Nice View

It was Greg's day off today (Tuesday) so he decided to go for a walk up into the Wye Creek catchment area and took along his gun just in case. There had been a heavy snow fall overnight which made everything look like a postcard first thing in the morning. There is still a good snow base up on the hills, which is still making it difficult to get up to where the deer are but he did manage to shoot a "100 year old billy goat" (in his words). Apparently it smelt 100 years old too and had a good set of horns on it. Unfortunately he forgot to take a photo of it in the excitement as it took off into the scrub and took some chasing down!

Wye Creek rises steeply up from lake level to nearly 2000m and makes for some spectacular scenery, as seen below:

Looking back towards Queenstown - the first peninsula on the right is Jack's Point and the second one is Kelvin Heights

Looking towards Cecil Peak. And yes, that's the road at the bottom of the picture. "Rising Steeply" is an understatement! These photos were taken from about halfway up.

Nice work, Met Service

We couldn't decide how to name this blog. We came up with a number of possibilities: Cold as a Mother-in-Law's Kiss, The Mad Jarvises but decided on the one above.

The weekend's weather was forecast as follows:

Saturday: fine, with light winds and early morning frosts. High of 17, overnight low of 6.

Sunday: Warm Nor'westers rising to gale late afternoon with rain by evening. High of 17. Free air freezing level 2300m.

Hence we decided that although there was the chance of getting a bit wet on the way out, we'd head into the bush anyway as we were keen to sight in the new rifle Greg has just bought.

The sighting in of the rifle went really well. This involves shooting at a target with inch scales on it, and adjusting the scope up, down, left and right until the point you aim at is the point you hit! It involves a bit of accuracy on the part of the shooter. It only took us a dozen shots to get the rifle shooting accurately at 100m. At that point, Greg decided Andrea needed to take a shot with the rifle so that she knew what it was all about. She took aim, fired.... and hit the bullseye from 100m. Much to Greg's disgust. Andrea maintains she won't shoot it again now - why ruin the perfect record?? Hehehe

Saturday morning indeed dawned fine and frosty with light winds. By evening the winds had gotten up a bit so it looked like the forecast was right on track.

We reached our camp site at about 2.30pm and set up the tent. We had a bit of a look around, then had an early dinner and headed up the flats to see if we could spot any deer. We didn't. We put this down to a number of reasons. Firstly, it's a bit early. There's still a lot of snow around, and the grass down low hasn't really begun to green up for summer yet (which is what the deer come out of the forest for). Secondly, DoC have been flying choppers into the area, dropping 1080 for Possums and Stoats in the area, which may have spooked the deer into staying in the bush. We weren't aware that the 1080 drop had been in this area, but we're pleased we had carried in all the water we needed. Not a risk you want to take.

We got back to camp shortly after 6.30 pm and headed into the tent. The temperature was starting to drop and we were also getting pretty sick and tired of being eaten alive, so we got into the tent and spent the next 15 minutes killing all the mozzies in the tent!

The temperature continued to drop. And drop. And drop. And so did the wind. We are very grateful we invested in top quality sleeping bags and a good tent. And that we had the common sense to put our thermals on before climbing into our sleeping bags!

So, to anyone out there who has ever said either of the following: "There's NOTHING worse than putting your feet into wet boots!" or "There's NOTHING worse than taking down a wet tent", we plead otherwise. Replace "wet" in both of the above sentences with "frozen solid like cardboard". Greg's water bottle even froze slightly in the tent. And there's photographic proof:

If anyone was wondering about the unusual shape of the tent, it's designed to withstand very strong winds and heavy snow and rain.

As you can see below, a very picturesque place for a camp site... it just wasn't the temperatures predicted. Free air freezing level 2300m - not exactly! We would have guessed the temperature outside the tent first thing this morning at about -4 or -5. The dew was freezing on the outside of our thermals! Looking on the bright side, the frost got rid of the mozzies and we were able to eat our breakfast without competition. Or extra protein.

The temperature came up considerably once the sun hit us and we walked out in brilliant sunshine (which we were grateful for as the water in the rivers was extremely cold). We went back a slightly different way to the way we went in, and we're very excited by the deer sign we saw on the way back. Watch this space!

A warm spell?

