A Dangerous Business

After 2 years of planning and anticipation and 4.5 months of actual walking, my adventure on Te Araroa is at an end. I still can’t quite believe that it’s over. In my latter years at university, a good bit of my free time was spent dithering over my plans, reading blogs and watching videos from past hikers. As I did so my anticipation of actually stepping foot on the trail rose and rose, both excited and nervous for what was to come. Well, it came and went, and with it resulted a smorgasbord of memories and experiences that I hope to not soon forget. It does help that the internet is forever and I will be able to revisit all my daily posts from the trail in years to come.

But I now have to face the reality that I now have to come home and, pardon the cliche, start a new chapter of my life as I begin a career as an engineer. However, I didn’t fly home immediately. Thanks to my sticking with Melly, Matt, and Oli, I finished two days early of when I intended. With that comes a bit more time to do some fun, less intense activities before the need to return to Brisbane. First things first, I need to leave Bluff. I don’t intend on working at the port anytime soon, so I headed back up to Queenstown for a couple days.

Ok that’s not exactly the first thing I did. Before boarding the bus taking me north we had one last meal together as a trail family (plus Destroyer, Paul, Maria, and Sean) and then went our separate ways. Melly and Sean would be heading over to Fiordland National Park to do, shockingly, more walking, Oli was going to Stewart Island for a few days, and Matt would join me in Queenstown the day after I get there and would then spend two weeks touring around the South Island on a motorbike. I have no doubt our paths will cross again sometime in the future, when that is I don’t know. Melly’s planning on visiting Patagonia this time next year, a very tempting offer but it’ll be dependent on my work and personal situation at the time.

Now alone in the big Q and with 2.5 hours until I can check in, I grabbed lunch from Fergbaker and went to the library for a bit of peace and quiet. And heating and a reprieve from the wind. You could definitely tell winter was on its way and that in a couple months this town will be covered in snow. The rest of the day was a relaxed affair, only leaving my hostel to get dinner and a couple drinks from Ferg’s Bar to celebrate my achievement.

After a well-deserved sleep in, I stepped foot onto Queenstown’s streets the following day and immediately dashed back into the hostel to add another layer. It can’t have been more than 5 degrees outside, based upon what I was feeling and all of the fresh snow I could see on Cecil Peak and the Remarkables.

Today would be a bit more fun. First order of business was satisfying my cravings for fresh plastic by buying yet another disc and heading back out to the Queenstown Gardens for another round where I was determined to improve on my score from a couple weeks ago.

I guess I technically did improve but it still wasn’t a great score. Heading back into town with a craving for sushi, I had lunch at a sushi train and started pondering where to go from there. See, I had a barber’s appointment at 4:30 that I really couldn’t be late for, but that was still 3 hours away. I could just chill back at the hostel, and perhaps in a different city I would’ve done just that. But I’m in Queenstown, the city that has an unending desire for my tourist dollars. Seeing as I’d be leaving the next day, I might as well oblige. So, I took the gondola up to Bob’s Peak and went on a few rides of the luge.

The luge is definitely more fun with friends and family, but I still enjoyed it. Right, time to get a haircut. And a shave. And just generally remove the hiker trash that’s built up since October. I think it turned out pretty well. I’m keeping the mo for now, we’ll see how long that lasts.

Now onto the last order of business for today: where on Earth is Matt? Well, Matt had been a bit silly and taken the Intercity coach from Invercargill to Queenstown. Intercity does not travel directly between the two. The route is frankly ridiculous, first going up the east coast to Dunedin and then back inland to the Q. It’s 11.5 hours on two coaches, and that’s assuming no delays. And Matt had been delayed. For an hour. We had planned on getting dinner together, but that was now out of the question. Instead we settled for getting one final drink before he set off on his motorcycle tour tomorrow.

Right, now it’s Christchurch time. I’ll be honest, the biggest reason I came back to Queenstown instead of heading straight for Christchurch was just so I could fly out of Queenstown Airport. I’m an avgeek, it’s what we do. I’ve already raved about how cool it is to fly in and out of here, so I’ll save you the trouble of going through it all again.

In addition to the cool depature, I’d also be flying on an aircraft I haven’t been on before, an ATR 72. It’s a small turboprop that seats, funnily enough, 72 people. It’s built with a high wing to fit the engine and its 7 propeller blades, which means it’s not great for viewing scenery. This didn’t bother me, I’ll happily stare at an aircraft engine for the entire flight (ok, I’ll try to stop being so nerdy).

Taking off over Lake Wakatipu, we made a long left turn back over the airport (at one point we were flying directly into the Remarkables) and then followed the eastern edge of the southern alps all the way into Christchurch. For me it was like an aerial highlights recap of the places I’d been. It started with the Macetown Road and the Motatapu Track, then Wanaka and Breast Hill, followed by Lake Ohau and Tekapo. The whole flight I kept thinking “hey, I walked through there!”

My hostel at Christchurch was right by the airport so I was a little ways from the CBD. Once again I do was too early to check in so I just hung out in the common area for a few hours. What to do afterwards? Maybe I could check UDisc to see if there’s any disc golf courses in Christchurch… Oh my, there’s a lot! And there’s one a quick bus ride down the road. Might as well give it a crack.

