Hot pools but no Hermitage

After my little sojourn to Dunedin for laser treatment on my right eye, I drove back to Wanaka, picking up my friend Emma off the bus in Tarras. Emma was living in Wanaka in 2016, and had worked as a tramping guide there, before moving back to Tasmania in 2017 and selling her car, to me!!

We decided to do a tramp together, and after much discussion and influenced by the recent heavy snow that had fallen on the Alps that week, we decided to walk the Copland Track on the west coast. This is a popular track, which starts 30km south of Fox Glacier and travels up the Copland River before going over a very tricky alpine pass to descend to Mt Cook village. These days the alpine crossing has become extremely precarious due to recent rockslides over the last decade, and we had no plans to be mountaineers anyway. We were going for the natural hot pools that exist just next to the Welcome Flat Hut, 18km upriver. We booked two nights...

We left Wanaka before 7am, driving that wonderfully scenic route to the west coast and arriving at Haast around 9 for a much needed coffee. Then, after refuelling the car as well, we continued north to the start of the track.

We headed off around 10:45am for what is a steady climb up the Copland Valley. First, Rough Creek must be crossed. I elected to wear my crocs and not put my boots on until I had made the other side. Emma put her boots on at the car, so she used the precarious log crossing to save her boots getting wet!

Then up the valley we went. There are numerous creeks to cross, and all the big ones have bridges, so aside from a bit of mud, it's possible to get to the hut with dry feet.

There's a few landslips along the way, and you are warned not to stop when crossing these potentially unstable areas, but they don't feel anywhere near as precarious as crossing over the creeks spanned by wire suspension bridges!

Welcome Flat Hut has a resident volunteer hut warden, and bookings are compulsory all year around. We arrive after 6 to a full hut, and spend an hour or two after dinner soaking in the hot pools looking up at The Milky Way before succumbing to sleep.

Our first night the hut was fully booked, but the next morning almost everybody leaves to walk back out again. We, and another group of walkers, have booked two nights, so we take advantage of the lack of crowds to take a long soak in the hot pools the next morning. This leads to lunch and then considerable lethargy, so instead of going for a walk further up the river I sit in the sun instead and read my book....

The hut begins to fill with more walkers, but it's not full overnight, as heavy rain is forecast and the track will be closed the next day. We are warned to leave early, as the creeks and rivers can rise fast, making the track impassable.

Most people leave earlier than us, but we take a more leisurely approach, as heavy rain is not forecast till later in the day. Emma has one more soak in the hot pools yet we are still away by 8:30am. It is overcast and only raining lightly, yet the creeks we cross have risen noticeably already. Even so, the walk out is no more taxing than the way in, and we stop for lunch at the small DOC hut halfway. The final crossing at Rough Creek is not appreciably higher, and neither of us bother to remove our boots before crossing, as we are almost at the car.

And then it begins to rain heavily.

We are safely out, so we drive the 30km to Fox Glacier, book in to the hostel and jokingly mention that we have just popped over the hill from The Hermitage (the posh hotel at Mt Cook village). And they believe us! We must look hardcore!!

A damn fine rib steak and a few mulled wines goes down mighty well that night, and we listen to the torrential rain falling from the comfort of a warm hostel room. The next day we drive back to Wanaka. Emma is off to do a mountaineering course and I've decided to abandon Wanaka for a while and head further afield. Although I still need to be back in Dunedin in a couple of weeks for my next eye review...

Southwards it is. That's next...

The other eye

After three surgeries on my left eye to repair numerous retinal detachments, I am left with a pupil that is paralysed and doesn't constrict, and am awaiting a fourth surgery to replace the lens removed in November. In order to have some vision in the left eye I have been using daily contact lenses. These give me good peripheral vision, but the central distortion remains, and is unlikely to improve much further. So I am increasingly reliant on good vision in my right eye.

When I first had surgery back in August last year, the eye registrar, Hong, had looked in my "good" eye and told me that there was a lot of thinning of the retina, known as "latticing", which suggested that the right eye was also at risk of retinal detachment. There had been some suggestion of performing some laser treatment on that eye once my left eye had been dealt with, and so discussion of this was on my list for my upcoming appointment with Harry.

Whilst walking on the AAWT, and also one day on my recent tramps, I had had some fleeting episodes of seeing floaters in the right eye. Neither episode lasted longer than a few minutes, were small, and didn't persist like the huge floater I had in the left eye back in August. But I mentioned them to Harry and he immediately insisted on checking the eye out.

The outcome was the discovery of a small retinal tear in the right eye! We caught this one early, but it needs immediate attention.

This time the tear is small, and the detachment not extensive, so again I must travel to Dunedin for treatment. Monday I drive down to Dunedin and Harry meets me in the eye clinic in the evening for a good half an hour worth of zapping on my poor eye with a laser. He found a second tear, and did a pretty extensive job of containing the whole area with the laser. So hopefully that's sorted.

There's more latticing in the eye, and I think Harry might be keen to zap that too. Although lasering the latticing doesn't prevent detachment, it certainly contains a detachment should it occur and prevents it extending rapidly. Given my history I'm not surprised he feels that way, and has suggested doing it when I have a general anaesthetic for the lens replacement. Needing a GA surprised me, but with the frequency of surgery I've had on my left eye, further surgery is likely to be more painful than usual.

The laser treatment doesn't affect my vision, and aside from the discomfort of Harry pressing against my eyelid whilst doing the procedure, it also wasn't painful. No eyedrops required, I can continue to wear my usual contact lenses, and I can still drive. So on Tuesday I returned to Wanaka, and am resting up whilst a cold front deposits quite a lot of snow on the Alps. I'm hoping the weather warms up by the weekend, as I'm planning to go tramping again.

That's next….