December 2001 - New Zealand (cont.)
Sunday
The next day was spent getting out gear ready, organizing some rental equipment and -
buying food: retails therapy, as it's called. Compared to supermarkets in Hong Kong, which
stock nothing else but 8,000 kinds of instant noodle and stacks of rice, NZ's supermarkets
actually sell REAL FOOD - and plenty of it. They have to, particularly in Wanaka, because
mountaineers eat the equivalent of a grown elephant per week. We acquired an insane inventory
of noodles, muesli bars, chocolate, soups, cans, teas, cheese, salami, meats and beer (a shared
passion of Paul and myself. The supermarket in Wanaka is also a social place to meet rank
and file mountaineers. At the muesli isle we bumped into Nick Cradock (senior guide at Mt
Aspiring Guides and heli skier of Himachal fame and at the check out counter we ran into Guy
Cotter, director of Adventure Consultants and big-time mountaineer with several ascents of Mt Everest
and other 8000-meter peaks under his belt. I was almost expecting to run over the shopping cart of
Ed Hilary in the confectionary section, but no such luck! In the evening we had a BBQ at
Adventure Consultants' office with a group of Singaporean students, who were on a rock-climbing
trip and obviously had forgotten their sunscreens judging from their severely burnt faces.
Monday
Next morning we hit the road for the four-hour drive down to Milford Sound. This is a beautiful
stretch of road, particularly in good weather. Just before Homer Tunnel (an unlit, wet,
down-sloping masterpiece of tunnel that scares the hell out of the average tourist driver)
is the Homer Hut, our base for the next few days. The hut was rather moldy and fly-infested but
the setting in the wilderness was great. With some time to spare we headed down into the
valley to do a bit of rock climbing on an overhanging wall that Paul had discovered and
developed in the 80s. I'm not (yet) much of a rock climber but that wall was excellent - good
rock, challenging pitches and an incredible view over the rain forest - like Tarzan On The
Rocks! Back at the hut it was Thai chicken curry for dinner, which with hindsight seemed
like a bad idea given the amount of air pollution I caused the entire next day...