I arrived at the course just after school finished and I found the park packed with people – mostly school kids – playing the course. Now that’s a sight I haven’t seen in my 3 years of plastic throwing. There wasn’t any event on, it was a regular Wednesday afternoon, and I was being held up on every hole waiting for people in front of me to finish. It was honestly really cool to see, especially seeing so many kids out playing. As such, I didn’t take any photos of the course which was fairly easy although I’m still way out of form.

Now onto the main reason why I came up to Christchurch instead of flying straight home from Queenstown. I’ll keep it brief: it’s because of a train. The TranzAlpine, to be precise, which goes from Christchurch to Greymouth via Arthur’s Pass. Initially I wanted to take the train both ways, but the outbound service was sold out. No matter, I can just take a coach to Greymouth- and it’s sold out too. Righto, guess I’m flying again, this time to Hokitika. The flight was onboard a Dash 8 Q300, an older, smaller turboprop that felt a bit underpowered. It was another very scenic flight over the alps and once again I was staring at the engine the whole time.

A shuttle took me up to Greymouth where I killed time by sitting in a cafe and going for a short stroll beside the Grey River. It’s a very creatively named town. Say, what should we name this settlement built on the banks of the Grey River near the river’s mouth? Oh I know, Greymouth!

The train from Christchurch arrived into the station fashionably late and we then promptly whisked away down the line for servicing and to get the locomotives around to the other side; having them at the back would be a bit silly. An hour later it returned and we set off on the Midland Line.

The scenery for the first hour was mostly grassy plains and I quickly noticed a massive difference compared with the plains on the eastern side of the alps. This side was much greener thanks to all the rain that falls on the west coast. Like, a lot greener.

One cool thing about New Zealand’s tourist trains is their inclusion of an outdoor observation car. Well it’s not entirely outdoor, it does have a roof, but otherwise you get to stand and look at the scenery around the line unencumbered by windows. It can get a bit chilly though, so keep that in mind. What I found surprising was how flat the land was around these parts. I had presumed we’d be entering the mountains pretty quickly after departing Greymouth but we stuck to the valley floor all the way to Otira. I guess that makes sense, trains famously have a phobia of hills.

Passing by Morrison’s Footbridge, we stopped briefly at the “town” of Otira, the beginning of the very long Otira Tunnel. I can’t remember the exact distance, but it’s over 8 km in length. For most of its history it was electrified as ventilation is very poor, especially in the days of steam locomotives. Nowadays diesel locos can pass through just fine (although we did have two helper locos attached to the rear of the train in case we needed to be pulled out in an emergency), however during the journey the observation car is closed and all passengers must stay in their seats. The ride through took about 15 minutes, popping out of the tunnel right in the middle of Arthur’s Pass.

More parts of the TA could be seen on the way out of Arthur’s Pass. I saw where the Mingha and Bealey rivers converge, where I crossed the latter, and trail markers leading down to Klondyke Corner.

The railway at this point crosses to the true left bank of the Waimakariri, following it down to the Canterbury plains. It starts off flat but then turns into a steep sided gorge resulting in the construction of numerous viaducts and tunnels. Funnily enough, trains aren’t as good at dealing with steep gradients as human legs are, hence why they get tunnels over mountains and I get marker poles pointing straight up and over them.

After spending a bit more time in the observation car, I retreated back to my seat and relaxed for the rest of the journey down through Springfield, Darfield, and Rolleston before reaching Christchurch station. This was it, my final day in New Zealand was almost at its end, and what a fine ending it had been, travelling over a gorgeous railway line through one of the highlights of my walk down the country.

My final meal at the hostel was fairly unceremonious as I wasn’t that hungry, just a wrap, pasta salad, and an apple. Gripped by bittersweetness, I tried to distract myself by doing as much packing as I could so I wouldn’t disturb my roommates too much when I left in the morning. It was only a temporary measure. As I closed the blind on my pod, a wave of sadness rolled over me. I’ve had a soft spot for New Zealand for many years now, and this adventure has made that spot even softer. It’s a beautiful country filled with beautiful people and has changed my life in ways that I probably haven’t realised yet.

My alarm went off at 3:30am and after, oh maybe 3 hours of sleep I picked up my bag, did one last idiot check of my pod to make sure nothing was lost, and made the short walk over to Christchurch Airport. Despite it being 4am the terminal was buzzing, because for whatever reason there were 5 international flights leaving between 6 and 6:30. As expected, getting through security took some time. Once through, I grabbed a coffee, got a glimpse of the chariot that would take me home (an A321neo in an all black livery, so pretty hard to see), and sat down to wait for boarding. One of the things I like to add in every post I do is listing whatever song or other random media snippet had been running through my head that day. At no point have I ever cried whilst listening to that song play in my head. Until today. I think it’s best if I just write out the lyrics.

Someday we’ll all be together once more

When all of the ships come back to the shore

Then I realise something that I’ve always known

I still call Australia home

That’s the final verse from Peter Allen’s aptly titled song “I Still Call Australia Home”. About a decade ago Qantas used it in an ad and back then I didn’t quite get how meaningful it might be to an Aussie who’s returning to their country after spending a long time abroad. Today I did. Because no matter how much I love coming to the Land of the Long White Cloud and exploring it, no matter how much I crave Fergburger, no matter how much I desire to see my Kiwi family, Australia is still my home. So, 136 days after I boarded my flight to Auckland, it’s time to return.

I’m going home.