by the thorny matagouri.

We took heart when we passed the occasional parked vehicle, because it meant someone else had made it through that mud hole, so we could too.

We parked the truck at the locked gate, wondering in a puzzle of greasy chains and sprockets if the bike assembly time would be worth the time saved walking the river flats.

A quick cup tea in the sun on the porch hut and we were off down the trail to the fabled hot springs.

I tried to appreciate the dappled beech forest as we loped along, but discussions of wedding receptions and the merits of diamonds were somewhat distracting. Steph is engaged, and though the wedding date hasn’t been set, it’s still fully in front of the mind.

It really was picturesque. Steam rose up through the branches and through an opening in the trees we could see across the valley to the beech-clad slopes and the snowy tops.

Algal slime fluttered in pink shreds in the waterfalls.

There’s a Maori myth about an angry goddess cursing the west coast with sand flies so it wouldn’t be overrun by people. Too bad the midges didn’t quite stop at the divide. I thought they’d be somewhat abated during winter, but perhaps this was a special hot springs colony, voraciously breeding in the comfortably warm water all year round.

I praised Jeremiah’s shopping skills as my excellent German headlamp blazed out a bright path on our walk back to the hut.

“How about you deal with the fire, as you’re the only one from a cold climate,” Carrie suggested. I’ll happily trade dinner and dishes for fire building any day, and after a wee while there was a comfortable inferno in the ample wood stove.

Loch Katrine. In good weather it looks amazing. The day we left it wasn’t so welcoming.

If you think about it, tramping is rather a strange behavior of the modern human. I mean, does it sound fun to spend the day carrying a heavy load up steep hills and down in sometimes adverse weather, cook dinner on a single precarious flame, then spend the night cocooned in a tubular quilt without a pillow? All to end up exactly where we started, back at the car park? But the fact remains, we do it. And we do it for pleasure.

Last weekend was our tenth anniversary, so we plunked the kids with some kind-hearted friends and drove up to Nelson Lakes for a winter hike, just the two of us.

We had tried once before, two an a half years ago, to hike to Angelus Hut, “epically” situated next to a big alpine tarn.  But we had been turned around by horrid weather.

Turns out we unwittingly chose the best weather weekend of the whole year. Day time temps didn’t go above freezing, but the sun was strong and not a breath of wind stirred.

I puzzled over the tramping phenomenon:  Why do we do it?  I stood basking in the clear winter sun, listening to the crinkle-tinkle of snow melting on scree, lazily watching the breeze pattern Lake Rotoriti far below.

I marvelled at the delicate snow sculptures, striped and swirled to perfection by the merciless wind, like the rainbow sandstones of Nevada.

I trudged along the snowy ridgeline, mountains spread out below in the magically still air, enjoying the time to thoroughly explore a thought uninterrupted by laundry duties, squabble-mending, or toilet paper control.

Perhaps it’s the chance to stride along feeling strong and capable, seemingly independent of the modern global system, to feel REAL in authentic nature, unprotected by the artificial walls we build around us….

….at least until we duck into DOC’s most excellent hut and spread out our down-filled sleeping bags on the tidy mattresses…. Or contemplate the petrol it took to power our car the 350 km from home to the trail head.

DOC even has to helicopter wood for heating into this hut, since there is not a tree to be found up here.  When we poked our heads in at 3:30 it was nice and warm from the sun alone, but we were glad of the fire come sunset. Do you know, I read a whole National Geographic article from start to finish on my smartphone in one evening at the hut on this last hike.  A luxury of a tramp.

Perhaps it’s the simplicity of tramping that is its appeal. The goal is to get from point A to point B and back again, enjoying oneself along the way. No communication blunders, no parsing out the best 20+ year parenting strategy, no unspoken expectations.

Up there it’s a clear black and white and sky-blue world. It’s desert starkness, unforgiving snow squeaking in the cold.

The wind, now calm, displays its punishing strength in the strained patterns it left behind.

