Billy tea's the best

Editors note.

Trips 'n' Tramps, it's all in the name. There shouldn’t be anything hurried about a trip into Fiordland and Fiordland National Park.

Most people have travelled a long way to get here and once here there is just so much to see and do.

Whether it's a Trip to Milford Sound or a Tramp in the Fiordland mountains (or both) time should be taken to take it all in. This article is about taking the time.

Billy tea's the best

By Chris Hughes January 2007

Nothing and I mean nothing, does as much to the atmosphere of a trip into the Fiordland mountains as a good simple old fashioned cup of tea. Sure a beer tastes real good on a hot day but when it’s howling outside and there’s ice on the inside of the window, what are you going to reach for… the hot tea or the cold beer. (If you grabbed for the beer then stop reading here!) Even when the sun is beating down out of a blue Fiordland sky often a cup of tea will quench the thirst as well as a cold beer. Now I’m not talking just any cup of tea. I’m talking of the time honored cup of good old Billy tea.

Dave Hughes, founder of Trips & Tramps enjoying a cup of tea in front of Mitre Peak at Milford Sound, Fiordland

To me it’s not just the tea itself it’s the whole ritual of a cuppa in the hills and that involves smoke and flames. Gas is good but it’s not the same as getting your eyes full of smoke and where’s the romance of smelling like a petrol refinery when you could really smell like a bonfire on a beach. In an age where time is money there is something deeply satisfying about taking the time to make a proper cup of tea, it’s akin to extending your middle digit in the general direction of the rushed up rest of the “real” World. So how do you make a real cuppa?

Like all good things it takes time and it starts before you leave home.

1st up is choose some seriously good companions, people with similar outlooks on life. Next find some great scenery with a river running through it or a Fiordland lake filling in the foreground. Sun dried driftwood is next on the list set in a fireplace over newspaper with a billy full of fresh lake or river water ready to hang over the dancing flames. Get your matches out, use half of them and once the fire finally takes hold swing the billy and go and stand downwind until your eyes water! Then see if you can actually find somewhere that’s not downwind (which according to Murphy’s Law is nigh on impossible).

Keep applying firewood till the water boils and tries to leap out of the Billy, whilst standing around the fire discussing things like religion, politics and best of all fishing. This is a really important part of the process and topics discussed here usually last until all the tea is actually drunk and the whole process must start again. Anyway back to the making of the tea. Technically you are at the most critical part of the whole operation now. With the water at a vigorous boil carefully add a handful of tea leaves (Tea Bags are only used by non believers!), recover to the boil and immediately burn your fingers on the billy handle while removing aforementioned Billy from the flames. If possible at this stage singe all the hair off your forearms and for good measure try to singe your eyebrows off as well. While recovering from these two maladies place the billy with its lid on somewhere safe (or if you are feeling particularly adventurous place it somewhere dangerous to be overturned by someone in bare feet!)

If you can, wait for three minutes for the tea to brew properly and then remove the lid and tap the Billy with a stone or a stick to break the surface tension and sink the tea leaves. Wait another 30 seconds for the lazy tea leaves to sink and then pour or scoop tea into cups, add your favorite pollutants (milk sugar etc) and carry on your discussions on religion and politics armed with boiling hot fluid to defend yourself and your point of view with.

At Trips 'N' Tramps (where I “work” at guiding the worlds best day trips into Fiordland and  amazing Milford Sound) we used to “swing the Billy” in a continuous cricket bowling like motion to centrifuge the tea leaves for our morning cuppa. It seemed like a good way to impress the girls until Big John’s Billy collided with an overhead branch one day cascading a whole pot of freshly boiled tea down his right forearm. Being a true southern gentleman he didn’t even flinch (except for a small tic in his left eye). Through gritted teeth and watering eyes he apologized and carried on to make a fresh pot which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. (After this day trip he had to take two weeks of to recover!!!)

Chris Hughes pouring the tea.

We continue to have our “boil-ups” on our day trips to Milford Sound at places like Lake Gunn or down by the Hollyford River and will continue to do so till the cows come home. It draws the quietest shiest groups together, solves most of the world’s problems and seems to keep my pyromania at a manageable level. Feel free to come and join us one day for lessons on the etiquette of Billy tea.