In the age of inReach devices, GPS and helicopters, there remains something profoundly moving about being somewhere truly remote. For me it is pure freedom along with a heightened awareness of the need for self-reliance. How we fare out there is largely down to our decisions and how prepared we are. It will show how we measure up, who we really are when faced with life at its most raw and real.
These thoughts ran through my mind as I waved goodbye to a float plane near the mouth of Chalky Inlet, deep in southwest Fiordland. We had been dropped with 10 days’ food and a line traced on a map running roughly 100km from where we stood to the Borland Road south of Lake Manapouri. We planned to traverse the Dark Cloud Range, a continuous line of mountain tops that, despite the ominous name, beckoned us to several days of above the bushline travel. Fiordland bush travel can be extremely steep and rough, but the opportunity to stay high was appealing – and the views promised to be fantastic.