The steep bits didn’t feel precarious, partly because the fresh snow wasn’t yet icy, and partly because we were wearing crampons.

Crampons. We stomp along, waltzing over the slippery crust with god-like powers. Near the bottom of the decent we encounter other people, mere mortals, who are clinging precariously to sticks and inching their tentative way up the ice. It’s difficult not to be smug. Of course, I’ve only had my crampons for a few months. Last winter I was a slipping sliding minion like the rest of them. When you have the right tool for the job, arrogance comes easily.

There was a lone hare running at break-neck speed over the snow near the bottom of this slope. I have no idea what it was doing up there. Probably late for a very important date.

Speaking of critters, here’s a “vegetable sheep.” This coral-like thing is actually a flower in the daisy family, perfectly adapted for eking out a living on the bleak alpine rocks.

See the ice growing out horizontally from the rock faces? That means the weather earlier in the week was coming at them entirely sideways. Freezing, horizontal gale-force precipitation.

We’re completely giddy with delight with the favorable conditions we’re enjoying!

The entire walk was on a ridgeline wandering around alpine basins. Just one or two ridges before the hut we happened upon this dragon lair. Well, really I have no idea what subterranean warmth melted this breathing hole, but a dragon sounded plausible at the time.

Are we on Mars, or on Earth? This must be one of the most scenically situated toilet blocks in New Zealand.

So I’m not sure why we’re drawn toward this strange activity we call hiking and the Kiwis call tramping. But in the end, we are. And we’re lucky to live in New Zealand, where the walks are close by, the trails unlittered, and the wilderness still breathes.

Happy Tenth Anniversary!

And THANK YOU to our friends, two families who adopted our children for the weekend and gave us the chance to play.

At any rate, last weekend I went tramping Kiwi style–Wet Boots.  “Kiwi As wading thigh deep through crystal clear snow melt in one’s prize leather hiking boots.”  Striped polyprop leggings with short shorts and gaiters would have completed the picture, but it was too warm for leggings that day.  Growing up in the northeast USA I had adopted the hiking mantra: “whatever else comes, at least keep your boots dry, and you’ll be ok.”  Walking straight through thigh-deep rivers in expensive leather boots seemed a travesty, but, “when in Rome, do as the Romans”….I’ve adopted the practice.  Besides, at times there’s not much choice.

My friend Carrie and I took to the hills with a forecast of “fine” weather (to this day I’m confused as to whether that means “sunny,” or merely “not raining.”  As we chatted our way up the Minga river valley in Arthur’s pass I thought of a book I’d read by a British author, characterizing kiwi trampers as chatty and always coming in pairs.  Yup, that was us.  It was Carrie’s first weekend away from her baby, so she was particularly giddy with the regained freedom.

Mingha River narrows up towards the saddle to a stream, and a gorgeous one at that. What makes that blue color to the water? I’ve been told “glacier flour,” which is particularly unsatisfactory answer because glacier-crushed rock is still made up of specific minerals that have distinct names. Plus, we went up to the river source for this watershed and there aren’t any glaciers.  Whenever I see beautiful cold pools of clear water like this I think of my college buddy Emily, from Oregon, who, like a naiad, never able to resist a dunk in alluring stream pools.

There’s our hut for the night, in Goat Pass. We dropped most of our gear there, then climbed up a mountain overlooking the pass to find a little alpine lake reputed to be beautiful. This bit of the hike had no trail, but it didn’t really matter because there weren’t any trees either.  The Deception River valley is beyond the hut, a sinister name if there ever was one.  One day a year scores of intrepid runners traverse this pass, competing in the Coast to Coast race, an endurance test that includes biking, running and kayaking.  We decided that we were quite happy walking.

We got up the shoulder of Mt Oates (the peak is behind), and realized that the lake was up still a bit further. That dark spot where all the snow is melted is where the waterfall exits the lake. It looked like a long way away from where we were standing, but the snowy landscape wasn’t as massive as it seemed, and we tooled along to the lake in short time.

