30.24 New Zealand: Bealy Spur, even the so-called medium rated hikes are challenging.

We find a perch in the early stages of this remarkable hike and the views become more inspiring with each step.
That of course is not the same sentiment expressed by our muscles and feet.



This has been an exciting period as the book we produced over the last few years was released earlier in the week. It’s quite a process. We would like to give thanks to Sean who initiated the project and Kristy who managed same so efficiently and diligently. Should you have a book to publish, Fulton is the company.

We tried to summarize the contents of the book (A Lifestyle As No Other...) in an email we forwarded recently. Obviously, we are biased but we think, should you read it, you're in for a surprise. While it’s never the intention to offend, maybe tease, it might make you think deeply of the issues we raise, the answers we provide and perhaps reveal things you never knew about us. Clearly though, the concept is not about us; rather, it is to examine certain issues of life, to open vistas into the rugged and beautiful world, to relate to different people and cultures, to meet the daily physical and mental challenges and above all, to try and seek fulfilment from life. After all, why are we here?


We have fallen behind in publishing the latter hikes of our New Zealand adventure. We think it’s probably fair to exclaim that the less formal hikes, often in jungles rather than forests, are testing and hence, an adventure. This is further complicated as we are sitting in Australia. Would it offend Australians should we publish pictures capturing the beauty of New Zealand while sitting under the Grampian Range, a few hours outside Melbourne? We don’t know. We will say that both our previous and now current hosts are friendly and a pleasure with which to communicate. An added bonus is that they are easy to understand, too—we all speak nearly the same language. We’d hate to instigate trouble between these two nations tucked down-under. There exists tension between them already—something about an apple war. After a wonderful visit with our niece, Romy, we set off towards Halls Gap. More about Romy and life in Aussie later. (See picture at end.)



Vintage Jenni...always climbing. Me? I just sit and watch while taking photographs.




A little exploring in a magnificent region.




Crow glacier, a different view than from Avalanche Peak.




An attractive perspective of one of the slopes and background as Jenni sweats.




Meantime, the forest was most attractive.




Almost there. Approaching the first peak.




After the tough Mount Avalanche hike two days previously, we thought we were in for more of a relaxed, short hike to stretch the muscles and see more of the countryside. As we mention from time-to-time: often wrong. Perhaps our muscles and body parts were protesting which appeared to make the hike feel tougher. We doubt it. It was an ascent of some 2,000 feet from the car park but we would argue the measurements were understated. Nevertheless, we spent a little time in beautiful forests that were less dense than us...that should read, than other jungles, in the region. The surrounding mountains were, once again, overpowering and seemed to call out to us to challenge them. As with the previous hike, most of the walls looked vertical. With the very wide river below filled with rocks washed down from the glacier, the contrasts were spectacular. In fact the river bed looked like it was formed from concrete. We also had a view of Crow glacier but from a different angle than that of a couple of days earlier.

We took leave of Arthur's Pass and headed toward Methven. The countryside was, may we use this word 'spectacular', again. This time the clouds dropped well below mountaintop level and provided a texture so thick that they looked solid. Maybe they were. The region of Castle Hill is so attractive that we immediately identified it and it's high mountains as one of the desirable spots to hike and bed-down on our next visit to New Zealand.



Layers and layers of rugged and intimidating beauty.




A mesmerizing sight in the Castle Hill region.




Cheers,

Jenni and Jeffrey



Romy, our niece, with her aunt.




More backpackers humor or education for the older set.