Waiting - part two
Wednesday, March 30
It seems like tens of thousands of people all over the world are waiting for their Camino to begin - including us. How do we know this? We're a connected world. Just Google 'Camino' or look at one of the dedicated Facebook sites and you'll find comments ranging from the trivial to the profound. Sometimes the wait seems interminable, but then time will take you by surprise and skip along while you're not looking.
Suddenly, it's only a month until we leave New Zealand, heading halfway around the world to Spain. But we still have a few adventures ahead of us before that happens.
Since last June, part of our planned buildup has been the plan to walk the Milford Track with a large group of friends from the Kohi Kippers swim group in Auckland.
For readers outside of New Zealand: The country is criss-crossed with wilderness trails, mostly administered and maintained by the Department of Conservation (DOC). You would think, then, that we don't need to go to Spain to experience a long walk - the Te Araroa Trail from the top to the bottom of New Zealand covers 3000km.
New Zealand is a young country and it's largely empty. It doesn't have little villages and an infrastructure to support walkers in the way that Spain does. There's a very purist attitude to keeping the wilderness experience pure and free from commercialism, often to the detriment of the walkers themselves. Author Bill Bryson made the same observations in his book A Walk in the Woods, a description of the Appalachian Trail.
DOC seems to have the same attitude to its trails as the body that administers the AT trail in the US - it's somehow immoral to allow luxuries such as shops, restaurants or other conveniences to somehow sully the pure experience that only hardened hikers (or trampers as we call them here) should experience.
And that is why we're going to Spain. We can have the joy of walking across an ancient landscape for hours every day, enjoying the villages and buildings and at the end of the day we can eat the food of the region and drink its wine, while sharing the experience with fellow walkers from all over the world.
But moving on. Some of the trails that DOC looks after have been designated as Great Walks. Supreme among them is the Milford Track, sometimes claimed as The Greatest Walk in the World.
There are ten Great Walks, with the newest, The Paparoa Trail, opening in 2019 and unique because it's open to mountain bikers as well as walkers. The Heaphy Track is also open to bikers, but only in the off-season and maybe others are too. The same applies to the Queen Charlotte in Marlborough Sounds, but that's not a great walk (Incidentally, the Queen Charlotte allows walkers to choose accommodation and eat restaurant meals with the option of having bags carried). Here's a list of all the Great Walks
It's an accepted proposition that your Camino doesn't begin according to some geographical location. It begins in your head when you first start thinking about it. The thought grows and expands. You decide on a route and plan the details. You buy equipment, you start walking in your neighbourhood, you think about it a lot. This is all part of your Camino. It's said that the physical journey begins when you walk out the door, heading for Santiago.
Part of our preparation came last June, when a group of swimmers from the Auckland swim group Kohi Kippers decided to walk the Milford Track. We were in there from the start and that adventure begins on Saturday. We don't live in Auckland, but we have strong connections with that group after I poached my wife Cathie from them less than two years ago.
Today is Wednesday. We initially planned to spend the day driving the 450km from our home in Nelson to the West Coast glacier town of Franz Josef. Instead, we decided to leave a day early, so yesterday we started early and drove to Blackball, the gateway to the Paparoa Track.
Great Walks require bookings at the various huts along the way. The huts offer shelter, communal bunkrooms, maybe gas cookers (or maybe not) and rudimentary toilet facilities. They require a booking, usually months ahead.
A week ago, we decided to break our drive south and managed to score beds in the Ces Clark Hut for Tuesday night, so yesterday we drove to the picturesque village of Blackball, used the exquisitely clean toilets and the handy picnic tables and then set off up the hill.
The area was the scene of a gold rush about 160 years ago. The general area was named after the Lydian King Croesus. No doubt all the miners hoped to emulate that historical ruler.
Not many achieved that goal, but they deserved it. As you'll see in the photo album below, they worked hard in unforgiving country to establish the bedrock of trails. Many of their earthworks remain on what was previously the Croesus Track.
The landscape we walked through was steep and rugged, but what stood out for me is that it was one of the few examples of undisturbed NZ native forest (we call it bush) that I've ever seen.
Human beings are brash creatures. We bury or incinerate our dead, clearing the way for young people to reinvent culture and behaviour. There are few examples from the past to guide the way or provide the fertile ground of ideas and experiences of young people and so old lessons and history are forgotten (look at Putin) - old mistakes repeated.
The native bush doesn't allow such behaviour. The stately ancestors die, fall and decay where they once expressed their energetic youth. The next generation plants its seeds in the mulch provided by these ancestors, youthful trees spring from the humus provided by the generation that went before.
If only my descendants would do the same I'd die a happy man.
But not yet.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we move on, driving to Wanaka, but taking in a short walk along the way. On Friday we drive to Te Anau, ready for the mighty Milford.
Here's the photos from the Paparoa Track: https://photos.app.goo.gl/XMmXTGqjEsnUE6fr5
Day one on Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/
Day two on Relive: https://www.relive.cc/view/
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