There she is, Lake Mavis, tucked into the clavicle of Mt Oates.  Whatever possessed the namer to label this alpine tarn with such a stodgy and unromantic name, I’ll never know. Even the alpine mud puddle that is the official headwaters of the Hudson River has a lyrical title, “Lake Tear of the Clouds.”  In summer this would be a superb place to tent, but given the dark early nights of winter, we scrambled back down to the hut to put on our “puffer” jackets and ensconce in our toasty sleeping bags.

Here’s our hut, 20 bunks but we’re the only souls out here on a gorgeous winter weekend. Not sure why DOC thought it necessary to put the water cistern in FRONT of the porch…. The hut has no heat so we watched the stars come out while completely swaddled in our mummy bags, then went to bed early and slept nearly 12 hours.

Morning found the valley swathed in mist, with the tips of the sunny mountains promising warmth to come.  I could imagine native peoples coming up with interesting mythology about creatures who breathed over the land and created fog.

Boiling water for tea and oatmeal is a good start to the day.  Hurrah for efficient little camping stoves and tidy canisters of butane.

The night before we had wagered from the sun set position that the hut wouldn’t see the morning rays, but we were wrong. We sat with our breakfasts, sunning ourselves like turtles on the front porch.

There was a little knob protruding from the valley near the hut, and we decided to climb it and take in the view. Frost had turned to icy dew on the grasses, but the puddles were still frozen.

Here we are on the nob. What a backdrop for a cartwheel! Carrie is a much more accomplished cartwheeler than I, my wobbly flips hardly deserving to be called true cartwheels.

Carrie, thank you, we’ll do it again!

For months now I’ve been wanting to get up to Goat Pass near the divide, but as my scheduled hiking weekend drew near the forecast looked not just damp, but chillingly drenching. On to Plan B. There are some tracks off Lees Valley, on the eastern (drier) side of the mountains, which have the advantage of being…well…not so wet. The hike overlooks a big station in the valley, the track is paved with sheep droppings, but we’re still out in New Zealand countryside. Our friends graciously offered to have Milo and Naomi for the weekend, so Jeremiah and I walked together for the first time in over a year.

Remnants of the torrential rain in the divide occasionally misted our way, creating some spectacular rainbows and reminding us that we really were glad we weren’t in Arther’s Pass that weekend.

This is speargrass. It’s beautiful, but WATCH OUT, it has pointy sharp needles on the ends of each grass blade that effortlessly pierce expensive gortex as well as human flesh. Apparently the roots must be quite lovely to eat though, since we saw dozens of patches rooted up by wild pigs.

Here’s what Jeremiah is doing a lot of this time of year. No firearms on this trip because Molly DOES NOT HUNT, but that doesn’t mean Jeremiah can’t look.

This is what hunters are aiming for this time of year–big stags. This fellow wandered past the hut on the trail of two females, and lived to….well….to do what stags do in the fall. Jeremiah’s currently out stalking more of these guys through the mountains, this time gun in hand. Milo, ever astute to the family dynamics, graciously offered to let the head be hung in his bedroom if the trophy hunt is successful.

Mt Owen is the highest mountain in the Kahurangi National Park, but that’s not why it’s been on my “must explore” list. It is featured in the South Island weekend tramps book with alluring photos of crazy funky rocky moonscapes such as these. My friend Laura lives near Nelson, the nearest city to the Kahurangi, so a few months ago we cooked up this scheme for the husbands to stay with the kids for the weekend, and for me to fly up on a Friday evening, then spend the next three days hiking, returning to Christchurch Monday night. I’ll say this, flying for 45 minutes beats the 5.5 hour drive all hollow, even when you take into account airport lead times.

The walk starts out through native bush, climbing to convenient clearings for lunch, then back into a mature beech forest buzzing with yellow jackets. Then all of a sudden you drop into a valley and turn a corner and walk straight into Dr. Suess’ snide bush, with these crazy-looking trees that normally don’t grow on the south island. Dracophyllum, a genus of plants that share a family with blueberries, of all things.  These ones are remnants of what used to grow here, before the last glaciation wiped them all out 10,000 years ago….except for this couple acre patch in the crook of the mountain arm that got missed by the scouring ice. There are mallow trees too, “hoheri,” with white blossoms and jaggety-edged leaves.

