“Paradise – 37 km”, says the sign behind Glenorchy quite modestly. A few kilometres of dirt road through incredibly beautiful farmland before Mount Aspiring National Park and you’re there. First, of course, you have to cross the Jordan River. No problem, at this time of year the riverbed that runs across the track is dry.
The next two river crossings are also doable without a jeep. But the fourth, with a good 30 cm of water and large stones, shows Tutukaka his limits. This paradise is obviously only open to four-wheel drive vehicles. A great advertising idea for BMW, but certainly a bitter disappointment for religious extremists of all colours due to the inconvenience they have had to endure so far.
We turn back. There is an old gold mine in the Rees Valley. But here the first deep river above the track blocks our way. We turn back again. The grasses sway. Horses in the pastures all look southwards. A divine breeze comes from the north. Very faint at first, only the pastures sway a little. But then our own cloud of dust overtakes us from behind at full speed. Now it’s clear: my hatch on the Routeburn Track has been answered!
This is almost biblical scenery: the wide gravel plains of the Rees and Dart River valleys are whipped by strong gusts. As we are just at the end of what is probably the longest period of sunshine this New Zealand summer, the winds are blowing up huge clouds of sharp-edged dust and driving them across the turquoise Lake Wakatipu down to Queenstown.
Glenorchy Park is a good launch site: you simply park in the middle of it, under a tree just before the mouth of the Rees River. Nobody minds being so close to paradise. Set up your kite and head out onto the last sandbank. Seagulls take flight. The wind is gusting mightily at 5 to 27 knots. At times I’m soaking up the 9 m² Crossbow, only to have the bar almost ripped out of my hands the next second.
Thanks to the huge dust clouds from the north, you can always tell exactly when the wind is going to blow. It blows often and for a long time today. The jumps are either puny or really high, but always unpredictable. My eyes are watering. My lungs sting. The panorama on the Wakatipu between 2000 to 3000 metre high mountains is incredible. 80 kilometres of lake all to myself. Heaven is clearly in front of paradise. Almost exactly 37 kilometres in front of it.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.