Heading South

Since last wednesday on the ferry, we have done a lot of driving and have ended up in Wanaka for now.  Wanaka is a small tourist town of 6000 permanent residents but swells immensly in the summer for hiking and the winter for skiing.  So nice to be around here now without the crowds. 

When getting off the ferry, we decided to make the most of the warmish weather that is left and head far south and work our way back north.  This meant passing beautiful weather in the Nelson and Marlborough regions.  We went straight to the glaciers on the west coast at just the wrong time.  Turns out that in the past week they had gotten about a meter of rain (yes, almost 40 inches in a week) and so none of the trails were hikeable because of crazy river crossings.  We did get to at least walk over to the base of the Franz Joseph glacier to take a look... although at the expense of getting drenched.  After seeing more rain in the forecast we decided to move on.  Pictures from We(s)tland.

On friday morning we got to Wanaka to only find out that you cannot even get to Mt. Aspiring National Park (where most of the hiking is around here) because there are river fords on the way there that are uncrossable.  At least the rain is finally stopping here and we got to do a little hike up rocky mountain which also happens to be the location of the “rugged country south of Rivendale” from Lord of the Rings. (that's the picture on the right!). More pictures from Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain.

The Fern Burn hut on the Motatapu track

We have also done an overnight hike on the Motatapu track, which is not part of the national park.  We stayed in the Fern Burn hut, all by ourselves.  In the morning I went on a little adventure trying to get to the top of a ridge nearby.  I've really been wanting to get to the top of some mountains, so this was really nice.  I came upon some random wild billy goats on my way and had fun blazing my own trail through the tussock (quite easy as it was all above the treeline).  More pictures from the Motatapu track.

And so Monday it is supposed to rain a bit more, but hopefully by tuesday we can do some hiking up in the national park here before heading off to Queenstown and the Milford Track.

View from the top of my little adventure