The 12 bunk hut sits just past the ancient plant remnants, in the valley around the corner from where this photo was taken. I wish I had gotten a photo of the hut group–they were a varied and amiable bunch, thoroughly enjoyable but without a group photo I won’t bore you with the details. From the hut upward was all grassy and open terrain.

We spent the night in the hut, then set out for the summit the next morning. Part way up the landscape opens out to a big grassy plateau dotted with a few tarns. They were tempting for a swim, but despite the clear water the bottoms are probably a foot of loose sphagnum muck. We passed.

But we did stop to oogle the alpine swamp plants, and discovered these cute little sundews. A different species than the Adirondack ones, but a friendly familiar face nonetheless.

No swim, but for some reason the idea of doing a cartwheel in this surreal landscape tickled my fancy. So with no daily agenda and no hurry, we stopped to play. Actually, one of the nice things about the hike was the total lack of rush. We could have reached the hut faster (DOC’s guideline time was 6 hours, and we weren’t much ahead of that), but why hurry? We were there to enjoy the place, so we enjoyed it with leisure.

I describe Mt Owen to Kiwis as “an alpine Castle Hill,” but the limestone must be of a different breed because it erodes not to smooth friendly curves like those at Castle Hill, but to these bizarre finger-scraped points. A knowledgeable woman (alright, a bit know-it-all, to tell truth) at the hut described this limestone. She said it’s so ancient that it was formed before there were even shell fish in the oceans, so rather than the more common shell-fish-corpses-turned-stone, this stone is made of the carcasses of one-celled organisms. Then it was squeezed and heated and metamorphosized to something akin to a soft marble. Anyway, it’s soft enough for running water to sculpt.

In many places the water had delved deep crevasses into the rock, leading us into a discussion of the subtle differences between an alpine creVASSE and a bodily CREvice. But I digress….which we did many times over the weekend.

Here’s the Swiss Cheese Landscape, dotted with holes. No surface streams grace these highlands, they’re all subterranean, channeling rain water down, down, down into the depths of the mountain.  The track guides caution to stick to the track in snow and don’t attempt it in poor visibility.  I can see why.

The stream stays underground for the whole height of the mountain, then emerges in a surprisingly vigorous flow from a still pool near the bottom. It’s cold!

Laura didn’t actually fall in this hole, we staged this one kicking the bottom to make sure it was solid enough to stand. She looks like a gopher!

The view from Mt Owen towards the northwest (looking into the Kahurangi park) is refreshingly green.

At the top, surveying our domain. It’s good to live in New Zealand.

The misty clouds started skimming across the top while we ate lunch, but it just took us a little way on the return in the lee of the hill to warm up again.

The scenery was awesome, the weather was impeccable….but the highlight was three solid days of uninterrupted girl talk. Laura’s kids are 5 and 3, while mine are 4 and 1. We each have husbands. We’re interested in what makes people tick. The conversation was rich. What if Milo decides he’s interested in marijuana when he gets older? We debated what we’ll do. Is it bad for your kids to move them during their primary school years? Not sure, but we considered all the angles. One of my work colleagues just accused me of being overly talkative; “yip yip yip,” she said with a grin. Well, we yip yapped the days away, and we feel all the more whole and complete as women and mothers because of it.

Miles upon miles of beech forest. Quiet trail. My own pace. Space to think, and time in which to do it. Cass trail in Arthur’s Pass held all this last weekend.

Cass trail is usually hiked as a one-way, but since I was a solo tramper (that’s right! First night away from both kids since Naomi was born!) I just planned to walk in to Hamilton Hut one day and back out the same way the following day.  I started (and ended) at the northern end, near Bealey Hut.

