4 Feb
Drive from Queenstown to Fox Glacier
So here I am, snuggled up on the couch in my jammies watching my all time favorite movie, Young Guns, with Jamie. I'm sitting in this house that is not mine in Fox Glacier. A person's possessions say a lot about their personality. This place is a true bachelor pad. The only wall decorations are maps, animal skulls and framed photos of a young hunter proudly holding his slayed bounty. The floor is a patchwork of animal skins and a tower of DVDs stand alone next to the cinderblock TV stand. That's where I find my favorite movie among Die Hard, Skyfall, Top Gun and the like. I assume it's Andrew, the dweller of this abode, in those photos, but I've actually never met the guy. I'm just cozied up in his house.
Earlier today we reported to the Fox Glacier DOC office. Finding Lisa out back with a cup'a, she led us across the street, let us in and handed us the keys. "Andrew's not here at the moment, but looks like he cleaned a room for you. He's in Haast, but I'll let you know if he's going to be back while you're here."
Okay, we're staying here because we have an induction in the morning. Our training begins as volunteer hut wardens for the Copland Track's Welcome Flat Hut. Then on the 6th we leave for an 18km tramp to the hut where we will be in charge of hut maintenance, fee collection, evening talks and emergency response for two weeks. When we're not on duty we'll be enjoying a set of natural geothermal pools located just meters from the hut porch. With the Southern Alps as our backdrop, it should be an enriching experience indeed. For the time being I'll sip my tea, relax and enjoy this mystery man's hunter chic adornments in this glacial roadside attraction of a town.
6 Feb
Copland Track to Welcome Flat Hut 18km
The first 3km with a 20 kilo pack: cruisey, no problem. Even the first 9km of rock hopping and stream crossing were sweet. But the remaining 9km that followed were hip aching, feet tenderizing, shoulder squashing. The pale yet magnificent blue of the Copland River and the white caps of the sharp toothed Sierra Range were enough of a distraction and motivation to keep us going.
Upon arrival, 8 hours later, we unloaded our packs with enough veggies to last us two weeks, stumbled through our first evening hut talk, and headed for the hot pools. What a reward! The moon so bright, the starts happily glowing, the company of jovial soaking, singing trampers. This is my life!!
7 Feb
First full day as hut wardens. We slept in, cleaned, read, napped, socialized and wrote a song over a glass of wine for the nightly hut talk. It's usually a pretty boring monologue, so we spiced it up with cheeky lyrics and an addictive melody. Jamie on her mandolin and I on the harmonica, a borrowed instrument from an American tramper.
For a video of our song check out my facebook videos.
8 Feb
There are little to no words in my vocabulary to describe this feeling I have. Euphoric, stimulated, satisfied, significant. Barely begins to scratch the surface. I am elated with each passing minute. First, the place we are. Sacred, ancient, restorative, bubbling, muddy hot pools cleanse my whole being while the sharp, shining peaks loom stoic and quietly wise in all directions. Temperate rainforest gives way to flowering meadows with the constant rush of the bluest pale baby blue river close by. This is my backyard, my stomping ground, my sacred space.
And the people! From all over the world automatically bonded by the trek just to glimpse this paradise, just to soak in these pools. I feel a bit like a celebrity, especially after Jamie and I write and perform our hut talk song. Everyone claps and laughs and wants to know all about us. We make fast friends and a social connection to Marietta and Grant, an older couple up from Fox Glacier. What a great pair we'll have to visit when we're back down. Trampers and DoC employees visit for tea, bring us wine and come to say goodbye as they head out in the morning. I am reading and learning and chatting and drawing and singing and writing and cooking and having just the greatest time.
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| mid day |
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| sunset |
10 Feb
Each day more sunny, warm and beautiful than the last. We adventure off trail on our daily wander up a creek bed that is a mere trickle. But the width of the bed and the massive size of the delicately layered boulders are clues that at times this the site of a raging, powerful flooded river. But not today. Today we are rock hoppers, pool skippers, forest nymphs. We leap and glide from rock to to rock, admiring each small, clear pool fed by a series of babbling, miniature falls. In some places the water gathers in a smooth puddle, but as we climb higher, with the sharp alps growing closer and the stream's source, a long cascading waterfall, now in sight, the pools become deeper, the falls higher, and the ripples on the water's surface caused by each continuous gush resemble cut and polished facets on a rare translucent gem. 
I climb higher to a 2m fall that spills into a deep, crystal clear, teal blue pool. I wade in up to my neck, letting each pin and needle of chill work its way from my toes upward. I imagine it delicately seeping into my skin, through my organs and blood, purifying and cleansing as it goes. I stand there silently submerged for as long as I can, then emerge as a forest being, wild and untouched by civilization.
The last drops of ancient, melted glaciers evaporate from my skin as I lie on a massive gneiss slab just out of the fall's splash zone. Sprawled on my back I close my eyes and tune into my other senses. The feel of the warm, smooth, rippled rock beneath me, grounding me to the earth. The caressing tickle of the breeze as it cools my skin and stirs the tiny hairs on my stomach, on my arms, on my face. The sensation of the sun warming me, the heat of its intensity through and through. The sounds suddenly roar and engulf while simultaneously relax and calm me. Most prominently the surge and splash of the waterfall closest to me.
