Home on the (Mountain) Range

This post picks up where I left off: traveling from Westport back to the East Coast of the South Island. Though I’d made the same drive only six days previous, I didn’t take the time then to stop and appreciate the beauty (partly because I didn’t even know I’d reached Lewis Pass until I’d passed it!).

My return drive, I decided, would be different. I was back to explorer mode, rather than rush-to-the-west-coast-to-do-a-hike mode

First, I pulled up Google Maps, zoomed in on the area where I’d be driving, and searched “waterfall.” This is one of my many strategies for finding New Zealand waterfalls, and it did not disappoint. There, along the road I’d be driving, was a result. Waterfall Track, it said.

As I moved on with my research, this so-called Waterfall Track did not exist anywhere else. I couldn’t find it on DOC or on AllTrails or anywhere else on the internet. But Google Maps said it was there and someone had left a comment saying it there was a small wooden sign and a track that took about 20 minutes out and back. Unfortunately, the comment was from twelve years ago, so that did not bode well.

Well, I resolved to look for the track on my drive, and researched other options (none of them with waterfalls).

Hidden Waterfall

My drive started off rainy, with low-hanging clouds obscuring the mountains. As I wove through wide valleys and across vast basins of farm fields spotted with tiny towns, I began to keep an eye out for the waterfall track. I knew it was somewhere after the Lewis Pass Motel, near where the road curved to follow the river. No one was behind me, so I slowed down. The road was edged with wide fields and bushy grasses, but no wooden signs. Along the river, trees started to crop up, and I had just about given up when I spotted a tiny pull off on the right hand-side and what looked like a break between two trees–a possible path?

Quickly checking that there was no on-coming traffic (because I’m driving on the LEFT side of the road), I pulled over. There was no sign, no posts suggesting there was once a sign, but it seemed pretty clear that this was (or used to be) a track.

So I pulled on my metaphorical explorers hat and set off.

This random crop of forest, punctuated by towering beech trees, was beautiful enough that I loved walking through it even if the possible waterfall at the end never materialized. In fact, I felt gleeful even though it was chilly and I didn’t know if this would amount to anything. It was a feeling of being smart and clever and capable (to have found a track on so little) and of the unknown (to be hoping for a waterfall, yet also conscious of the fact that the track could simply disappear, peter out into nothing). The spongy ground, the massive trees, the slightly overgrown track–it all lent a feeling of discovery. Perhaps I was the first to walk this track in twelve years? Perhaps this wasn’t a track at all?

I reached a small stream (which was promising re: the possible waterfall) and the track lead me over it several times. My anticipation grew. When I spotted the stairs, it was obvious this was something. Something.

Something forgotten that I had uncovered.

Finally, I passed a spot where a large slip had taken out the track, but there was a tiny ledge that I could follow, inching over the loose scree, and then…

There it was. A waterfall far more spectacular than I’d been expecting, falling at least forty feet in a cascading stream. It was tucked away, out of sight, and here I was. I’d followed the clues, the little breadcrumbs that were mostly made of hope, and they had manifested.

It wasn’t a massive waterfall like Wairere Falls or Marakopa Falls, but it was selective, secretive. The path was overgrown, unique, and I had found it on a whim that mostly included wishful thinking and a sense of adventure. In fact, it reminded me quite a lot of William Wright Falls (the one near Whiritoa where I had to hop from stone to stone in the river to find). And this made me love it even more than the grand, impressive waterfalls spotted across New Zealand. I loved it because of how it made me feel: confident, intuitive, adventurous–like the person I want to be.

Lewis Pass

I continued on down the road, buzzing from my wonderful find that felt all the more special because it felt like a secret. Soon, I reached the top of Lewis Pass and began to descend. About a hundred meters past the “top” is a carpark for St. James Walkway (another multi-day hike), but my research said there were shorter options available too.

Since the Waterfall Track had worked out, I considered skipping Lewis Pass, but I am so glad I didn’t. Despite the loitering clouds in the distance that veiled some of the snow-capped peaks, it was a stunningly beautiful alpine pass. The loop walk only took about 20 minutes, but I was awestruck by the color present in that desolate landscape. The wind whipped around me and the trees (where there were trees) were short and narrow, stunted, but draped with pale lacy moss like mourning veils.

Most importantly, all around me everything was untouched. Despite the highway passing a few hundred meters behind me, I was the only person wandering the path, and I could have been the only person in the world. For half an hour, I was the only person in that world.

All I could think was that I wish my Mom could be here because she would have a similar appreciation for the beautiful flora of the area. (Sorry Mom, it’s pretty far out of our way from the itinerary we devised for your visit! So you’ll just have to enjoy my photos instead). Even as I loved being alone there, sometimes all I want is to be able to share my awe.

Hanmer Springs

Since I was in no hurry (and just traveling by way of the weather forecast), my final destination on my second grand traverse was a mountain town I’d passed on the drive west: Hanmer Springs.

It was 65 degrees when I drove up, and the wide valley made it feel more like Gunnison than Breckenridge. From my first walk through the town, it felt like a mountain town. The architecture, the layout, the flowers blooming along the sidewalk. Something about it (coupled with the distant peaks) felt so similar to the generic “Colorado mountain town” even though I couldn’t tell you exactly what that feel is, where it comes from, or what, exactly encapsulates the “quintessential Colorado mountain town.” All I know is that I felt it. Like a tiny weight off my shoulders I hadn’t known was there. Like a little puzzle piece of rightness clicked into place.

I like the beach, but I’ll never feel that sense of relaxation, of serenity that some people talk about. I only get that from the mountains. And, finally, these were real mountains…with rocky, jagged peaks and snow and no rainforest covering them like a shaggy pelt, as I’d encountered previously in both the North and South of New Zealand.

The place I stayed was Kakapo Lodge, and it had a deck that didn’t have much by way of views (it looked over the road and a stand of beech trees), but it was my favorite place in the lodge. Mountain lodges should have decks. Another thing that just felt right. And, though it was the school holidays, the town was only moderately busy and the lodge, too, was half empty (and I had a room all to myself!). It was peaceful. It was perfect.

It was serene.

It was also steep, so I earned all my views and got to enjoy them with burning thighs. The way it should be in the mountains.

I climbed Conical Hill for views over the town. The whole hill was planted with pine and fir trees (non-native) and the scent of the pine needles as I huffed and puffed was like another whiff of home. The only flat section was in Hanmer Forest Park, also planted with non-native trees.

Outside of town, I climbed a steep track to Dog Stream Waterfall, which I really enjoyed. The forest there was native, and even though I love the pine trees and they remind me of home, it just doesn’t feel quite right to be walking through them in New Zealand, so I enjoyed the native forest far more.

Usually I prefer to hike along rivers or to lakes and waterfalls. Summit hikes rarely interest me because it’s a lot of climbing and generally barren landscape until the very top, but my favorite thing I did in Hanmer Springs was hike Mount Isobel.

I think it was my favorite in large part because I’d been, without knowing it, missing the mountains. And, atop Mount Isobel, I got to see the expanse of the mountains around me and really take it in. Really feel both the familiarity and the foreignness of these New Zealand mountains. Just me and the sky and the jagged peaks.

Serenity carried on the chilly mountain wind.

Despite passing through an area of New Zealand that probably gets left off most tourist itineraries, I loved lingering and exploring and feeling more truly like myself than I have since I left Colorado. I didn’t expect to love this little town, but it’s now tucked into a spot in my heart. And, I think if you climbed Mount Isobel, you might see a little piece of me still there, as well, gliding over the endless mountains on the alpine breeze, and occasionally swooping low to visit my secret waterfall.