Weather on the way in had low cloud covering the mountaintops, with occasional mist making it down to ground level in the river valleys, but no actual rain. Perfect conditions for photos. This moss with the droopy heads is on a gnarled beech tree right next to the trail.

I haven’t hiked with a light backpack (no child riding) for so long that I forgot how easy it can be to stop, drop the pack, dig out the camera or cooker for a cup of tea, heft it again, and resume walking. Such flexibility. The beeches are all draped with lichen, and I amused myself for a while trying to think up beer/brewery names for Jeremiah relating to this feature. “Beech Beard Alehouse”? “Treebeard’s Grog”?

Even the understory beeches had the start of their beards growing. Early on the trail cut through a pine plantation, and going from the airy light beech understory to the dark barren twilight under the pines felt sinister. I was definitely glad to re-emerge into the friendly beech greenery.

Baby beech leaves! They’re already getting nibbled, by a caterpillar I think.

I expected this to be a wet-boot hike, but the river level was so low that my gaiters and new boots saw me through just vaguely damp. The last two crossings were bridged, to my delight. The hut had a photo of this river in flood, a nasty scary sight when it’s between you and home.

I climbed a little bluff to look out over the Harper river valley. My trail split off just above here, but the Te Araroa trail goes down that valley on its 3,000 kilometer trek from tip to tail of the south island. It was grassy and looked little-used, but I could sense Bilbo’s adventure-lust, the allure of the path that goes ever, ever on.

Here’s Hamilton hut, well built on a shelf above the river. I trotted up at 4:30 and was surprised to find no one else in residence. Cass trail is less than 2 hours from Christchurch and while the weather wasn’t stunning on Saturday, the weekend overall looked pretty decent. I figured someone else would turn up later, but the evening wore on in eerie silence.

Silence….until the thunder of a chopper boomed down the valley! They landed right at the front door and POLICE piled out. By a strange twist of fate, I even knew one of them. Turns out they were looking for a missing tramper, a French woman named Celine, who was expected to return to her lodging to pick up her stuff but hadn’t shown up. They hardly stayed 5 minutes, just long enough to photograph the hut book (where trampers sign in and leave their intentions, along with comments varying in ripeness), and verify that no one was hiding under the bunks. Silence again descended.

It’s strange, staying in a 20 bunk hut alone. I decided that as much as I enjoyed having the trail to myself, I’d like company in the evening. I went to bed early, slept soundly, and woke when fully rested. Wow, haven’t done that in a while.

There’s a tussocky bit of trail where I ate lunch on the walk out, looking up at Mt. Bruce. Clear walking, a beautiful sunny day, and if I continued on my trajectory homeward on the path I’d get there early enough to be responsible for dinner….. I decided to detour. The wind was at my back down below but up on top the clouds were moving the opposite direction–maybe there’d be a bit of calm air in the change-over zone? I’d have to climb the peak to find out. Part way up were these funny kettle ponds full of clear water with very squishy bottoms. No bathing for me, thanks.

Stunted alpine plants picking a meager living out of the scanty soil.

Perched atop Mt. Bruce. Down below is the Waimakariri river valley, and beyond that the snow still on the rest of the Southern Alps. It was so refreshing to have no responsibility for any other person’s well-being for a little while. Stop any time to brew a cup of tea, air my tummy in the sun, or climb an extra peak–no one cared!

We’re friends with two British families in our neighborhood who have recently (in the last 18 months) moved to NZ. Last weekend we decided to all pack up the kids and hike to Lake Daniells, up in Lewis Pass just on the west side of the divide. Weather forecast for Christchurch was miserable rain with easterly winds all weekend, but we gambled that the mountains would block most of it…..and besides, these are Brits. If it’s not a drenching downpour it’s passable weather for them. Turns out our prediction was right–a couple sprinkles on Saturday and sunny skies on Sunday!

The logistics of moving seven children (ages 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9) and six adults with overnight provisions 8 kilometers down a trail to a hut are not to be sneezed at. Yes, we pushed strollers. And we carried packs. And the 5, 6, and 9 year olds of course walked the whole way.

