Today was a big decision day. The first of which cam the minute I woke up. I decided that after it rained for the entire night that I should probably breakdown and buy some rain pants (I mean I've been camping in the rain for the past two years so now seemed like a good time). So I did - it was a good decision.
Then I was off to hike the Remarkables. There was a great sounding trail near the highway called Lower Wye Creek Track. A 4 hour return trip up to the dam, through the beech forest and ending at the Lower Wye Creek basin. Sounds nice huh? Well the map told me that it is just a 20 minute drive from Queenstown, to park in the carpark by the Wye Creek Bridge and the trail head starts just on the other side of the road. Simple enough. But then I started driving, and looking, and driving, and looking, and driving, and looking...until I found myself in Kingston - which by review of my map was way too far. So I turned around and drove back. I finally found the Wye Creek Bridge and could see the trail on the side of the mountain, but for the life of me could find no such carpark. I drove up and down a 1km portion of road about 6 times. Then parked the car and walked up and down the road about 4 times. Finally, I decided that the Lower Wye Creek Track wasn't worth it (plus from what I could tell there was no one else hiking) - another smart decision.
Note: On day 6 when I was driving back to Queenstown I finally saw the sign for the trailhead about 50 meters from where I was actually looking - so the track does actually exist.
But now what was I supposed to do?? I had so much time on my hands...
Well, I decided the only thing to do was to keep driving, so I did all the way to Te Anau. There was a hike near Te Anau, which I had planned to do on my way back through, but while I was there early decided to do the hike today. It was a 3 hour return track to Brod Bay (part of the Kepler Track which is one of the "famous" 3 day tramping tracks). On a side note, I find it odd that all my hiking maps measure the length of the hikes in hours. There are no kilometers or miles listed for any of the hikes (I later find out that the Brod Bay hike is 11 kms return).
Anyway, onto Brod Beach. I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be a little sandy beach. It is only accessible by foot or by boat; needless to say there were quite a few boats around. People were enjoying the water through all different activities - water skiing, tubing, knee boarding...me - I just slept in the sun.
My feet were killing me, so I went to test the water. Turns out it is colder than Adelaide - which is pretty fricken cold to begin with, but the sore feet welcomed it until they turned numb. The walk back was nice (until the numbness started to wear off), but I made it - got a bit more food for the road, some petrol and headed for Knobbs Point to camp for the night.
Note: This was a great decision to make on this particular day, because on my way back through it was raining (really hard) and there is no way that sitting in the rain on a beach would have been as enjoyable - so another great decision for the day (and I didn't even know it).
All of a sudden on the drive I turned into the first campsite I saw. I'm not sure why, as I was pretty set to make it to Knobbs, but here I was at Henry's Creek. I found a great spot towards the end of the road right by the lake. Literally, if I was a baseball player I could have thrown a rock into the water (I came to find out later that it is the only campsite between Te Anau and Milford Sound that is by the water and being the Pisces that I am; I very much enjoyed being by the water - good decision).
So now I've finished dinner (which consisted of a can of soup and a tortilla) and am sitting listening to the waves - all in all a great day for making decisions. I'm pretty sure I'll be sleeping well again tonight.
Questions that came to me later in the night:
1. Why is a bottle of beer 1.3 standard drinks in Australia? Obviously they are serving one beer - why not just callit one drink? (I think its their ploy to make us all feel like we drink to much).
2. Why don't more trees live close to lakes/oceans? THere is quite a bit of water for them to dig their roots into - why not be closer to the source?
A statement that came to me later in the night:
1. I think people wearing socks and sandals must have been a camper at some point - during the day its warm and you wear your sandals, but then it gets cold at night so you throw on some socks (but the sandals are so comfy still you want to continue to wear them as well)...
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