A Dangerous Business

Date: 25th January 2024

Ah, Hanmer Springs. Despite all the road trips I went on as a child with my family in Aotearoa, we never visited Hanmer, so I was looking forward to exploring this resort town a bit more. Before then, I made sure to have a good old sleep in at the hostel Oli and I were staying at. It goes to show how much my sense of what is normal has changed since I got on trail: real beds with real sheets, blankets, and duvets are a luxury that one can only experience once a week.

Despite it being the anniversary of my arrival on this planet, in many ways it was like any other rest day. I had quite a few tasks to do this morning. First things first, despite the great multitude of food in my Boyle bounce box, I needed a bit more. What happened next is I walked down to the Four Square, hiker hunger overwhelmed the parts of my brain that deal with coherent thinking and I went completely overboard and now I’ve got way too much food. Before I started panicking about how I was going to fit it all in my pack, I stopped by a cafe for a coffee. A proper coffee. It was as good as it sounds after 6 days of sachets.

After buying another one on my way back to the hostel, I stepped foot into the kitchen to see Oli preparing a gargantuan breakfast of eggs, sausages, bacon, avocado, tomato, and toast.

He’d mentioned his plan of cooking this the night prior but I assumed it was just for himself. Nope, he made me an equally sized portion too. Can I just say, I ate every single bite of his delicious concoction. I didn’t expect to get any gifts for this birthday, but I was most pleased with this one. It’s not like I’ll have a similarly expansive breakfast anytime soon.

For the rest of the morning I worked on more administrative tasks. Laundry, backing up my GoPro videos to the cloud, and posting to various social media accounts. The latter isn’t exactly necessary but I like keeping friends and family back home updated. Oh, and I called my parents too. That task was very necessary.

After grabbing a meat pie for a smaller lunch (still feeling pretty full from brekkie), thoughts turned to visiting the main thing Hanmer Springs is known for: their springs. They’re geothermally heated and have attracted visitors for many generations, myself becoming one of them. Over the years it has become a more commercialised operation, so the pools don’t exactly look natural. Instead, pools of various designs set at different temperatures have been created, their waters fed by an underground geothermal bore. Oli and I met up with Melly (who’s birthday is also today) and Sean inside. For the next 2.5 hours, I could forget about the trail and its trials and just relax in the warm waters. My favourite would have to be the natural sulphur pools, the hottest ones in the park and smell strongly of, well, sulphur as the water isn’t filtered when coming up from the bore. Granted the hot waters might be a bit too relaxing, my legs feeling slightly weak when I got out. Oh well, that seems like a good excuse to cool off with an ice cream and milkshake at the tearooms.

Later on a large group of hikers joined us, the same group we’d met on Waiau Pass. Right let’s see if I can remember all their names… We had Sophie (who we first met at Waiopehu Hut), Sahar, Alex, Riley (all Canadians), Sam (Christchurch), and Geraldine (France). Pretty sure I missed one or two in there, you’ll probably see their names pop up in a later post when I remember them. After soaking in the pools for a bit, we all headed down to the water slides at the far end of the park. Yes, they have water slides. I have very high standards for water slides being a Queenslander living an hour away from Wet N Wild. These ones were alright. They’re passable. Good fun, not that scary (unless you’re Sophie in which case they’re terrifying).

Sadly, Oli and I had to call time on our hot springs fun soon afterwards as we needed to get ready for dinner. Tonight’s meal was organised by yours truly and paid for by yours truly’s mum (thanks mum!). Researching possible places to eat, I was hoping to go somewhere a bit different the usual burger and meat joints hikers normally flock to. That research revealed a restaurant called simply MK that seemed to specialise in dumplings. Not a bad idea, so I made a reservation for eight. Yes, eight. Including the four hikers, joining us would be Matt’s dad, Sean, and two of Melly’s friends. With that all set, we walked to the restaurant only to find out I had been very silly and made a reservation for tomorrow night. Thankfully there was still room for all of us.

The restaurant was very small, with maybe 20 seats. I learnt later that our “waiter” was actually the head chef and owner, with him and his wife being the only staff who worked there! That would explain his in-depth knowledge of the menu and the fact that all dishes were the same fixed price. He was a very interesting character, much like the food he prepared. The main concept of the restaurant is taking various dumpling dishes from around the world (e.g.: gyoza from Japan, perogies from eastern Europe, etc.) and elevating them to the extreme. I went for the pemeni (check that name later) and this is what I received.

It had to be the most exquisitely presented dish I’ve ever seen. Beyond the dumplings themselves were several salads, each one elegantly made with different flavour combinations. Ok, I’ll stop being a food critic now, because I don’t know how to describe the taste of the meal other than to say it was magnificent! This was above and beyond anything I expected. If you’re ever in Hanmer, go to MK.

Returning to the hostel, I brought out to two cakes that Melly and I had bought (that wasn’t a deliberate choice, we’d each bought a cake separately without telling one another). Gift-wise, I’d made a small care package for Melly that included a block of chocolate, a couple apples, and a carton of juice. Matt, meanwhile, revealed a small bag containing two blocks of Whittaker’s and two blocks of fudge for me. More food for me to carry, but you’ll never hear me complaining about fudge. With that I said my goodbyes to everyone and went to bed. Not a bad birthday, not bad at all.