It certainly helped that the girls got along well this weekend!

Amelia has been waiting weeks and weeks to get chosen as the weekend caretaker of the class elephant…..and it would be our hiking weekend when she got chosen! To her credit, she did carry the creature most of the way, and wrote about its adventures in its journal.

Right, so the walking track isn’t exactly made for strollers, but since we didn’t have enough adult backs to carry all the children and paraphernalia, they were the best option. The sturdy contraptions were manhandled over roots and around protrusions, and the stroller handlers got increasingly skilled as we covered the kilometers. I should also mention that Ian (driving stroller) is not Amelie’s dad…her dad was undoubtedly pushing the other stroller or carrying a pack. We parented the herd of children jointly this weekend–including behavior reprimands as needed.

It took us 5 hours to cover the 8.5 kilometers on the way in, but we made it!

When we arrived the kids had a second wind, taking over the bunk room like it was a padded jungle gym. The other hut guests wisely piled together in the other, separate bunk room, leaving us a room all to ourselves.

Starting the fire….always a popular manly task. This hut is actually stocked with coal, but it needed sufficient coaxing with semi-dry tinder to catch light to keep things challenging for the boys.

We brought our backpacking oven and produced a really decadent brownie for dessert….there was silence among the kids for approximately 30 seconds as it was devoured. Actually, the noise level in our group did take a bit of getting used to, but since we were sharing the hut with 5 teenagers with almost the same capacity for raucousness, we didn’t feel embarrassed.

Someone’s daddy carried in that book! Milo’s about 6 months older than Amelie, and they play nicely together (usually!).

Sunday dawned sunny and the lake was beautiful. Sandflies were about, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

Kids + water = endless amusement. I think the game at this point was to chuck a hunk of wood into the water and then use a stick to guide it back to shore.

Sophie was brave, herding three 2-year-olds on a narrow dock, one with a stick! No one fell in. I’m sure if we had stayed another day someone would have ended up in the drink.

The hut really does have a charming situation on the edge of this clear mountain lake.

Jeremiah took a morning run back out to the cars with one backpack, getting his work-out in while at the same time lightening our homeward load.

Whoops, there’s one down! The walk out was quicker than the walk in, perhaps because the littlies rode for most of the way so the pace was a bit faster. The beech forest was absolutely charming, fully of mossy green hummocks and sunspots.

Chloe and Amelia were obsessed with fairies, so while this was just a cool tree branch to Milo, to them it was an enchanted fairy seat.

Driving back to Christchurch we only had to go 5 minutes to the east to see the windy rain that the east coast had been enjoying. It made the excursion all the sweeter!

Now this is what trail-weary parents like to see! Peaceful silence in the back seat.

We all stopped for a last treat at a cafe for dinner on our way home. Happy faces all around, particularly when the food came out.

Now that’s a classic milk mustache if there ever was one! Milo could care less about his dinner, but he did enjoy his special hot drink! All the cafe’s here sell “fluffies,” inexpensive foamed milk for kids to have along side their parents’ lattes. This one even had rainbow sprinkles (“hundreds and thousands” they’re called here).

The Queen’s Birthday. It’s hard to imagine that they still celebrate it here in NZ as a national Holiday (paid work leave, always celebrated on a Monday), but they do. Not even in England do workers have an automatic day off….which makes me think that Kiwis just love their public holidays. Most of them are English by decent anyway so celebrating the Queen of England’s birthday doesn’t seem quite as strange as it would in the U.S. At any rate, we used the three day weekend to drive up to the Marlborough Sounds and hike a nice little track named Nydia.

We started with a boat taxi to a point on the road a few kilometers from the trail head.  Aw, what a cute pair!  The cookie scum on Milo’s chin even resembles Daddy’s beard.

The boat captain thought he had enough water depth to drop us off at a closer point to the trail, but the tide wasn’t behaving as expected (or, more probably, he hadn’t checked out his boat clearance ahead of time), so we had to use plan B. No matter, it was still a lovely morning for a boat ride in the Sounds.

