The night before we left it rained four inches in Te Anua. We decided to go because it seemed it was impossible to avoid heavy rain. As we got to the lake the next day, the wind was whipping at probably around 40 mph or so. It was frigid and we were getting on this little fishing boat to get to the trailhead. The skipper told us to hold on as it was going to be rough. He wasn't kidding. As we charged through oncoming wind-waves, water would spray well over our heads and then change direction as the wind caught it. When I wasn't thinking "what am I doing here" there were some incredible vistas of waterfalls and ribbons of rain falling against a dramatic backdrop of mountains. I would've took pictures but my hands were glued to my seat.
Everyone we talked to about the Dusky told us to prepare for mud so I bought trash bags to fashion some gaters for my trail running shoes. Within five minutes I realized what a silly idea that was as we were literally hiking up a creek. Before we got on the trail Skyler and Lucas were bagging on the hut system in New Zealand--all of the major tracks have huts that you stay in, some are mandatory and cost money. After our first day of hiking it was obvious that the huts were necessary. Every bit of flat land was covered in water. It did make the tramp a different experience since we were sharing the huts with the same 3-6 people everynight, but luckily everyone was friendly and in good spirits.
Our second night in I hardly got any sleep because the rain was so incredibly loud on the plexi-glass roofing(or some similar material). There was lightning and thunder but you could hardly hear it because it was raining so hard. The next day hike is the one that is in danger of flooding but we thought "hey the fifty year old women are going for it... it can't be that bad." After a gorgeous day of hiking through lakes and soggy grass we climbed down tree roots for a couple hours. We could see from above that the Loch Maree was in fact flooded, but we didn't see the older women in the emergency shelter so we figured they got across alright. We had been told that we might have to wade up to our waist to get to the walkwire bridge to cross the river. I was in back trying to take pictures when I heard Lucas yell "I'm swimming!" I didn't really believe him but I figured I should put my camera away anyways. As I came around the corner I saw Skyler swimming for the walkwire. As I watched Skyler climb the ladder to the walkwire bridge I noticed a strange log floating against the current towards me. I then realized it had eyes. Here was a three foot eel swimming directly towards me. As I squealed "There's an &*^$!ing eel!" my first thought was, 'I hope this isn't an electric eel' as it rubbed against my leg very near my special parts. I remembered that there wasn't anything that can kill you in NZ but I wasn't taking any chances as I dove into the water with my fully loaded pack on my back. It was a slow yet very intense struggle. The current was pushing me inch by inch away from the ladder as I moved inch by inch with my power doggy paddle. What relief it was to grasp the ladder with my outstretched arm. The last thing I wanted was to be that stupid foreigner who tried to swim across Loch Maree and drowned. I could picture the locals reading the paper "Didn't anyone tell him about the man-eating eels? ... tis a shame, truly... no sense about these foreigners"
We arrived to a nearly full hut as all of the trails out of Loch maree were flooded. We met a new German friend who had already spent 9 days on the track, and had to swim 7 times to get to Loch maree from the leg that we decided to skip.
We listened to the weather that night to hear that more heavy rain was coming in two days, so everyone that had swam that day decided to get off the track ASAP. Sure enough after two more days of mud-walking and climbing tree roots torrential rains pummeled the last hut we stayed in. The skipper of the boat the next day said it rained "the better part of twelve inches in the last 24 hours." Good decision us!
So we are back in Queenstown with about 12 days left until we pick up our bikes for our tour up the west coast. We are going to try to do a couple 3-4 day tramps to kill the time and save some money.
I didn't upload many pictures this time because it takes foreeever but still some good ones:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/
Man, oh man, I love your stories. You're a great travel writer Brice! Keep 'em coming!
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