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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks.

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Speaker 2: A't be so for my birthday this year, my wife

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Speaker 2: went above and beyond, as she so often does. I

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Speaker 2: didn't want a product. I didn't want a thing. I'm

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Speaker 2: not really interested in stuff, But for the last year

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Speaker 2: of my thirties, I asked for an experience, and a

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Speaker 2: couple of months before the big day, I sort of

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Speaker 2: casually dropped the idea into conversation. How would you feel?

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Speaker 2: I asked my wife, if for my birthday this year,

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Speaker 2: you took on all of the family duties for a

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Speaker 2: little bit so I can just duck off for a

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Speaker 2: couple of nights in the bush. Now, I'll admit to

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Speaker 2: a bias, right, I have spent more time in it

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Speaker 2: than any other. But I reckon the Kahuangi might be

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Speaker 2: our best national park. Although Fjordland National Park obviously boasts

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Speaker 2: the majesty of Milford, Doubtful and Dusky Sounds, and Abel

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Speaker 2: Tasman has the golden sand beaches. I just reckon between

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Speaker 2: the Niko Groves meeting the Tasman Sea and the true subalpine.

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Speaker 2: I just reckon that nothing can rival the Khudangi in

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Speaker 2: terms of the sheer variety of landscapes, and I was

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Speaker 2: reminded of that diversity this week when for my birthday escape,

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Speaker 2: I joined my brother and brother in law and we

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Speaker 2: drove up the Wangapeka River en route to climbing Mount Owen.

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Speaker 2: So we started at the spot called the Blue Creek Resurgence,

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Speaker 2: where beautiful, perfect clear water pores from the vast underground caves.

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Speaker 2: If you don't know what a resurgence is, it's basically

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Speaker 2: an underground river, and the key is in the name.

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Speaker 2: It's where it resurges or resurfaces. Not too far away

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Speaker 2: from the Blue Creek Resurgence as the crow flies as

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Speaker 2: the Pierce Resurgence, where cave divers recently set an extraordinary

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Speaker 2: and terrifying record diving two hundred and forty five meters

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Speaker 2: deep into the earth. Like so many beautiful spots in

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Speaker 2: the South Island, the Kahudungi had a gold rush. Unfortunately

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Speaker 2: for the hardy souls who braved the Wungapeka River in

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Speaker 2: the eighteen sixties, the quantities of gold that were actually

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Speaker 2: recovered were ultimately modest at best, and the older I get,

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Speaker 2: the more I marvel it just the ridiculous old gold works,

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Speaker 2: the huge bits of rusted iron machinery that once upon

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Speaker 2: a time were hauled up the least hospitable valleys, only

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Speaker 2: to be abandoned and left to be slowly consumed by

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Speaker 2: the bush. We climbed straight up, straight up. It was

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Speaker 2: too steep for chatter, and we soon fell into the

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Speaker 2: rhythm of the bush. The crunch of our boots, the

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Speaker 2: gasping heavy breath, hearts beating in our chests, the bird song,

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Speaker 2: so much bird song. Again, the older I get, the

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Speaker 2: more I appreciate it. There were countless bell birds, robins,

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Speaker 2: piwacka whaka, and my new favorite cuti of all the

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Speaker 2: New Zealand natives, tom tits. We paused for a moment

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Speaker 2: for a handful of pick and mix, and two tiny,

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Speaker 2: sweet little riflemen came and perched on a twig right

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Speaker 2: next to us. We climbed above the bush line and

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Speaker 2: then down into another valley, up an old creek bed

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Speaker 2: to the tidy dock hut. It was actually pretty busy

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Speaker 2: and we still had legs, so we kept climbing up

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Speaker 2: another hour to a couple of tarns, where we pitched

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Speaker 2: our tents for the night. We were surrounded by three

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Speaker 2: mighty limestone mountains, a little plateau with spongy earth and

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Speaker 2: tussock mother Nature's colosseum. We dropped a couple of beers

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Speaker 2: into the tarns just to cool them off as we

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Speaker 2: pitched our flies and cooked dinner. We were at about

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Speaker 2: fifteen hundred meters, so hardly everest, but high enough for

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Speaker 2: the temperature to drop really fast. The sun goes down

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Speaker 2: one minute your clothes are rotting off, your body heavy

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Speaker 2: with sweat, and the next your double socking. We slept

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Speaker 2: in our puffa jackets and polyprops without any clouds or

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Speaker 2: light pollution. The sky was just so pure and bright.

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Speaker 2: I actually had to pull a beanie over my eyes

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Speaker 2: to try and get to sleep. Is it even tramping

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Speaker 2: if you have a full eight hours In the morning,

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Speaker 2: we left our camp and started climbing before sunrise. From

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Speaker 2: the little plateau. We worked up through the huge glaciated

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Speaker 2: marble cast that builds to the mountain summit. You can

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Speaker 2: see why these landscapes were chosen by the location scouts

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Speaker 2: for Lord of the Rings, Mind your step, skip the crevass,

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Speaker 2: up up up. The views from the top were awesome,

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Speaker 2: not just awesome as in good, but awesome as in

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Speaker 2: inspiring oar. We could see t rereadable ranges on all sides,

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Speaker 2: three sixty degrees clouds sitting deep in the valleys below,

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Speaker 2: and one cloud spilled over the edge of an alpine

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Speaker 2: ridge and then down the other side, kind of like

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Speaker 2: water being tipped from a glass. Several times we all

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Speaker 2: just stopped. How often in life are you ever in

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Speaker 2: a time and place where you can't see or hear

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Speaker 2: any sign of human civilization. Look, I am impossible to

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Speaker 2: buy form, but I've got to say for my birthday

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Speaker 2: this year, my wife absolutely nailed it. I walked out

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Speaker 2: with burning quads and a couple of blisters, just so content,

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Speaker 2: so full of gratitude. And to think these landscapes, these

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Speaker 2: places are there for all of us, that it's our home.

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Speaker 2: What a gift. Indeed.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to Newstalks I'd Be from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio