Three Fiordland stories
Indestructible jandals, a ruined camp, and the most modern hermit you've never heard of.
For the last two weeks I’ve been running around Fiordland chasing a few stories, so there’s been radio silence on the Backburner (sorry to all five of you). Here’s a quick update on what I was chasing:
Gus Cope has completed The Great Jandal, walking all ten Great Walks in a single pair of jandals. I joined him and his crew as they walked from the Divide to Glenorchy via the Routeburn to get the inside scoop. We camped in the Valley of the Trolls and I learned that Gus, scandalously, prefers the term “piggies” to “dogs” when referring to his feet. Canceled.
We ended up in Queenstown where I picked up Jess and set out for the Divide once again to start phase two. This was the real mission: heading deep into the Fiordland bush to spend a few days with the notorious Hollyford hermit named Bruce. Except, as I quickly found out, “hermit” is not really the right term. The man has Starlink and a pension, and spends his days talking shit over Facebook to people all around the world. He ferries trampers and hunters across Lake Alabaster, maintains a richer social calendar than I do, and does the Wordle every day.
He’s a fascinating case, and spend the entire trip spinning yarns about his run-ins with DOC, his history of eeling, and the ins and outs of how he maintains a life in the bush. He first got to this site - Saxton Hut - in 1982, and has spent every year since in some sort of hut-squatting situation. It was all very Shrekesque. He’s got a pet possum, too, named Plucky. Plucky was very tame, but her daughter, Pluckette, can only be described as being locked in bitch mode (see video).
After our time with Bruce, we began the 12-hour journey back to Dunedin. Before the 9 hours of hitchhiking, Jess and I decided to start walking down the Hollyford road and made it nearly all the way to Gunn’s Camp before being picked up by some internationals in The Shaggin’ Waggon. Jess recommended a brief visit to Gunn’s Camp on the way out to see what was left of it.
In 2020, the same storm that flooded Saxton Hut and much of Fiordland sent a massive slip rolling down the hills below the Routeburn. The camp had been evacuated, but the two caretakers remained. As rains lashed the valley, a wave of earth cascaded through Gunn’s Camp, sending a massive boulder clean through the living quarters of the two caretakers. They survived, by chance, just one room over.
Walking around the camp was a bit surreal. Someone is clearly maintaining the grass, and signs insist that everything is being done to reopen. But the heaping mounds of rubble that divide the camp from the road are more than a visual barrier. It doesn’t look like much will be happening here any time soon, but I’d like to hear more about that night and what’s being done to recover.
All in all, a very fruitful Fiordland mission. The Great Jandal will be written up for 1964 Mag, and Bruce’s story will be going to NZ Geographic. Not sure what to do with Gunn’s Camp.
-Fox
Bonus: a nighttime shot of our camp in Trolls.