The hum, whir and click of the insects inhabiting every bush and tree. It appears at first a continuous din, then it beings to form layers. I can hear the patterns of the falling water further up stream and separate it from those closer to me and those further down, all running eventually into the river. The curtain on the cicadas' cacophony parts and each insects' click and buzz becomes its own song as distinct as Katy Perry to DeBussey. The birds and wind chirp, rustle and blow. It's not a symphony I'm hearing, not a well rehearsed orchestra. It's energy. All around me. Eyes still closed, I can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it. My sense of self dismantles. My body buzzing but detached at the same time, my sight blocked purposely. I am a presence among this raw energy that surrounds me.
I open my eyes and sit up, a bit dazed and disoriented. I am alone, as Jamie is father down stream, as the hut is over a mile away, as the closest town is 18km to the northwest. But I feel, looking up at the sharp, sky piercing peaks, that I am the only one here and this is a different place altogether, my mind transporting me to a place of unfathomable peace and natural beauty. Like a fantasy world that exists only in the mind of its creator. But I ground myself back in the reality I know I'm in, though the beauty and serenity still seems too good to be true. Is this really my life? It doesn't matter because in this moment it is.
My life as a DoC volunteer hut warden at Welcome Flat Hut is a simple one. I wake every morning between 6:30 and 8:30am, depending on if I want an early soak in the hot pools or if I want to sleep until just before the morning radio check-in. After we relay last night's hut and camp numbers and rain gauge readout to Haast base, we clean the main hut and the rest of the day is ours until the 4pm radio check-in for the weather forecast. We read, sunbathe, dip in the hot pools and colder river, stroll up and down the path looking for fun diverts and adventures. We see whio (blue ducks), hear kea and breathe the cool mountain air. After 4pm we are free once again to explore and enjoy until the 8pm hut talk in which we sing our song and socialize with trampers. 
Every evening I meet someone, or several people, that I want to know better. That I want to stay in contact with, even be friends with. People that I feel a connection to, be it only based on travel or outdoor recreation or other shared interests, or something deeper. I feel tempted to share my email address, some thread of lasting connection, though it's an impractical gesture. Then each morning, after an evening of laughter and animated conversation passes, they leave and I sweep up the dust from their boots. But by the time the empty benches are filled with chatting happy hikers once again I'm back on the social buzz and happy to make more friends, even if tomorrow's sunrise means I have to do it all over again. It's no ache a moonlit soak in the thermal pools can't cure.
13 Feb
The uncharacteristically warm days and cloudless blue skies give way to the region's more familiar mist and rain. Though the mountains are shrouded and the stars hidden, the valley feels as secretive and peaceful as ever. Rarely in my life have I had an opportunity such as this. Day after day with no duties, tasks or responsibilities, save the few radio check-ins and chores around the main hut. I know after weeks on end I would grow restless with cabin fever and isolation, but at the moment I am in complete harmony with our solitude and lack of societal demands. The day is mine to wander the stream beds, rock hopping and bird watching. Mine to sit by the fire and read page after page, book after book from the hut's surprisingly diverse and stocked library. Mine to frolic, stretch, explore or curl up and be lost in a distant world of written word for hours on end.
A group of 5 DoC ecologists, all women holding a minimum of 5 years higher education, are flown in for three days to monitor the effects of pest management in the valley. It's a mast year, occurring once every 3-5 years, meaning all the fruiting trees are currently at their highest production. These extra fallen fruits allow for a bountiful winter harvest for mice, resulting in a population explosion which in turn feeds an exponentially growing stoat/weasel population. Stoats and weasels also eat bird eggs and chicks at high volume. The eradication of mice in late summer is essential to keep these detrimental pests under control so bird populations have a chance at fledging healthy chicks in spring. Among other things, these ladies were out to walk pre-marked sites to monitor the effects of a recent rodent annihilating 1080 poison drop in the valley.
Another part of their mission was to monitor the browsing of endangered plant species. Their excitement over finding a large and healthy population of broom, a nondescript low growing native shrub, is amusing and relatable, for had I based my doctoral dissertation on a critically endangered yet easily missed bit of flora, I too would be giddy at such a find. We sit over tea and pick their brains, learning about the local ecosystem, DoC's pest control methods, their own research and findings, etc. When again in my life might I be in a situation like this? In a place of tremendous beauty with such freedom, lack of worry and stress. And free ecology lessons to boot! I intend to embrace and treasure it.
14 Feb
The huge bay windows lie in a nook in the warden's hut that catch the sun from the birth of its arch across the sky until it slips behind the misty mountains in early evening. The light floods in and stays there all day, giving the corner the feeling of being outdoors complete with unobstructed mountain views but with screens to block out sandflys while permitting cool breezes and the songs of birds and insects. The hours I pass at that long wooden table nudged between those two glorious windows are many. Reading, eating, writing, laughing, drawing, talking, staring into the mist or the bush or up at a passing bird. Long hours basking in the sun reading books from cover to cover, devouring each page as hungrily as any lost and half starved tramper.