Since our last post, we've had Adrian here to stay. Adrian was involved with Scouts with us up in Auckland, and was the MC at our wedding. Pete, who married us, was also planning to come down but due to family reasons unfortunately had to pull out at the last minute.

With Adrian here, we took the opportunity to explore the options for possible Gold Level Duke of Edinburgh award expeditions down around here. It's possible that some of the kids from All Saints Birkenhead might be coming down here in a couple of years for a tramp, so we wanted to show Adrian the possibilities. We took Adrian down to Glenorchy to show him each end of the Rees-Dart track, which looks to be the most promising option. We also did a short walk through to Lake Sylvan, which we did earlier in the year as part of another tramp. http://gregandandreajarvis.blogspot.com/2009/04/going-bush-again.html

It's a short walk through Beech forest, coming out at Lake Sylvan - giving Adrian an idea of the kind of forest the kids can expect to see.

This photo is the Rees Valley, the start of the tramp.

This weekend, we decided to head up on Friday night to give night skiing a go. The weather has warmed up a lot in the past week or so, and the snow conditions have deteriorated. On Friday night we were basically snowboarding on wet crushed ice, which had been pushed into 2 foot high moguls. We're still pleased we went up, but the conditions made the boarding less than impressive.

On Saturday, with the weather still warm, we headed out to explore a new hunting area and have our first day tramp of the season. True to form, we managed to pick an area that was steeper than planned, and then made it progressively harder for ourselves by deciding to climb ridges to see if we could spot any wildlife (verdict: only sheep). The track we decided to take back to the car was mostly covered in snow, varying between ankle deep and waist deep. Very hard going! But loads of fun.

Here's Greg, halfway up the steep ridge we decided to climb:

And here's the view from the saddle, a couple of minutes walk from the car on the way back. We were up the back of Gibbston Valley, looking across at the Crown Range.

Queen's Birthday Weekend

We've never looked forward to a long weekend quite so much! The past few weeks have been quite busy, with Andrea involved in the orchestra for the local production of Les Miserables and Greg's work having dramas all of it's own.

Queen's Birthday weekend rolled around and we largely spent the 3 days catching up on sleep and sitting as close to the log burner as we could get. Although we didn't get as much snow as was forecast (just a few snow showers on Sunday morning), the temperatures have been bitterly cold. Things finally cleared out and warmed up a little for Monday (this morning) - a balmy 3 degrees when we left home at 11am. We decided that since we hadn't actually done it yet, we'd take the walk around Lake Hayes, which is known for it's reflections (especially in Autumn). It's been so cold that parts of the lake have frozen. And were still frozen at midday when we walked through!

We took a few photos of the scenery - this one being the one that worked out the best due to passing cloud etc.

We headed home after the walk and had a bite to eat and then promptly headed out again. Greg has been hoping since we arrived here to be able to say he walked across the road from our house (to the beach) and caught a fish. Well today it finally happened..... twice!

The photos of the fish itself didn't come out very well due to it's wriggly nature and the fact that we try to get most fish back into the lake as quickly as possible when we're releasing them. We'd estimate both Rainbow trout at 4 lb. A good eating size, if you're that way inclined.

The first photo shows the first run just after hookup... which took out half the line on Greg's reel in about 20 seconds flat.

The second shot shows the splash just after the fish jumped out in an attempt to shake the hook free (a manouevre that often succeeds if there is any slack in the line).

Ben Lomond.... take 2

We woke up with snow forecast to near lake level and bitterly cold southerlies - and white hills. So, Greg and Max, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was the perfect day for another hike up Ben Lomond.

They started off at the bottom of the Gondola and made it to halfway between the saddle and the summit when the cloud came in and reduced visibility to the point where it wasn't a smart idea to go much further.

The boys were a little disappointed to discover that what looked like a good foot or two of snow from here was actually only about 4-6 inches up the top.

Some photos:

Greg walking up the track (snowing lightly, but with the sun trying it's hardest to break through!)

Greg looking out at the view, from just above the saddle (a glimpse of the Remarkables in the right hand corner)

You may remember the park bench below from a previous blog: http://gregandandreajarvis.blogspot.com/2009/01/hard-yakka.html - back when we first started hiking. (Max standing beside the bench)

Mt Crichton Scenic Reserve

Well, not just Mt Crichton, but mostly!

