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New Zealand's Hollyford TrackNot Just Another Pretty FaceBy Ron Fahnestock
The Hollyford Track is no great physical challenge. It’s basically all downhill. The trail follows the Hollyford River north-by-northwest from near its source in the snowcapped Southern Alps until it empties into the wild Tasman Sea. Walkers cover about 40-50 miles on foot during their three or four days on the track. They ride almost as many miles by bus, by jet boat, and again by small plane. Along the way there is one ghost town. Otherwise there is not so much as a hamlet between the mountains and the sea. Each night trekkers sleep in rudimentary but comfortable lodges in jungle clearings. There is no goal. The point is the experience. Enabling the experience is the vision of one man and one company. Peter Archibald and his Hollyford Track company operate the New Zealand Department of Conservation’s official trekking concession in the Hollyford. Their guides, their lodges, their boats, their backpacks, their home cooking, their flight out when the walking is done—these are the means to the end, and, for them, the end is more spiritual than physical. Archibald—tall, handsome, soft-spoken, and intelligent—speaks of his company’s operation of the Hollyford Track like a privileged stewardship. For him and his team it is an honor to be able to introduce people from around the world to a rare and special environment. Under their management, Archibald promises that the Hollyford will become no amusement ride at Theme Park New Zealand.
Fiordland is proof that opposites attract. It gets its name from the many deep saltwater sounds that invade far into this mountainous corner of the country—water-filled channels which were carved out by great glaciers Ice Ages ago. It’s this corner of New Zealand where two oceans collide. The Tasman Sea—the thousand-mile-wide ocean separating New Zealand from Australia—ends here, when it encounters the frigid Southern Ocean, 1,700 miles of open water separating Fiordland from Antarctica. It is here that the territory of New Zealand’s mountain parrot, the kea, overlaps with that of the Fiordland crested penguin. Temperate zone rain forests extend from glaciated summits reaching nearly 10,000 feet down to sea level, where palm trees cohabit with birch and giant ferns. There are no land mammals; no snakes; rare birds with jungle cries and proud plumage; fur seals; giant waterfalls; looking glass lakes; sand flies with teeth, or maybe knives; and rain—sometimes bucketsful.
Guides—young and athletic—come along. Or, rather, they lead and follow, and are often not seen. They seem to serve more as a safety backup and an information service than as intrepid leaders and scouts. Want to talk native flora and fauna? They’re there. Want to go it alone? They’re not. Gotta problem? They’re back. Lonesome? Bored? Well, maybe you’re on the wrong trail. The experience doesn’t end at Martins Bay Lodge. After two days on the trail—with one night in each of the lodges—and a jet boat trip to Long Reef on the Tasman, you have options. You can fly out on the third day. Or you can stay an extra day in the Martins Bay area, further exploring the dense rain forest and the river’s dramatic and beautiful outlet to the sea. Then, on the fourth day, you can fly out. Or you can jetboat back to Pike River Lodge and hike out to the trailhead with a guide, reversing the first day’s walking.
Regardless of the trip options selected, all trips begin and end in Te Anau, primary town of Fiordland. Hikers stage at Te Anau one night prior to beginning the walk. Their local B&B is included in the cost of their trip package. Also included are backpacks and rain ponchos, if desired, all meals on the trail and at the lodges, and bus transport Te Anau to the trailhead and back to Te Anau from Milford or the trailhead at trip’s end. For 2002, the 3-day fly-out trip costs more than $600 (US) per adult. The 4-day version costs almost $785/adult, whether you walk out or fly out. Children 10 through 14 are welcome and at a 25% discount.
Photographs © R. Fahnestock, Home at First FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:Hollyford Track Ltd.: Book your walk on the Hollyford Track as part of your independent New Zealand travel itinerary. For a free brochure, contact: Home at First Web site: /www.homeatfirst.com |
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TM
They
have to shout loudly from New Zealand just to be heard. Sometimes the word
gets through about New Zealand’s wonders, its great surprises, and its
anomalies. The Hollyford Track is all of these.