15 Feb
The adorable, tiny Tomtit with its large head, short tail and soft, fluffy black and white body is the resident insectivore around the Copland River Valley, so the comparatively curious, though arguably more agile and jubilant Piwakawaka is rarely seen or heard here. The tell-tale whine of the kea is distinct and can be heard sporadically throughout the day, though the shock of red from under their wing is rarely spied as they keep to soaring in pairs high into the thick mountain mist.
The swirls and eddies of gelatin-like water rushing past, transparent over submerged rocks. The rocks themselves an intricate and alien earth mass shaped slowly and worn smoothly by countless floods and rain storms. The fluid, continuous lines of black, blue-grey and speckled white in distinct layers, swooping into bowl-like dips, wave-like ripples and peak-like points while remaining smooth to the touch and mimicking perfectly the undulating rise and fall of the pertinacious yet serene river, ice cold blue in color and temperature.
Maybe it had everything to do with the full moon. Or that I soaked alone and naked under it for the better part of an hour in the healing, clear hot pools. Slathering myself in the rich, jade green mud from head to toe, scrubbing the decomposing blue-green algae and fine, rough earth everywhere, exfoliating and cleansing. Alone with only the croaks of unseen tree frogs, the occasional cry of a disturbed weka and the soothing eternal babble of the 57 degree c spring rising from the earth and pouring into shallow muddy pools. Maybe this had little to do with my sleep induced astral projection and vivid dreams, but I doubt it.
16 Feb
Hiked farther up the Copland Track to Douglas Rock Hut for an overnighter. Returned the 17th.
18 Feb
On an afternoon nearing our departure date I can't help but sit and reflect on our time here. Two weeks has been our stay. I can't help but feel a bit of home here, nestled in a river valley, quaint and remote with a feeling of belonging as natural as the spring water that runs through the taps. The towering, rugged mountains our guardians, the thermal pools our healers, the bush and river a simple mysterious inspiration, the birds and insects (minus the sandflys) our friends. 
The hut is home and I take pride in its cleaning and simple maintenance; enjoy arranging flower and grass bouquets in tin cans on each freshly wiped table, ensuring its appearance is clean and welcoming. I amuse myself by being amusing to the guests. Singing our nightly song, sparking conversations, answering questions.
Jamie and I banter and joke easily, alone and with others and I am fully grateful that we are here together. Lonely? Never. Alone? At times. Quiet? Often. Sitting reading, writing, drawing, walking. To be quiet is good. To have a friend to be happily, comfortably quiet with, great. It's not a lack of subject matter that seals our lips for hours at a time. Just a lack of pressure to force them open when there is no need.
One of the things I value most, among many, in our friendship is our ability to leave so much unsaid and still have a resilient ease and loyalty between us. And at times there is so much to say! So much joy and good fortune, discoveries and jokes, losses and tears to share I don't think I'll ever be able to thank her for what she is to me. Her insights, her patience and persistence, vulnerability and strength, the way she challenges me but is always there to genuinely comfort and support. It's exactly what I need in a friend and I only hope I've been a fraction for her what she's been for me.
Anyway! The friends we've made here, though fleeting and forever temporary, are maybe better left that way. No purpose in judging age or appearance, failings or triumphs. We're just people with enough in common to bring us to the same place at the same time. Lonely? Never. Our DoC trail crew friends were around a few days, so it was especially fun having them over for hot drinks and dinner.
If when I die there is indeed a heaven, Welcome Flat Hut will be mine. For the stunning, dynamic, astounding beauty, of course. But also for the things it lacks. Complications, worry, stress, anxiety, fear. Not that my life is ever particularly worry ridden or stress packed, but, anicca, anicca, inevitably frustration will set in and I’m going to need to stoke the embers of my gratitude, and the memory of WFH will be there. There’s enough activity here to feel purposeful and in control, but enough freedom and space to explore anything, internal or external. And when the trampers have gone, the sound of nothing. Nothing but the wind and the river and the birds and insects and my own heart and breath. 
Have you been to a place where that's all you might hear forever? Every time I turn away from the mountains and turn back the clouds have assumed a new pose exposing bare grey peaks and patches of snow in patterns that no picture taken could ever capture the true gravity of the sight. The staggering scene stopping me in my tracks on every trip to the toilet without fail. This place is home in the purest sense, but it will never literally be, though I long to condense it into a grain of sand and wear it protectively around my neck. I'll settle for the pictures I've taken, the trinkets I've claimed and the memories I've made.
20 Feb
Fortune and coincidence smile on us and we land a helicopter flight out from Welcome Flat Hut to the Copland Track car park from James Scott of Alpine Adventures, reputably NZ's finest helicopter pilot. What took 8 hours to hike in took 15 minutes to fly out, following the Copland River down the whole way. Mark and Haymich, our DoC escorts, were waiting patiently to take us back to Fox Glacier.
