Trallt 111\ privati :n·ldlometre sIn&le loop on a gltltle .~iO-:ft"IIP'" gradient that foIlowa the hlatoric Roarins Lion water race on on, near Garaton. Half the atation was retired 81 conservation covenant when Tom was • boy. roaming It on largely unaucceaful hunting trips. -Taking a rifle for a walk." he says. - As an adult, a chance encounter with Gary Patterson. a specialist mountain-bike track cartographer. gave him the expertise he needed to turn this pristine blank canvas into a walking and biking trail. It starts at the old ski hut. transported up the winding pass in 1934 by a Dennis steam truck. which conked out right here at 800 metres. so high the macrocarpa windbreaks planted on the pastureland below look like Groucho Marx's eyebrows and the local fauna come in collective nouns - a cubby of quail. an army of frogs. a fabulousness of beetles, an escargot erie of powelliphanta (which is, in case you didn't know, a large land snail the size of a woman's hand). Tom O'Brien in his happy place, hoping it's your happy place, too.

The private boardwalk at Okaka Lodge where alpine tarns reflect rocky tors. At 890 metres, the uninterrupted views of Te Waewae Bay, Waiau Valley and the Takitimus deserve the word spectacular.

Lake Hauroko or "windy lady" is the deepest in and cold, ripples on her surface look like bubble wrap as our shadow races us to touch down at Teal Bay. Standing in the great wide open of New Zealand's people-less expanse, in a daft Disney moment you imagine yourself covered in birds, deer and other woodland creatures flocking to your side - but the only things flocking are 20,000 extremely friendly sand flies. The solution: transfer to the Humpridge Jet for a sandfly-defyingjourney down the waterfall that is the Wairaurahiri River, 27 kilometres of rocky, roiling rapids ridden source-to-sea past rainforest so prehistoric you expect a dinosaur to poke its head above it any moment. Roffy the jetboat driver tells us this river, the cleanest water in the country, is so fast moving the fit brown trout'll snap your line and so far from civilization it's a two-day walk out ... provided you know where you're going. Spin me round twice, I'm lost. But this trip is proving you don't need a sense of direction to recalibrate your internal compass. NOTEBOOK American-style hot dogs. The river meets its destination at a bouldered beach where whitebaiters Do: Take the road less burgers. coffee. slices and travelled. but remember to fill muffins and cold drinks. in waders cast nets for the last of the season. After a lunch of local venison up with petrol and make sure Stay: At Mud Hut or Slate Hut. at the remote Waitutu Lodge - where if there's a rustle in your hedgerow your tyres can handle gravel Tom recommends protein. so it's one of the Ks: kaka, kerereu, kokako, kiwi or kakapo - we exchange o roads. For information on the tuck a nice juicy sirloin and a z visit bottle of red into your tramping outboard for rotor and fly higher than an eagle to Percy Burn, the biggest :3 south e rns cen i croute. co. nz partner's backpack. In I wooden viaduct in the Southern Hemisphere, built to carry the Port Craig I-• :::> Visit: The Hunny Shop try Distinction Te Anau Hotel o (beneath the Pooh Bear sign) and Villas, which is right on tramway and a relic of 300 men who made something from nothing and V> L.U in Garston. Not what you'd the lakefront, directly across cc met challenges with resourcefulness and humour (like Tom O'Brien). The :::> expect. inside is an exotic the road from Southern Lakes I-• mill, with its eye on chopping 15 million metres of timber, went bankrupt z cornucopia of carpets. carved Helicopters' heli-pad. L.U doors and kilims (as well as Pay: Visitors pay $40 to ride or before it could. Also forgiven: 150 years of whaling, with the return of > honey). all ready to be shipped hike the Welcome Rock Trails (5 southern right whales to Te Waewae Bay beneath Okaka Lodge, the start I-• to your door. Grade 3 Circuit; $100 to 120 V> L.U View: Whet your appetite for a for two people to stay at either of the three-day Humpridge Track. On a clear day you can see Stewart :::> helicopter ride by watching Ata the rebuilt Mud Hut or Slate lJ <{ Whenua - Shadow/and. Filmed Hut. extra for guided overnight Island from here. V>-c across extremes of season hikes and glamping sites for Last stop on this tiki tour of southern delights is Mt , the pale o and terrain by award-winning those who like some posh complexion of which is the result of white granite formations and not ':J Cinematographers and screened (welcomerock.co.nz). Southern L--'.U at the specially built Lakes Helicopters' Explore snow, although there is some today (just quietly, fresh snow is delicious). ~ cc Cinema at 7 The Lane, Te Anau. Fiordland Package. including Nothing, absolutely nothing, gives you a superiority complex, a movie! I-• fiordlandcinema.co.nz barbeque lunch and afternoon I-- Eat: At Garston's Trailer tea. costs $1975 per person rock-star feeling, like landing on the top of a mountain in a helicopter. And ts u Sixty6 Cafe. a converted (southernlakes hel icopters. in true Fiordland style, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and the view V> <{ silver 1966 Airstream. selling co.nz). V> slapped us into a state of silent awe. Home was never like this. :J

