We are finally all together in Queenstown. We celebrated the arrival of our full party (Nicole, Dave, Angela, Laurent and Brian) with a wonderful dinner at an Irish pub sure to make any vegetarian swear to never set foot in New Zealand. Seems that venison and mutton are very common menu items and everyone in our group is determined to eat them in large quantities while here.
The day started out a bit cloudy and chilly, but warmed up quickly as the sun burned off the cloud layer. To save money, we've been buying groceries as we go along. This morning, as we cleaned out the fridge, the boys decided that letting the leftover beer get hot and skunky was completely unacceptable, so the alcohol intake started before 9 am. As Brian pointed out, you can't drink all day if you don't start as soon as you get up!
We didn't have much time in Queenstown as we had to get to Te Anau to get our tickets for the Milford Track and pick up our rented backpacking items. We managed to get in a 2 hour hike along Queenstown Hill for some gorgeous views. Plus it was an excellent warm up for our impending four days on our feet. And check out the picture of the mushroom! The whole path in the woods was littered with these Alice in Wonderland mushrooms. (No blue veins though, so they were only useful for looking at!)
The remainder of the day was spent shopping for food, packing gear and looking at the weather forecast, which seems to change hourly in this country. It rains quite a bit in the fjord area of the country. We were looking at pictures of hikers trudging through rain flooded trails up to their waists. Huh ... not exactly what I would call fun, so we've got our fingers very tightly crossed that there are no epic rain events while we are on the trail.
Brian has been hunting for Three Boys IPA since he had his first delicious bottle in Ohkaune. He finally found it here in Te Anau in the local super market. The beer is extraordinarily expensive however, Brian was able to splurge and treat all the boys because of he still has much of his cum cash left over from yesterday! (BTW ... we saw posters around town today with a picture of someone who looks remarkably similar to Brian searching for a semen smuggler seen in the area.)
This morning, we got the last of our gear packed. We were all weighing packs to try to determine who has bragging rights for the heaviest pack. Since I will be sporting a bag of wine for our first evening in a hut, I'm in the lead for the girls at 35 pounds. Of course, Dave is now offering to carry the wine for me once he realized that his little wife was carrying more than him. Brian has ultimately won the contest with his 40+ pack. I think we will be working on the food he's carrying tonight as the real test will come tomorrow on our 10 mile up hill march we have ahead of us!
Today, we will take a ferry over to the beginning of our hike at 2 pm. We've spent our morning talking to family for the last time for a few days and took a short hike on the Rainbow Reach part of the Kepler Track. We will be out of touch until Sunday (Saturday in the US), but hopefully come back with wonderful stories to tell of how we stayed dry for our hike! Until then!!!
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