On Saturday morning we went into town for the Anzac Day Parade and then headed towards the Gondola. We walked up the track that leads from the gondola base building to a bit above the restaurant at the top, with Max, Fin and Morgan. Fin took a nice photo of the two of us in the "frame" they have erected up the top (much the same as the ones around Auckland).

On Sunday we woke up to discover it had mostly stopped raining, so headed out again, this time to Mt Crichton Scenic Reserve. This is an area of Beech Forest just off the Glenorchy Road, near to Lake Dispute where we walked a couple of weeks ago (about 10 minutes out of town).

The track is a loop track, marked as "2-4 hours" but we must be getting fitter or something as we churned it out in 1 hour and 40 minutes... yay for Weight Watchers! We even stopped to take a few photos:

These first 2 photos are of an old miner's hut now used by hunters and other trampers (the reserve is on the border of a restricted hunting area). We were amazed at how well looked after the hut was, and how much respect is shown by all who visit it. There are numerous old mining tools hanging up outside the hut - they'd be worth a bit of money, but everyone leaves them for everyone else to enjoy. It's great!

People do still stay in the hut - although we think we'd bring our own bedrolls.... the matresses are almost old enough to be the originals from 100 years ago.

Just past the hut we came across this waterfall... AaaaHhhhhh!!

And these toadstools - which were the size of bread and butter plates. Everything else in a beech forest is brown or green so they stood out miles away.

Going Bush... again

Friday morning dawned clear, calm, crisp..... and COLD. It was -4 degrees according to the car's external thermometer just before we set off on another tramp. Crisp mornings like that lead to great photos though, and once we'd been walking for about 20 minutes we weren't particularly cold anymore.


The first part of the tramp was nice and easy, with a marked trail that worked its way around Lake Sylvan (pictured below), after starting lower down the same valley as the well known Routeburn track.


The first half an hour was the tramping equivalent of a 4-lane highway... wide, flat, with bridges across the little streams and a gravel track. Once leaving Lake Sylvan it turned into a proper tramping track - with markers every hundred metres or so and no bridges to speak of, until we reached the Rockburn river. We spent a bit of time and energy keeping our feet dry on this section of track (avoiding bogs and finding good stream crossing points) which soon proved to be a bit of a waste of time.


After the Rockburn, the trail was not marked at all. We made our way down to the Dart River Flats and walked upstream to the Beans Burn river, using map, compass, GPS and a bit of common sense.


We walked across Beans Burn (up to our waists in snow melt - i.e. not overly tropical) and (eventually) found the marked trail up to the flats halfway up the valley.


We reached our camp site shortly before the sun went behind the surrounding hills. Of all of the thousands of acres of national park that we were in, we were a little bit disappointed to have a couple of hunters pitch their tent 50m from ours... but there's not a lot we can do about that!



The plan for Saturday was to explore further up Beans Burn, camp in the same location, and then walk out on Sunday. However, we woke up on Saturday morning to discover wet, warm weather, which meant large amounts of snow melt and rising rivers. So we packed up quickly and headed back down the valley to get across the Beans Burn river prior to the waters rising too much. Everyone else in the valley had the same idea - we met others heading hastily down the valley (including some who needed to cross the Dart - which is a FAR bigger river to cross).

We thoroughly enjoyed it, even with cutting the tramp short by a day. We got to know more of the locals... i.e. deer, birds, and the local flying elephants (sand flies). We got our own back on the sand flies though, we're both pretty sure we ate as many of them with our dinner as they ate of us. Extra protein.

Lake Dispute

Last weekend, just for a change, we decided to walk up a hill. We haven't done that much lately!!

The hill in question this time was above Lake Dispute, which is between Moke Lake and Lake Wakatipu, about 15 minutes drive out of Queenstown on the Glenorchy Road. We walked from the Glenorchy Road up to Lake Dispute and then continued on up to the Mt Crichton Loop Track to have a look at the view. We then walked back down to the lake and had a picnic lunch before returning to the car - a great walk for a lazy Sunday, about an hour and a half all up.

