Novozélandské Paseky: Te araroa Chapter 3 - Nelson Lakes NP & Waiau track

Tak jsme presli dalsi kousek zeme... :) bylo to velice paradni a plne srdecne zabavy haha :) Fotky tradicne na konci :)

So we managed to walk another piece of land. It was all jolly merry fun!
You can find photos at the end of the post :)

Our trip, day 16 and on the road again. Our fellow tramper friends David and Eileen shared a lot of their delicious homebrew cider and stout in St.Arnaud where we stayed for 2 nights. Nice rest. Eileen later had an awesome idea which she shared with us as well - she was going to take a boat to get on the other side of lake Rotoiti because she walked it before and she suggested she'd carry our backpacks with her on the boat. This excellent idea saved us 10 km carrying the load and we were so light that we could walk 32 km in total that day! Whoop :) it felt like we were wearing kangaroo boots :D
The track was so so so different from Richmond Range! Nice walking on the flatland on nice paths was awesome.

The next day the track changed a lot. Let's go uphill again! Up to Travers Saddle (over 1700m) and then back down and up again. It was a long day full of lot of thinking. On Upper Travers Hut where we stayed the night before was a lost person post and a big article in the Wilderness magazine about people who vanished in the mountains and were never found again. So I spent most of the day thinking about where they might have gone lost and that mountains are places you always should respect even if you have a lot of experience. The tramping is not always fun and sometimes it made me feel a bit uncomfortable thinking about the bones that are around but I guess this is part of the whole thing.

We arrived to Blue Lake after 17 km day of big ascends and big descends and were happy to get there and we went to check out the water, which was....A M A Z I N G ! Blue lake is the clearest water in the world recorded so far. The visibility is 70 - 80 metres... It was absolutely incredible! We were also extremely lucky that day because we saw some endangered species like Blue Whio ducks and Kararea NZ Hawk. I really love bird so I was very happy to see them. Ducks were really friendly :)

We decided to start writing the " FOOD" chapter...aka what we want to munch when the walk is over...

After the Blue Lake, there was another challenge waiting for us. In fact, many people say it's the biggest in Te Araroa and it was the Waiau Pass, 1870ish metres very steeply up and down. Our training hike started when we needed to scramble up above Lake Constance and sidle the whole length before we went down again so guess what? So we can climb up to the Waiau Pass. The climb was brutal straight up affair through snow tussocks plain (better) and the scree (worse). We made the whole climb in 1 hour and 5 minutes and when we got up the weather rewarded us with sunshine and view over the north of South Island and south of the Waiau track. Just absolutely incredible hike up and the reward. We were almost speechless. At least some keas were hanging around and did the speech for us :)

The day ended perfectly. After a brutal descend (what else would you expect?) we camped at Upper Waiau Forks campsite and had a great evening with campfire. Just fabulous. We only had to change the classification of brutal climb to uber brutal climb after the Waiau pass day.

As you can see above, next day we had a lot of fun. The track led through a wide valley, very easy to walk after we've crossed few scree slopes. We later had some river fun. Especially Roman.
It was extremely difficult for me not to laugh when he had his emotional breakdown. What a good wife I am!!!
Although we had the river fun and the beginning was slow, thanks to wide beautiful valleys and easy paths, we made the 24 km to beautiful little Lake Guyon in 8 hours and had a long time in the afternoon and evening to recover :) He did recover as you can see on the other picture. This is Roman when he's dry.

From Lake Guyon the trail continued very similarly - great wide valleys, golden grass, nice weather... we could see some showers, but they occupied other valleys, so we were safe for the day... This part of Waiau track gave us a strong sensation of freedom...I just can't describe the feeling being in the wide valleys with so much space for yourself. You have to go there yourself :)
and a lot of bumblebees fell in love with my pink merino t shirt...

The next day the dry weather ended and half of the track we had some nice rainy wet times. I also decided to fall down and later to drown my boot. Not that it made any difference in the wet state of my being :) We changed the plans and decided to stay at Boyle hut instead of Magdalen. We had a lot of time to dry our stuff and watch the mice anarchy outside. Luckily the hut was mouseproof and we could laugh at those little buggers outside!
It was our last evening spent with David and Eileen as well. We spent almost 2 weeks together, not every day, but it was great to share our experience after the long days' walk. We were sad to see our companions leave, but we hope to see them again :) as I've written to our diary...to many goodbyes lately. Our French team friends - greetings to Guigui, Eva, Virge et Seb :) - now you are famous guys! I also had to say goodbye to my beloved Lavinder <3 But we are sure we will meet everybody again :)

So, the last day we made it to the road, made it to Hanmer Springs where we E A T A L O T and go to the pools and also write this awesomely awesome blog for all of you <3 kiss!

FOTOGALERIE / PHOTO SECTION