Who just said that?

Okay, so I could talk about us visiting the West Coast and seeing some limestone arches and sampling some tasty beers at Monteith's and seeing glaciers that are actually currently advancing and which have their terminal faces among temperate rainforest, oh, and of course us taking a guided tour ON one of the flipping glaciers (Fox glacier to be exact), spending like 3 or 4 hours on the ice in an amazing world of crevasses and what-have-you, which was like totally mind-blowingly mesmertastic (give yourself high five just for that one if you have to, niiiice!!!), only to take a 6-hour hike the next day, a very diverse one with climbing over rocks and roots and through mud and creeks and over a wicked swingbridge (almost all decent hikes over here have one though) and some flat bits thrown in for good measure and an emergency phone 20 minutes from the hut in case you got wet in the last creek, to Welcome Flat Hut which has some, guess what, natural hot pools right by it to soak your tired muscles and bones in (don't put your head under water though!) after the hike which obviously is just what you need at that point, but that would just be some boring old doodoo that you are expecting to read here and come on, you have had it with same old obnoxious s-word anyway, so I won't even spend any more time telling you we're in Wanaka now, getting ready to do the Routeburn and Greenstone tracks in Mid-March and working a bit since we figured it won't hurt and we're gonna have to hang around this area anyway until then, because I'm just that nice.

Instead, let's talk about blogging. Did you know that the Christoph that's giving you all these wicked posts is basically a fictional character? At least that's how I look at it. I had planned to elaborate on this a bit, ending with the question whether this paragraph here was written by the fictional character or the actual me, but real-life Christoph doesn't really feel like it anymore and we have already spent enough money for internet today, but this is for the other people who blog: How do you see yourself in relation to the person or persona you use to write your posts? Geez, what a load of bull. But remember, sometimes, this is the postmodernist blog. Oh, new pictures too, sweethearts.

Note to self III

When your little boy just can't wait anymore to use the bathroom and you have to pull over on the side of the road, don't let him drop his pants and undies to his ankles and lift his shirt up to his chin while he's standing there right by the road doing his business, while at least having the decency to pee away from the highway.

Over the hills and far away

Life is good people. With the exception of Thursday, we spent the last seven days hiking, and it was awesome. On Monday we started the Abel Tasman Coast Track, which is classified as a Great Walk. There were lotsa people there, as it is peak season right now, but the camping sites we picked weren't that busy and it was still amazing to see all the little bays with clear blue water. We went for a little swim on our day out, which was just the refreshment we needed that day. It was superhot!

Then on Thursday we chilled and left for Mt. Arthur on Friday afternoon with Clint, whom we met working as apple thinners. He's from Wellington originally. Now this hike, or tramp as it is called over here (yes, it's okay to giggle a little), was completely different. It took us up to 1795m at the top of Mt Arthur and traversed alpine and subalpine vegetation and a karst landscape. If you wanna know what that is, you'll have to look it up, cause let's be honest here, only weirdos know that kinda stuff. I would love to tell you about the great views from the top of Mt. Arthur, but it was covered in clouds when we got up there. Luckily, the last bit of the ascent forks of the rest of the track, and we didn't have to carry our packs up there. Anyway, we went up there on Saturday, as it was too late on Friday and we just camped by the Mt. Arthur Hut because it was too windy for our tent to be set up anywhere else. We tried though.

After the Arthur summit we went up and down a ridge leading to Gordon's Pyramid, and from there down to Salisbury Lodge, not without going through a muddy forest. Now, hiking tracks in New Zealand are classified by the difficulty, from Path over Walking Track and Tramping Track to Tramping Route. The way from Mt. Arhtur to Salisbury via the pyrasmid was classified as a route and I gotta say, it was hella steep in parts, and quite strenuous, but in the end it was well worth it. As I mentioned before, we didn't get a lot of good views (Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Cloud), but sitting on top of that mountain with just white all around you and hardly a sound to be heard, you feel completely shut off from the rest of the world. It was pretty amazing.

From Salisbury we took an easier way back to where we started and stayed at the most amazing hut/shelter I have ever seen. It was basically a hut that used an overhanging rock as its roof and a wall, and there was a swing seat and fire pit outside. We'll probably post a picture at one point. The other two nights we stayed in our tent. Monday we went back out and treated ourselves to some tasty Thai food. So all in all a great week and now my hour is almost up and I"m outa here.