The Book of Ashes

The three gay guys house in Queenstown, walking up Ben Lomond, walking up Few creek... 10:41AM

The three gay guys house in Queenstown.

So back to the Queenstown thing. Friday night Sophie, Eddie and myself drove up to Queenstown. It was your standard drive, everytime you do it, it seems shorter and shorter. When I was a kid I remember it used to be a lifetime just going from Alex to Dunners, now its over in the blink of an eye. Maybe you think slower when you're older and so you have less thoughts in those 2 hours of driving so it seems to go faster when you're older. Or maybe its like the Cat Stevens song and you've learnt the art of patience and you take your time a little more with things. Anyway the country side was awesome. Alex is a pretty barren and yet impressive place, again not fully appreciated until I come back.

But finally we arrived in Queenstown to the house where Dad had moved into with his new(ish) girlfriend, Corne. And let me tell you, what a house! Its on the Frankton arm of lake Wakatipu (Kelvin Heights), right down almost on the water with a view of the whole arm of the lake and the mountains all around. Three gay American guys own the house and rent it out while they're not here and it is a fucking mansion. They have 5 TVs, 3 DVD players, flash CD players in many rooms and heaps more. I mean they have three possum skin rugs, one with the price tag still on of $3995. In their garage sit two virtually brand new cars, a Rover with 7,000kms on the clock (which we took for a spin) and a another 4wheel drive car. They also apparently have a jaguar up in Auckland in storage which they drive down here in when they come over. Shit! So now I live in luxury, the life I was meant to have, awesome views every night, awesome meals (Corne cooks wicked meals) and everything really I ever needed. Well except my own space but for a holiday its damn sweet.

So the first two days it was freezing. It snowed on the mountains around us and we didn't do much. Eddie & Sophie left on Sunday and I planed a big walk on Monday. Monday the weather was still crap but I decided to walk up Ben Lomond anyway. As a kid mum & dad took us up to the pass where we refused to go any further. We sat there while they walked up to the top of the mountain and back and we never made it. I resolved to make it this time and I was a machine. I pumped up the hill double time making it up in 1 hour 30 mins (3 hours est). I was sweating like a pig when I hit fog just below the pass. At the pass it began to snow lightly and I was told it was worse up the mountain so I was denied access. I took off down the other side of the pass and was quickly out of the fog. I was now on my way to Arthurs Point. I met two cyclists coming up the path, struggling their arses off. They asked me where they were on the map to find they had taken a wrong turn and walked up half the mountain on the walking track rather than following the cycling road. Very dishearted they turned around and came after me. I have some cool photos here. Three and a half hours after I began I was at the Arthurs Point Pub, talking to the new manager and drinking a speights. All was good.

Walking up Few Creek to lake Isobel... 10:54AM

Few Creek

Tuesday was a beaut day and I wished I'd waited to walk Ben Lomond. Instead I had decided on a harder walk to test my new found stamina. I was to pay dearly for that arrogance. I walked up Few creek (aka 12 mile creek) along a well worn track to an old miners hut (one we had stayed in once and woken up the next morning to find rat droppings all over the mattresses, it is not a tramping hut, rather an old, disused miners hut). There I left the beaten path and went cross country, through the native bush up alongside the river. To begin with it was beautiful and not to hard going. I found some very untouched river scenes and a few little waterfalls. But that wasn't to last too long. It quickly became too steep to follow the river (with 30 meter cliff faces) so I climbed labourously up the steep valley sides as I went along. Eventually I broke out of the bush and saw to my dismay that the valley extended onwards and upwards for a long way yet. I struggled on for hours, my feet and legs getting sore from always being on a lean (it was very steep on the valley sides). I made it up to the snow line at the base of Mt Crichton and it was very impressive. Again I have some awesome photos. I came round the corner and began climbing pretty much straight up. There were avalanches next to me and rock falls to climb up and I was exhausted. In the end I gave up as it was getting late and I was out of energy. I was probably 30 mins from the lake but buggered if I was going to climb that 30 mins straight up a rock slide. I turned around and sidled around the hill till I reached the ridge and came back down.

Coming back down wasn't as easy as I thought it would be either. I hit some areas of hard bracken and scratched my arms and legs to pieces pushing through it. I chanced upon a track coming down the hill which lead me through the bush for a ways before I lost it again. Eventually I found a stream and followed that till I found a bridge from the original track I had started on. By this stage I was munted from climbing down the steep slopes and was so happy to have a flat surface to walk on. I came out after over 7 hours of walking. The next day I was a little stiff, actually todays the next day, I was sunburnt on my shoulders and upper arms and the fronts of my legs, I have scraches all over my hands and arms and legs but nothing that won't heal. I'm not going to do something like that anytime soon, but one day, one day I will have killed enough brain cells through drinking to have forgotten the pain and only remember those awesome views and the feeling of sitting atop a steep valley face, looking down, down to a tiny stream meandering away below me and knowing that I was not so long ago down there and under my own power I got myself up here.

Of 5c pieces... It was funny talking to Eddie. He tells me he picks up coins as well, infact everywhere he walks he looks at the ground, searching for money (I do this in the extreme straight after I've found money incase I find more!). Maybe this is a genetic thing. We were comparing our daily takes and the best places to find money. I think shopping malls, main streets and super markets are the best.

On a kind of related topic I also have the gold fever in my blood. Everything down here is about the gold rush and the old miners etc. Walking up that valley with many small creeks to cross and a major river to follow I kept looking out for gold nuggets. If I had a pan and a gold filled river I'd be happy. I'd really love to travel over mountains to some never before found stream and find gold there... I'm a hundred years too late I think.