Tramping New Zealand

DAY 9 - Mueller Hut Track

I had a semi-disturbing dream, in which the motel charge was just a base amount, and that everything else is a la carte.  A dollar to use the soap or a towel, ten dollars to heat some cocoa in the microwave, etcetera.  But no — we already gave our pound of flesh, and that was enough.

As anticipated, the clouds are hanging low here again in Mount Cook Village.  After checking out of the room, we head back to the great DOC Visitor Centre for some more reading.  It's all about mountain climbing here, of course; and this is easily the best museum I have seen on that topic.

This must be the brochure that convinced Dave to come here

I watch a video on how to ice-climb, and see an avalanche dog at work (sniffing out trapped climbers).  Dave watches a rescue operation in which they extracted a climber with two broken legs and got him to a hospital, only to have him die there.  That was somewhat unusual in that the general rule is: If he's still alive when they get him out of the crevasse, he probably will survive.

Museum photographs

The Kea is the world's only alpine parrot

The only trails available today are in this area; so we head back to the Hooker Valley Trailhead, which also is the Mueller Hut Trailhead.  That's right — it's the same one that we didn't attempt yesterday because we wanted to live to hike again.

Where we are

Morning flowers

A long series of stairsteps commences.  Dave knew about them; but apparently I had not read that part of the brochure.  The Sealy Tarns are above us somewhere, and getting there is touted as just a three-hour round-trip effort; but Dave and I know better than that.  Also, there are a reputed 2,200 steps overall, meaning that the trail is horrendously steep.  We certainly need the workout, though.

Every journey begins with a single step

Most of the stairs are beautifully constructed of planks and gravel; they are thin enough in places, however, that hand-over-hand climbing is the easiest way to go at times.

As yesterday, there is not much to see

We were on the other side of Mueller Lake yesterday

That's encouraging

We're not the only ones struggling

The clouds swirl about us, clearing just enough for a partial view now and then.

There's the parking lot down below

There's the Mueller Glacier

The view is a bit better now

This is really difficult — climb a couple dozen steps, rest, repeat.  Finally I decide to pack it in at the thousand-foot mark, which probably is about halfway up the slope.

Note the nifty lakes within the lake

Descending is no cakewalk either; for neither Dave nor I bothered to bring along our walking sticks.  Negotiating wet stairs and intermittent wet rock requires extra care.  My legs are rubbery from all the down-climbing; so once again the routine is: do a couple dozen stairs, rest, repeat.

It's clearing up slightly

The view gets better

Finally back at the bottom of the incline, my GPS says that we have descended 770 feet in just over a quarter of a mile.  No wonder it was so difficult going up!

It shouldn't be long now

Near the end, we take an unplanned mile-long detour back toward the village; but that is okay.  At the car an elderly Japanese man hands me a map, looking for directions to the Hooker Valley Trail; and I actually am able to accommodate him!

We didn't do this boardwalk earlier

At the trailhead, this guy prepares a fancy meal

From here, we have but to drive back down to Twizel, a little community in the middle of nowhere, to a backpackers' hostel.  It isn't nearly as fancy as the one in Wanaka; but it does have two beds, a private bath, and a heater.  I might even be able to do some laundry tonight.

Driving in New Zealand actually is a pleasant experience, although the left-handed aspect of it all somehow discombobulates me regarding area mapping in general.  I seem to have it all backwards.

Nobody seems to be in that big a hurry, which is just as well; for the maximum speed that we have seen is 100 kph, or about 62 miles per hour.  Except in the heart of Queenstown itself, all intersections are handled by roundabouts — the civilized approach to traffic control.  Why some have such an aversion to them is a mystery; for everything goes smoothly, everyone waits her/his turn, nobody is tempted to "run a red light" and smash someone, and maintenance costs are minimized.

Although there might be others now, the only roundabout I know of in Sacramento is but a few blocks from my house.  There ought to be a lot more.

Also, there are lots of one-lane bridges, marked at one end or other as "Give Way" — the Kiwi equivalent of "Yield".  Even on back roads, most culvert crossings are but one-lane wide, presumably to save on construction costs.