Show weekend with loads of fun!!!

Canterbury region has its' own holiday in November. The week is referred to as Show weekend.
Hedda and I happy to be out spending money at the races :-)

One of the big events during show week is Cup Day. I made it to the event for the first time in my life this year. I thought I don't want to miss out on the chance of seeing a majority of kiwis dressing up in fancy hats and dresses and suits. It doesn't come around that often. It is pretty fun with having the opportunity to gamble on trotting horses whilst getting boosted in gusty hot norwesterlies. The fact that this happened on a weekday and you get an excuse to take a day off work adds additional value. Nina and Phil have been there pretty much every year so Phil had to tech me how I could waste my money on horses.

Hedda and Alex


Since it was such a hot and windy day and since my 2 dollar plastic rose which was meant to go on the below 10 dollar hat, was very poorly matched to my dress, I ditched it and went to the races without a hat. Many woman had reached the same conclusions that morning.

My betting skills were pretty bad so I lost about 30 dollars. I wouldn't recommend to bet on horses simply because they look nice or have a nice name :-)

Phil ready to bet all his life

Had a pretty short week in the office since I left to Milford Sound with Julian and a German girl Susan who is traveling around. It was a short 10 hr ride down south. I felt happy to leave work behind and to go tramping.

We caught up with Mike and Alex in Te Anau and reached the conclusion that we would postpone the Milford Track walk one day due to dodgy weather. The next day wasn't actually too bad (apparently Chch had suckie weather the entire weekend). We went for a run up Kepler Track to see what it was like. The surface of the track is made for running with spongy beech forest leaves. It was very beautiful with various species of ferns. The sandflies kept us on the run for a bit but we all forced ourselves to sleep pretty early since we had to get up at 5am the next morning to take the boat to the start of Milford Track.


(I went for a snorkel tour in Lake Te Anau...just to prove that I could do it to the rest. I don't actually know why I choose to bring along the mask and snorkel in the first place. Didn't see much in the freezing cold water)

Milford track is amazingly tourist friendly and we thought a car would have fit the track for the first 15 km. This is a track which is very rewarding in terms of scenery views vs effort bushbashing since I can't say I even got one little bruise or scratch from this tramp. Hrm...It almost felt like I had not been doing anything at all.



We had to leave with the boat from Te Anau at 6 am. Pain!! It was hard to get up at 5 am so we could start the track at 7am...

Often it was bluntly obvious which way to walk along the track. I am sure some half blinded tourists must have got lost sometime.

I had hoped to catch some stunning views from the top of Macinnon Pass (>1000m high) since I had climb the pass in pouring rain in 2001. Unfortunately the weather gods were a bit grumpy this day. We had low clouds and couldn't see much until we came down a few hundred meters on the other side. Well, well...I guess I might see the views from the top next time :-)




We did a bit of jogging but only downhill and I would only run if I know my friends are feeding me chocolate, cheese (Mike's a real cheese freak) or ginger nuts. Southerland falls (581 m 5th/6th highest waterfall in the world deepening on how you count) was absolutely fabulous. It was definitely the highlight of the walk!



Many tourists were staring at us when we skipped past with our tiny daypacks (Julian's were massive since he had lots of extra stuff just to get the most pain out of the 57 k tramp:-). Most tourists had heavy packs (God knows what they had packed) and they always had so much clothes on. What's wrong with a pair of shorts and a polypro top? I think I have stayed in New Zealand long enough to see the beauty of chucking out those long pants when tramping.

A bunch of tight arses!


Milford is a great track but I wouldn't like to pay full price for it. It was great to be able to go through it in one day. Anyone can almost do it. Trust me!

Finally at Sandfly point at 7.30pm at night.


The day ended with a gorgeous boat ride with grand views.

If you want to see more stunning photos from the trip, please go to Mike's blog:
http://www.mikeplank.kicks-ass.org/Milford_Track