The Pit of Pat

Day 1: Control Gates to Luxmore Hut (13.8 km, 5-6 hours)

I was up and at them pretty early, unloading a bunch of junk I wouldn’t need for my trip at the motor park’s complimentary luggage storage. Oh baby, my pack felt so light. I was ready to rock it out. The clouds were still dense as ever - I still hadn’t been able to see the range of mountains I was going to be climbing - but the weather report said it would be all smiles and worthwhiles. Off I went.

Passing by the Control Gates - which are the gates which control the lake levels - I had to think to myself: “It would be awfully fun to play with these controls…” They’re not locked up or anything! Just sitting there. Waitin’. Temptin’. I decided it’d be good not to be a bad-ass, so I walked myself along the lakeshore and noticed with a smile that the weather was coming home in spades. So far so good, flat and beautiful walking through beech forests, lots of ferns, basically a really good time. Light trickling in, filtering through the canopy, yeah I’m loving it. After Brod Bay you start to climb. No worries, my pack is light as all get out. Let’s do this shiz.

I meant business, and I brought it. There were a few people walking the track, but very few. A bunch of Spanish folks ahead of me, so I just waited, took some drinks and found a nice walking stick. I stuch some Old Man’s Beard on the top and I was Gandalf, climbing my way up the Misty Mountains. Well almost. The thing is, with my trusty Kepler Track Guide in hand, I was waiting for my lunch landmark. After two hours of climbing I was told to expect some limestone bluffs. The trouble is, I didn’t know what the hell a ‘bluff’ was. So I’m climbing through forest, enjoying myself, the forest starts to thin a bit as I gain height, and all of a sudden it’s an hour and a half and WHAMMO. Bluff city.

The limestone bluffs are gargantuan stone faces jutting out of the side of the hill, incredibly tall, and definitely imposing. I looked at my watch, I looked at the bluffs. Yimminy - I’m ahead of schedule! I’m not even walking fast, I’m drinking it all in. This is good news. I decided to take my lunch snack break after the bluffs, and my next landmark was supposed to be the bushline. Guess what? I didn’t know what the bushline meant. I mean, I knew that it should mean that there’s no bush above it, and lots of bush below it, but would it be gradual? Would the forest really thin out or something? I got my answer in less than a half hour when all of a sudden I rounded a switch back and had my breath taken away.

The bushline is a line, plain and simple. Once you cross it, there’s no more trees. There’s no more nothing, except for golden tussock and a panoramic view of the Te Anau Basic, the Takitimu Mountains, the Earl Mountain range and just about everything else you can cram into a view. The sun was out, it was actually hot, and suddenly I realized I’d climbed about 3500 feet and hadn’t so much as been winded. I strolled across the golden plains of tussock, wooden staff in hand and I just gaped and gaped at the incredible views. I’m glad I didn’t have my camera; it would be criminal to look at a flat, tiny version of the wonder I experienced.

Sooner than later, I was at Luxmore Hut. All in less than three hours! I was feeling pretty good, secured a bunk in the exceptionally nice hut and relaxed for a bit. The Spanish folks were there - doing a day hike up to the hut and back - there were some Canadians from Toronto (gross) and an interesting young couple from Scotland. I waited around for a bit, still captivated by the view, and then took notice of the warden as she busied about, doing wardenly things. She was about my age, had a rugged and quirky cuteness and a slightly off-kilter sense of humor, and yeah I was pretty smitten. I think the DoC uniform (and what it represents) does half the job on its own.

While I was sitting in the sunshine I heard a bird. It made a funny sound that to me was like a cat meowing a death howl, or something to that effect. It was only when I realized it could also have been a ‘keeeeeeeaaa’ that I realized what it was. This particular kea call wasn’t very ‘laughing’ as some of them are, so I think it was a juvenile, but I of course didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that I had met my first alpine parrot, that it sounded pretty cool, and that it was just a little bit insane that this green parrot was flying around above the bushline.

Soon the warden gave us a little tour, and there I restrained myself from proposing marriage. The accent did its thing to me, basically puttification, and her knowing not only the maori names for all the local flora and fauna but the latin names too pretty much cinched it for me. There was a kea feather on the ground which she picked up and proceeded to talk about them a bit. She asked if anyone wanted it, no one seemed to care too much. It’s a bird feather, no big deal. I took it, not for her, but because I had felt slightly ashamed to want something as simple as a bird feather, especially for a bird I knew only as a destroyer of car parts with a weird meowing call. It was a Defining Moment, though I had no idea of it at the time.

After the tour I donned my headlamp and headed out, solo, to Luxmore Cave. I didn’t indicate my intentions in the book provided in the hut, nor did I tell the warden. I was kind of stupid. I arrived just as someone was leaving, so I figured worst case scenario he might be able to tell them about me if I didn’t come back. In any event it was all for naught as it was a relatively straightforward limestone cave experience. About 800+m worth of it, which was pretty awesome. I got dirty, I got wet, and I got darked out, and it was a ton of fun. There was a little fishing line you could follow to get your way back, and I passed the last end of that and kept on going. I finally got to a point where I would’ve had to jump over a big rock formation and not be sure if I could make it back over when I was done. I decided to ‘play it safe’ and not risk a night in the caves. No weta, no stalagmites or stalactites, but I did take a little piece of the cave for Kyle -who was with me for my very first spelunking experience.

I headed back to the hut, ate (the hut had fancy shmancy gas cooking facilities), looked around a bit for the warden with no luck, and decided to call it a night.

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