We are running a couple weeks behind in our posting as I’m still not feeling 100% and we have had VERY spotty internet connectivity.
Spence
After our Peel Forest farmstay, we headed back up to Arthur’s Pass Village, in the middle of Arthur’s Pass National Park in the Southern Alps. It’s about in the middle of the country, due west of Christchurch by about 2 hours. The village has two cafés, a couple of backpackers/motels and the DOC visitor’s center. Oh, and one gas pump. We stayed at our first hostel/backpackers. It was a nice cottage with 3 private bedrooms with a nice kitchen and common area. We met a couple from Auckland that had just gotten off an 8 day backpack. The woman had been at Voli Voli in Fiji last July, so she and Spencer spent the evening looking at his pictures of diving at Voli Voli in Fiji. On the door of the hostel, a note asked us to keep doors closed, due to mice. Well, not just mice – a mouse plague, and I’m not joking. The next door neighbor had trapped over 2,000 mice in the prior month. The Auckland couple had mice running over them all night as they tried to sleep in the bedroom next door. They got so desperate that they left a plate of milk powder outside their door, in the hope of luring the mice out of their room. We saw one running around in our room, so we moved all of our food into the car for the night. Either that deterred them or we slept so heavily that we didn’t notice them. The hostel owner told us that some vacation cottage owners in town had to literally throw out everything, including furniture, due to mouse gnawing/crapping, etc. all over the house while the house was empty.
The next day, we hiked up to Temple Basin Ski Area, right outside of Arthur’s Pass Village and near the pass. This is the strangest ski area I have ever seen. To get there to ski, you park at the road and hike up 1300 feet, up to 4360 feet, and it is pretty straight up – a steep hike, in snow. It took us an hour in summer with hiking boots. The first 1/3 is what they call a Jeep track, and the rest is literally a normal hiking trail. I’m sure crampons are required for the winter. There is a goods lift that hauls up your gear, and then you stay overnight there. It has three rope tows, and lodges that look like Mohawk Mountain in the early 60’s. Apparently, they can house up to 120 people and they have a chef that provides dinner, etc. We were worn out after just hiking up and down – can’t imagine doing it in snow and then skiing all day. But it is spectacular up there. We then retreated to the village café for coffee and ice cream and to take some pictures of a kea parrot dancing on the roof of our car.
Temple Basin Track is the hike up to the ski area. Note the time, 1 hour 30 min. JUST to get to the ski area. That’s before you can ski. I’d be dead by then. 🙂
Temple Basin Ski lodge.
I will say that the ski area is in a beautiful area. Can you image all of these peaks snow covered. It must be stunning.
There is still a bit of snow up there in what would be our July.
If you expand the picture and look closely you will see one of the lifts. It starts in the lower right of the picture and heads up to the rock outcrop in the center of the picture.
I have no idea what these were but they were beautiful.
Kea parrot on our car. Very inquisitive birds.
That evening, trouble enters. Spencer wasn’t feeling well and clearly had a fever and went to bed to bury in the covers. In the middle of the night, he got up and in the living room, fainted and crashed with a heavy thud. Not good. I got up to help get him back to bed. In the morning, we assessed the damage. He had an incredible shiner from hitting his head near his eyebrow, a nasty bruise on each elbow, and some back and neck soreness, not to mention an ongoing fever and stomach distress. On the one hand, we were lucky that he didn’t have a serious injury from the fall, but he was still a hurting puppy. So we loaded up the car, and I drove off south and east, back to the coast, while Spencer tried to sleep away the effects of the night before.
The real truth is that I was being a jerk and Barb “clocked” me. 🙂 I will say it was not one of my better nights. Thank goodness Barb was there to pick up the broken pieces.