Savouring the heady delights of the South Island’s Mt Luxmore

South Island’s Mt Luxmore

When you’ve got to New Zealand by plane and ridden for miles over country as beautiful as anything in the world, try stretching your legs. Kathleen Shaw tells you how to do it and where to go - up the mountain with a champagne lunch.

Trampers are usually satis fied with a fairly simple lunch flask of tea and a packet of sandwiches for example but there is always the exception!

Last summer two trampers wanting to have a look at New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park from a height, packed a bottle of champagne, two steaks, a linen tablecloth and some after-dinner mints and packed it all on their backs ready for a gourmet lunch on the alpine meadow slopes of Mt Luxmore.

This mountain looks down

on the tiny township of Te

Anau on the opposite shore line of the lake that stretches away north to Glade House where the famous Milford

Walk begins. The trampers

were two of the seasonal staff employed by the tourist hotel which now lay 1 000 m below them. The summit of Mt Lux more towers another 600 m above bushline but the couple settled for 1 000 m and were on time with the steaks and trim mings which they ate in the balmy mountain air with a panorama of forests, lakes and rivers spread out all around and below them.

Local trampers (with more simple tastes) took their tea and sandwiches up on to the slopes of Mt Luxmore last July, calling their trip “a winter ascent” of the mountain. This makes it sound rather daring but the truth is, the trip was no trouble even for the very young (aged 12) or the rather old

(aged nearly 60!) They left the

jetty at Te Anau at 8 am for the opposite shore of the lake and caught the same launch back at 4 pm. There were some fas cinating icicles hanging from a rocky bluff and ice beads on leaf stems, but only a light coat of snow over the tussock slopes.

Ice picks were not necessary at 1 000 m but those who com pleted the climb to the summit took them just in case.

Visitors to Te Anau with a

day to spare will find the three and a half hour tramp up Mt Luxmore well worthwhile.

Two services are available to ferry trampers across the lake, either Geoff Harper’s outboard dinghy, which departs from the jetty, or Simon Vogel’s charter launch. Both operate for mini mal fares which include the return trip from Brod’s Bay at the end of the day. Picnic lunches can be obtained prior to departure from local hotels, motels or shops and the walk and the crisp mountain air cer

tainly stimulate the appetite.

Once across Lake Te Anau, the climb starts almost directly from the lakeshore. Red painted pieces of metal embed ded in tree trunks clearly signpost the trail. Other than a

pair of sturdy comfortable

walking shoes, no special

tramping equipment is re

quired to make the walk during summer or winter.

This easy access to Mt Lux more and its proximity to the township of Te Anau make it popular with trampers and most of them want to keep it

untouched by cableways and

restaurants. These same fea tures are the reason why devel opers want to see the mountain made accessible to everyone.

Old Mother Nature is the cause of all these disputes. She persists in scattering works of art all over the face of this planet in places very often where no one except an eagle or the pilot of an aircraft will ever see them. In Fiordland there are hidden waterfalls, glaciers, little mountain tarns the colour of old whisky, and caves of marble that can make you speechless with wonder that such beauty exists. But

then people become divided on whether we all have the right to see these lovely things or whether they should be left untouched. (Old Mother doesn’t care a fig either way! So long as species survive and the earth’s crust continues to twist and fold in its time-honoured way, she is fulfilled!) These lovely natural features of the world, and especially of areas of wilderness like the Fiordland National Park, are the constant rewards of any tramps in these regions. A little effort is the price and the Fiordland National Park Board does its best to provide foot access to many areas within the Park.

Maybe, one day, there will be a cablecar on Mt Luxmore and one more of Nature’s mas terpieces will be seen by all but, meanwhile, there is no reason why the reasonably fit tramper can’t enjoy this and many other lovely areas in one of the world’s finest parks.

The Park Board’s head quarters in Te Anau can supply free maps which show the pos ition of tracks and huts. The Park Board appreciates the courtesy of your signature when you intend to go into the Park so that if you happen to get lost, your destination and plans are already known and searchers will know where to look for you. The Park is made up entirely of mountains, for ests and lakes. Its terrain is one of the most rugged in the world and maps are essential if you are new to the area.

However, there is little danger of getting lost on a trip up to the slopes of Mt Lux more. In summer time the day light hours in this far south corner of New Zealand’s South Island are as long as any you will find in the southern hemi sphere. Daylight starts at about 4 am and doesn’t fade until 10 pm so you have plenty of time to come down off your moun tain!

When you've “done" Mt. Luxmore, try the rest of the range of beautiful tramps - the Deer Park at Queenstown for instance.