Archibald’s
goal isn’t to turn the Hollyford into another Milford Track, the
self-styled “finest walk in the world.” The Milford Track—Fiordland’s most
famous attraction, a walk of similar length in a parallel region of the
national park just south of the Hollyford—has become so popular that it is
often fully booked months ahead of time. Necessarily, traffic control
measures have been installed to keep its walking population from harming
its fragile environment. The Hollyford Track—currently a distant third in
visitors behind the enormously popular Milford and (also neighboring)
Routeburn Tracks—purposely restricts its capacity, which ensures that its
environment and the walking experience remain pristine. The Milford and
the Routeburn can be parades through paradise at certain times of year.
Ironically, their enormous success helps ensure that the Hollyford can
provide a solitary experience in the midst of a unique natural region
barely touched by man.
That
the Hollyford valley today has no permanent population wasn’t by design.
The valley is one of the few low-level routes from the interior to the
sea. Early New Zealand pioneers knew that the native Maori used the route
to carry greenstone jade out of the mountains to the coast for transport
and trade elsewhere on the island. The dense forests supplied them the
huge trees necessary for constructing their fabulous ocean-going canoes.
White men realized the route could be a natural outlet for the mineral
wealth and agricultural products they imagined possible in the interior
valleys. They built a small settlement—Jamestown village—along Lake
McKerrow. Jamestown is now a ghost town visited by Hollyford hikers during
their 45-minute jet boat journey on the lake between walking sections
along the Upper and Lower Hollyford Rivers. The visionaries of Hollyford
colonization turned out to be too optimistic. The agricultural and mineral
potential of the interior turned out to be quite limited, and the river’s
outlet to the Tasman Sea, at Martin’s Bay, was not navigable. Besides,
this corner of New Zealand remains its furthest from civilization.
Whatever would come out of the Fiordland interior would require a long
coastal journey to reach market.
The
western half of New Zealand’s South Island is a patchwork of parks
connected with bands of sparsely populated farmland. In an area roughly
one-quarter the size of California, there are some nine large regions with
national park status, and at least seven other major regional forest or
maritime parks. Fiordland, covering the southwest corner of the island, is
the largest of the national parks, and probably its most famous,
especially now that it has earned coveted World Heritage status.
The
hiking in the Hollyford isn’t hard. The path is excellent—often loamy and
soft, but with enough roots and rocks to keep your attention. Following a
river downstream to the sea makes getting lost a non-issue. Breaking the
journey every 10 miles or so ensures that even inexperienced walkers can
manage each day’s march without complaining—unless their boots are not
broken in. Carrying a pack is necessary. Three or four days of clothing
and camera gear weighs in at 20-40 pounds soaking wet on your back. But
you don’t need to carry food, bedding, or shelter. The Hollyford Track
company provides all that. Its two huts—Pike River Lodge and Martins Bay
Lodge—supply welcome hot showers, twin bunk rooms, and fresh cooked meals
that are as creative as they are rustic. (We remember fondly a whitebait
kisch we were served at Martins Bay Lodge. The luncheon was anything but
common campfire grub.)
Those
flying out do so from a grass strip by Martins Bay Lodge in a small plane.
The flight is a short, but dramatic one over the ridge or along the coast
south to Milford, where you land in time to join a cruise boat for a
couple of hours on the region’s world famous fiord, Milford Sound.
The
walking season is a long one in the Hollyford, lasting from October
through June. Because group size is limited to sixteen persons, demand can
outpace supply, and advance reservations are important. You may want to
come at a specific time: the penguins are at Long Reef until New Year;
seals have young ones during January; February and March is the warmest
time, with summer flowers blooming; and autumn weather and flowers makes
hiking comfortable and attractive from April into June. Therefore, book
early to be sure to get the reservations you require.