Routeburn Birthdays Intermission, Days 4-7 – Getting back on the trail

Blair flew up to Auckland to rejoin Roxane and Suzanne.  I remained an extra day in Queenstown to make ready for my next leg.  It was to be the longest so far – nine days – and the most complicated, with two major river crossings, at least one  station permission, and several options to mail food drops and book accommodations.  I also needed maps, pack repair, shoe repair, and a new raincoat.  All this was forgotten, of course, when I found a group of jugglers practicing on the green.  I borrowed some props and joined them, and over the next few hours so did several others.  There were devil sticks, poi, staff, and whip in addition to the more standard balls and clubs.  I refreshed my devilstick skills and learned a couple new whip cracks.  Some climbers came along and set up a slackrope, which I tried several times to traverse but never quite succeeded.  Before I knew it the day was gone, but I had a blast.

I got more done the next day, but the big stumbling block was finding maps.  The shops in Queenstown didn’t have them because the area was too far away, and calling ahead to Twizel and Tekapo no one had them because the shops are too small.

Part of the problem is that New Zealand is about to switch from the NZMG coordinate system to the newer NZTM (New Zealand Transverse Mercator).  This involves a new projection as well as an update to use the newer WGS84 datum, a more accurate model of the world’s shape than the WGS49 dated which is used in the NZMG system.

All this is great news.  For instance, the outdated datum used by the NZMG topo maps mean that GPS readings from my whiz-bang phone can’t be accurately translated into a map position.   The update to WGS84 will fix that issue.  In the short term, however, it means that shop owners are trying to evacuate their stock before the new topo maps are released in September.  In the meantime there are serious lacunae in the coverage available most places.  By phoning around I finally found a shop in Timaru that had all the maps I needed, though it was fairly far out of the way.

The next day I spent trying to hitch out of Queenstown, but it was more difficult than I expected and I only made it so far as Wanaka before nightfall.  On a whim I checked the shops in Wanaka and found they had nearly every map I needed.  Oh frabjous day!  I like Wanak more every time I visit.

The last day of my return oddessey to the trail, I was at the edge of Wanaka, just sticking out my thumb, when a skinny hippy and a very tall blond fellow roll up on skateboards.  Right behind them was a girl with dreadlocks.  It was a bunch of the jugglers from Queenstown, also here to hitch!  Even more remarkably, while we’re standing around chatting – not even thumbs out yet – a woman in an SUV pulls over and asks if we need a ride.  And yes, she does have room for all four of us and our packs.  What luck!

She drives us as far as Cromwell, where we split up when a ride shows up with room for only one.  But two rides later at the end of the day, I was getting out of a rabbit hunter’s car, I spot them right behind getting out of someone else’s car.  After all that distance they arrived at exactly the same time as me!

My last ride, the rabbit hunter, was fascinating.  He gets hired by farmers who have a big rabbit problem but find poisoning too expensive.  He has multiple rifles that he has completely worn out by shooting them so many times, and he has a specialty set on order from a boutique gunsmith in Colorado that should be long lasting and more accurate.  He told me the furthest confirmed kill he every made was at 530 meters, and that on a typical day he can kill a hundred and fifty rabbits – more if hunts at night, because so many more come out at night that he can get closer, even though he needs a light.

I asked him about the use of viruses to control rabbits, which I had only recently heard about.  Evidently a group of farmers pused to the bring of bankruptcy by rabbits had applied to DoC to release rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus, which was already loose in Australia.  They were turned down, so went into business for themselves by smuggling in some infected rabbit carcasses, making a primitive rabbit / virus stew in a blender, and distributing it.  Unfortunately their deployment was not as efficient as it should have been.  Sunlight weakend the virus, and they released it at a non-optimal time in the rabbit breeding cycle.  Further, the release should have been coordinated with a trapping and poisoning program.  As is, the release had a temporary effect, but the rabbit population has now bounced back and is largely resistant.