In other news, we've heard tonight that the vettor for Greg's gun licence is coming over tomorrow night (finally!) so hopefully in another few weeks he should have a licence. Unfortunately it is now heading well towards winter and our tramping and hunting days are numbered, as the hunting areas are generally alpine or sub-alpine and can be snow (or ice) covered for a lot of winter. So it will probably be spring before we get into the hunting - but that just gives us something to look forward to!
Our high today was 12 degrees and we're expecting 1 overnight in Queenstown so up at 800m where we were last weekend will be significantly below zero!

Coronet Peak

We got up this morning and decided to continue on and conquer another of Queenstown's hills. Today's effort was Coronet Peak - we walked from the carpark up (and around a bit - always on the lookout for wild game!) to the summit, where there is a radio mast and radar equipment for Airways NZ. The views were stunning, even though it was a bit overcast and a tad windy. Not to mention close to freezing! There is snow forecast to low levels for the next 5 days in Queenstown so we thought we'd get in some practice walking up Coronet before the snow hits and we do it all over again carrying snowboards.

We could see a little bit of snow/ice left up the top of some of the distant peaks of the Southern Alps - hopefully by the end of the week there will be some on the closer peaks again.

Up the top we also ran into a few of the locals, who were very vocal, and seemed highly unimpressed that we left without handing over any of our lunch.

Queenstown Hill

Well, we said we might find a few more hills to walk up this long weekend. It's a good thing we live in Queenstown, as hills are rather plentiful.

We hadn't yet been up Queenstown Hill so when invited to join Max, Fin and Morgan, we jumped at the chance.

At the top of the "loop track" is a sculpture commissioned for the new Millenium titled "The Basket of Dreams", seen below with the Remarkables in the background. The idea is that you sit in it and make a wish. We sat in it and had Fin take our photo, but the only wish I made was that the photo would turn out ok, and it didn't, so we aren't sure if it works that well....

We had a bite to eat and continued up to "the summit" of Queenstown Hill, which was about 20 minutes straight up from the loop track. A lovely couple out walking offered to take a photo of all of us, so here's a photo of Morgan, Max, Fin, Andrea and Greg. If you can't see Morgan, he's on Max's back!

Moke Lake

On Sunday we decided to go for a walk around Moke Lake, which is about 10 minutes drive from downtown Queenstown. It is a high country lake in a horeshoe shape in the middle of Ben Lomond and Closeburn Stations. Very picturesque in winter!

As we've heard that there are some HUGE brown trout in this lake, Greg decided to take his spinning rod along. We have been to Moke Lake a number of times, and been fishing there a number of times, but to no avail. The closest we have come to catching a trout is a half-hearted version of a "follow in" where a fish follows the lure right in (almost to your feet) but fails to take the lure. For that matter, we don't even know anyone who has personally caught a fish there!

A howling southerly was blowing on Sunday, meaning there were only a few places that were able to be fished without ending up covered in nylon fishing line. So we set off and walked to the southern end of one of the "arms" of the horseshoe. After trudging out through the swamp, Greg started casting. After about 4 casts, this happened:

If you can't tell, this is about a 7 pound brown trout. It fought long and hard, but after 15 minutes Greg won the battle and landed it. This photo was taken on Greg's phone as Andrea forgot to take the camera, and has been downloaded thanks to the card reader John Houltham bought us while he was here - thanks!!

As brown trout aren't particularly good eating, the fish was released back into Moke Lake to fight another day.

We aren't intending on going away this weekend and are going to take it easy. We'll find another hill or two to climb up maybe, but nothing more adventurous than that. We're expecting gale force winds so we probably won't get the boat out. It's been a frustratingly windy summer, but hopefully it will all settle down in another month.

Winter Season passes for skiing and snowboarding go on sale next week - roll on winter!

Hard Yakka

If you've ever wondered what's behind the hills that surround Queenstown.... the answer is..... more hills.

We've said goodbye to all our guests, having enjoyed the time with all of them. In our first "free" weekend for quite some time we decided to climb the Ben Lomond track. This is the hill that can be seen from our house, up behind the Gondola. This photo was taken from our house (back in Winter, obviously! Ben Lomond is the taller of the two peaks you can see, the one on the left).

Upon reaching the top, we don't know which of the two following photos shows the view we were more pleased to see:

We have to admit that after the steep climb, we were both temporarily more interested in the park bench than the view. Unfortunately it started drizzling slightly when we got to the top so the view wasn't as good as it can be on a brilliantly sunny day. We were grateful for the lack of hot sun though!