142 nzlifeandleisure.co.nz The walk to Mud The Roaring Lion race transported water from the top of the tussocky slopes, a copse of beech where a morepork makes its Hut crosses honey• coloured hillsides of Nevis to the lower Nokomai Valley to sluice alluvial gold. Thirty presence known. Inside, the fire casts an orange glow, rain tinks tussock so evenly Chinese labourers toiled for three years (each paid two pounds against the iron roof and sleep crashes down like a curtain. spaced It'S like the a week, enough then to buy a pair of gumboots) to complete this A mere two-and-a-half hours' drive away on a fresh clear tawny gold of a feat of engineering in 1898. To honour the labourers' efforts and morning post a mug of stove-top coffee is Te Anau, gateway chenille bedspread The water race's preserve the landscape, no heavy machinery was used in the to . Bigger than Yellowstone and path is amazmgly creation of the trail, meaning it took Tom two years to break Yosemite put together, splayed like a hand with too many straight. considering four picks, two shovels, a wheelbarrow and himself; persevering fingers, the 14 fiords carved thousands of years ago by massive it was hand-cut with little in the way of despite rain, hail, snow and self-doubt, and because half a track glaciers were misnamed "sounds" by English settlers homesick measuring devices or would have looked stupid. for Wordsworth. Fiordland's poetic melancholy is a watery plumb Imes The highest point is at 1130 metres, where the cow-boned one. River deep and mountain high, in ice, lakes, crystal clear backs of the Eyre Mountains wear a frosting of fresh snow and streams, dripping from lichen-covered branches, thundering the wind zings in your teeth, apple crisp. The verger veils the down waterfalls, growling and thumping in breakers biting Mataura Valley and the faces of Nevis and Nokomai - practically the coastline. The rainfall here is sudden and phenomenal. Yet the only other faces seen by race-keepers Lee Lum and Jimmy the weather clears just as soon and surprisingly, pretending Long, who lived nearly 10 kilometres apart and looked down innocence. After a heavy downpour the lush forest is spritzed, into the bustling goldfield but rarely visited. It's in their footsteps coloured green from Kermit to emerald. we follow; their loneliness our solitude, as, hypnotized by the To really appreciate Fiordland's surf beaches, waterfalls, rivers heartbeat rhythm of walking, the monkey chatter in the mind and fiords, its landscape gouged by the claws of time, you need drops away. Schist tors stand like Easter Island heads in a to see it from above, and Southern Lakes Helicopters offers a marvellous sub-alpine garden of fragrant hebes and daisy-ish full-day highlights package. "Fiordland's hard to beat;' says Sam celmisia. "It's kinda nice;' says Tom. the pilot, as we take off from the lake front helipad, "impossible It's a 13-kilometre walk from the old ski hut to Mud Hut, to beat, in my point of view': And point of view is everything Jimmy Long's old sod cottage, now restored to fit four in comfort. when there's nothing between you and the ground more than Muscles ache, feet fair pI use. The full moon rises as if drawn on 900 metres below - trees tufts in a green wool carpet, mountain ropes by an unseen stagehand to light the perfection of the scene: ridges brown and patchy like a moulting deer's rump.

140 nzlifeandleisure.co.nz NEVER MIND THE SANDFLIES Maori legend has it that Hine-nui• te-po, goddess of the underworld. was alarmed by the beauty of the fiords and worried that people who saw them would not want to leave so she released the sandfly. And to this day sandflies the size of ham sandwiches live in Fiordland. But you need not fear them: mix equal parts first-aid strength Dettol and baby oil and decant into a small spray bottle. Especially good for those allergic to aerosol repellents.