The Inland Pack Track

Off to the West Coast this weekend to walk the inland pack track. The Inland Pack Track was created in the mid 1800’s for gold miners to move through the area. Unfortunately the didn’t seem to have left any massive nuggets lying about to be picked up.

Unfortunately for us, it also happened to be the Wildfoods weekend, so the traffic was pretty thick getting out of town. Mikkel, our fast (but safe) driver decided that it would be more fun to cut back across to the Lewis Pass. I suppose it added an extra hour and a half to our drive (even averaging about 120 all the way!) – but there were certainly less cars. The other car in the group opted to sit back an extra 2 seconds from the boy racers in front and go through Arthurs Pass – and arrived that hour and a half ahead of us.

We stayed at the excellent Te Nikau Retreat. Definitely the best backpackers to stay in if you’re in Punakaiki. No pictures (bit slow this weekend!)

So, some pictures (yay)

There were lots of river crossings – it’s definitely not the tramp to do after there has been a lot of rain. We also went into Cave Creek Cave? There was an accident about 15 years ago where a group of students were on a platform which collapsed, killing quite a lot of them – and led to a review of all the DOC platforms and bridges around the country.

It is amazing the difference between the West and East coasts. It’s a lot more tropical / rainforesty on the West – it gets many buckets more rain than the East. Still, when we run our of water in ChCh after drinking our aquifers dry – we’ll all be off over there. Note – in ChCh the water is filtered not treated – comes straight from the aquifers and is really lovely to drink.

Come to New Zealand. Come to Christchurch. Today! ;)

ehem.

We also had Dave Aubrey’s girlfriend Maria along for the trip. I suspect it was all a little cruisey (if fun)… she has now taken off with tougher friends off into Arthurs Pass.. but I suspect she is looking forward to when Dave arrives for some adventures in a few weeks time. His blog is well worth checking out – the latest pictures from *way* up in Northy North Northern Canada are pretty amazing. Ice roads ‘n the like.

Thanks to Volker for organising an excellent weekend.