Milo walked a bit on the trail at the start, but the trail started climbing and he was glad enough to hitch a ride with sherpa Daddy. Plus we had to make some tracks to get to our lodge before dusk, after our drive from Christchurch and the boat taxi.

And why not nap while riding in style?

On the Track Lodge, our night’s accommodation, was in a cover of Nydia bay that you see here. 20 minutes from our destination we popped out of the steep native bush into cow pasture. It seems surprising that farming survives at all on the depleted soils and tiny flat areas among the Sounds, but the cow pies and geese did provide a welcome diversion for Milo.

Almost to our Lodge! Look, what a lovely fancy sign.

The Lodge is a series of buildings. There’s a main lodge with kitchen, lounge, and dining areas and smaller cabins for sleeping. There’s even a vintage train car converted into two bedrooms.

Posh accommodations compared to our usual DOC lodges, complete with beds and sheets so we didn’t even carry sleeping bags.

Duncan, the owner (a former builder), bought the place about two years ago and has been upgrading it from an Eco-style stay to a slightly granola yet more elegant accommodation. Milo took his portrait when he came to welcome us. He convinced his parents to join him and they’ve been working their tails off to make this place lovely. They’re such warm people that I do at times wonder if they’re real.

The generous veranda boasts hammocks and swings, and behind that swirly door is one of the hot showers, tiled with stones and shells.

I got some good ideas for an inexpensive yet attractive kitchen if we ever have a second house we’re outfitting. Second house, Ha! We don’t even have a first house right now….but that’s no reason not to dream about a lake cottage.

Lots of warm-feeling wood finished to a high sheen. What you can’t see is the generous wood stove that keeps the place comfortable even in winter.

All the dishes even match.

Breakfast with a view from the front porch. I watched Milo streak across the yard towards the goats, then proceed to climb the paddock fence! Not that these goats would have hurt him, but it’s not a good habit to get into, particularly as some fences are electrified.

This nanny goat was quite friendly with Milo. The Lodge keeps a small milking herd, as if they didn’t have enough work to do already!  Abi would have loved them. 

Tom, Duncan’s dad, fed the goats some hay so they would all come near the fence for Milo to see. They seemed more than happy to have Milo, and unperturbed by a 2-year-old’s antics.

We highly recommend this place and plan on taking family if anyone comes to visit. Duncan told Jeremiah he could come back and hunt. We saw “heaps” (as they say here) of wild pig trails and tracks, and I might even be excited about a hunting trip if it meant another stay at On the Track Lodge.

Not long after leaving the lodge we passed this sign. Eels are traditionally fished for food, so the sign isn’t a joke….though we’re not sure that DOC (NZ’s equivalent of the Forest Service) really lent this eel their personal protection.

Sure, enough, Mr. Eel made an appearance and hung out near the bank like a park duck waiting for bread.

Yikes, wouldn’t want to meet this guy in ‘person’ under the water. I was nervous enough just sticking the camera under for photo, but though he nudged the camera with his nose, he didn’t offer to bite me.

The Marlborough sounds are full of tree ferns. They look like palm trees (of which they do have a few as well), and the gullies with streams are as lush as a Hawaiian jungle. I think if you stood still for very long, the vines would trail over you and the epiphytes would engulf you until you were swallowed up.

This is a small tree fern, but at least it was a convenience height to admire. They’re all making spores right now, and it made me wonder how many fern spores we were breathing in with each breath. Thank God for a fully functional immune system!  And no, that pot-belly doesn’t mean I’m getting fat (I’m ridiculously self-conscious about that right now).  Baby number 2 is on the way, due in October.

The Lodge arranged transport from the north end of the trail back to our car, and though the wind had been picking up and the clouds lowering, we got no rain while on the track. The last bit of the trail passed giant old beech trees and Rimu, a NZ native podocarp (like a conifer but it makes fruit instead of cones). It was a lovely hike.  Come for a visit, we’ll take you too!