IN THIS EDITION…

• Hiking New Zealand Update

• Anne's report from Tourism Summit in Brazil

• Guide Profile – Juanita "Wah"

• Feature trip - Volcanoes & Rainforest

• Dusky Sound Expedition - Don't miss out!

• Share your story

Hiking New Zealand update

As the summer season kicks off, the Hiking New Zealand base is getting busier with guides coming and going more regularly. It’s great to have Jaron, Chris and Juanita back for another season and André moving into an Operations role with a little guiding. We’ve also recruited some new guides who will be sure to entertain you and fill you with local knowledge while you’re on safari.

Glenys has been out recently on the Kaikoura Wilderness Walk – one of the great hikes we have on our website - a beautiful two- or three-day walk into Shearwater Lodge. Give her a call, or email info@hikingnewzealand.com if you would like to ask her any questions about the walk.

In September, our annual Risk Management weekend was held, putting the guides through some rigorous scenarios and updating first aid and outdoor survival skills. The team also planted some more trees over the weekend and followed it with an overnight walk in the Mt Thomas area of North Canterbury.

Leah is back from the USA after another summer at camp, and has been busy visiting agents and distributing our new brochures around New Zealand.

Have a great season of hiking and adventure!
Hiking New Zealand team

Brazil Tourism Summit - Anne's report

In September the New Zealand Tourism Industry Association along with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise selected ten leading tourism industry representatives to attend the Adventure Tourism World Summit in Brazil. We were honoured that Hiking New Zealand was selected to attend.

With Mark still holidaying in Australia the decision on who would attend was between Anne and Daniel. To Anne’s surprise Daniel was quick to offer the trip to her stating he had his funded tourism trip to Japan in 2003 when Hiking New Zealand won the Service to the Environment Award. There were not any arguments in the Murphy house! Anne found the conference very worthwhile and made the most of the offer of a pre-conference adventure. She spent eight fantastic days hiking, abseiling and exploring central Brazil before attending the summit.

We would like to acknowledge the ongoing commitment to progress and support for New Zealand tourism from both the Tourism Industry Association and Trade and Enterprise. Particular thanks to our sector managers in the respective organisations - Geoff Ensor and Nick Metson.

Juanita Miln - Guide/Corporal/Queen of Lindis
AKA “Wah” for those who struggle with the spelling of Spanish names

Juanita, currently in her second guiding season, came to us after five years in the NZ army as a communications operator (including two months working at Scott Base in Antarctica). Juanita achieved the rank of Lance Corporal whilst in the army, but much to Dan’s (HNZ General Manager) disappointment, she is reluctant to salute him when she arrives at the HNZ base for her pre-safari briefings! After five years in the army Juanita decided to add to her professional development with a certificate in “Outdoor Recreation”. This involved a year of arduous study in the outdoor playground of Nelson! The curriculum was packed with subjects such as tramp452ing, whitewater kayaking, rock climbing and mountaineering. Along with eighteen months as a glacier guide on the Franz Josef glacier, Juanita had been perfectly primed to work for HNZ!

Being our resident winter guide, her last few trips have been quite eventful, with the odd snow storm and other extreme weather events thrown in! Juanita is the current holder of the “Queen of the Lindis “ crown (girls can challenge her for this while on the Secret South Safari). In her spare time Juanita enjoys cross-stitch, doing crosswords, and spending time with her cat.

Feature trip - Volcanoes & Rainforest

It's morning at Oturere Hut in the heart of the volcanic Tongariro National Park and we are having a lay-in.

This is unusual on a Hiking New Zealand trip. What is not unusual in "The Land of the Long White Cloud" is thick, damp mist, particularly in changeable Tongariro, and it has socked us right in. Our objective for the day - the summit of the Ngauruhoe volcano - has snugged itself up in fog, so we have snugged ourselves up in our sleeping bags. Where the classic cone of Ngauruhoe had stood in the window the afternoon before, there is now just a blank void. It's as if the volcano got up in the night and walked away.

In fact, mountains can and do move freely here explains Daniel, our guide, particularly at night, when all magic things happen. He is telling us the legend of the volcano Taranaki, who had once kept company with Ngauruhoe and the other volcanoes, Ruapehu and Tongariro up on the central plateau of North Island. But Taranaki longed after the lovely green hill of Pihanga, wife of Tongariro. Tongariro and Taranaki had a thunderous fight. Taranaki was defeated. He uprooted himself and fled in grief to the southwest, his tears carving the Wanganui River behind him.

Maybe Pihanga mourns Taranaki still and it is her tears that drizzle down upon us as we reluctantly depart the warm comfort of the hut a while later, glum about missing out on Ngauruhoe's summit. The penetrating damp saturates us in spite of our wet weather gear. I deeply regret not having rain pants (an item that I have never tramped without since that day, even in fine weather!) It promises to be a miserable walk out.

We trudge across the sodden gravel cupped beneath a disorienting, soft white dome. The sight of the Red Crater and Emerald Lake are lost to us in a cold, blurred mystery. The path climbs steeply over a white abyss. Perhaps solid ground is only a few metres below, or perhaps we are on a bridge through the sky, I can't tell. I'm glad that Daniel knows where we are going because I certainly have no sense of location or direction.

Startling red rocks melt through the white veil. Tiny stars of yellow flowers glitter on night black sand. Pink, white and purple mud swirls beneath our feet. Ragged wraiths of steam uncoil from gloomy fissures. Sulfurous warm waters delicately lace scorched rocks in electric yellow and green. Brilliant orange sediment chases the sharp edges of a silver stream. Towering thrusts of black basalt loom suddenly out of the mist, menacing sentinels of Tongariro brooding in the fog nearby, threatening us against any desires for his hidden beloved.

I'm miserably damp and cold. And yet I'm wonder-struck.

At last we find refuge at Mangatepopo Hut for lunch. The hut is rapidly filling with other sodden souls, stripping off wet gear and slapping the chill from themselves in front of the blazing stove. Shane, the hut warden, does his able best to keep some order in the dripping, steaming chaos. We cheer our bellies with hot toasted sandwiches, tea and some hearty laughs at the expense of an enormous billy tin and a tramper in his underpants (you had to be there).

Soon we have to relinquish that warm cheer and plunge into the sullen spittle one last time. But enchantment enfolds us again in the soft green arms of twisted beech trees, reaching up and drawing us down into a dark, dripping forest. We slither through its mossy grasp and escape the mist at last to meet the white van with its welcome of warmth.

In the heat of the van, the damp spirits are soon dried up, but the eerie, vibrant, silvered beauty of the walk haunts me still. This is truly a place where all magic things happen, where you cannot doubt that mountains move freely in the night.

Maija joined the Volcanoes & Rainforest safari in 2003. She wins a Hiking New Zealand merino top for her story.

The Dusky Track expedition in February is set to be a trip to remember. It will depart from Queenstown on the 14th February, and return on the 19th, after five days of challenging, mountainous hiking. Not for the faint at heart, you will want to have some hiking experience. Your efforts will be rewarded as you soak up some of the most beautiful, rugged wilderness New Zealand has to offer. Register your interest with us today.

$1900 per person includes one night pre-hike and one night post-hike accommodation, water taxi, hut fees, food, helicopter flight, transport from Queenstown to Tuatapere and return.

Have you had a memorable Hiking New Zealand moment?

If you, like Maija, who wrote the wonderfully spirited piece above, have had a day on a hiking trip that has been firmly planted in your memory, tell us about it. Published stories will win a Hiking New Zealand merino.

Send your story to us at info@HikingNewZealand.com