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With Anja and Gandalf (the car) along Lake Wakatipu with Glenorchy in the far far distance |
We extended our time at Kinloch by one day as I wasn’t
feeling too well and we wanted to climb Mt Alfred on the way out, and the
weather was looking much better the following day.
Mt Alfred was amazing – only 1375m but deceptively difficult
mainly due to the weather conditions – the first ¾ of the climb are in the bush
and pretty easy but the last ¼ is a scramble up a gulley, which when the rocks
are covered in a layer of ice makes it pretty difficult!!! I was genuinely
scared at points but all I can say is thank god for the grass as we were
using that to haul ourselves up – it’s strong stuff!
The view at the top was
worth conquering my fears for, you can see for miles in all directions! It was
nice seeing where I had spent the last month from above.
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Woweeeeee amazing views |
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Rees Valley and Lake Wakatipu. Kinloch is on the bottom right of the lake |
We ate 2 semi cold toasties then headed back down the
mountain to the Trading Post where we said our goodbyes to the girls in the
shop and had one last hot chocolate (the best hot chocolate ever, if you ever
end up in Glenorchy you have to get one).
Our original plan had been to drive all the way to Fox but
it was a bit of an overstretch – after running errands in Queenstown we only
got as far as Wanaka before light was falling, so we settled in at the Albert
Town campground for the night. We woke
early the next morning, surrounded by fog which was a bit eerie.
We packed up and headed back on the road for
our drive to Fox, where we decided not to stop in the end – our intention had
been to do the Lake Matheson walk but as the clouds were down we wouldn’t have
been able to see the famous reflection in the lake, so continued onwards to
Franz where we did the walk to the glacier terminal. We drove onwards to Hokitika and camped at
the Lake Mahinapua campsite and the next day was spent being tourists in
Hoki.
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A nice waterfall we stopped at |
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You'll find one way bridges like this all over NZ, on 'state highways' |
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Lake Mahinapua |
We bought souvenirs, sat on the
beach and did a Jade Factory tour which was fairly interesting. I had wanted to catch up with Wayne (of the
dairy farm) and had been trying to get hold of him for the last 2 days but to
no avail. We decided to rock up at his
house anyway and wait until he had finished work, so we sat in his drive
playing with his dog Blue until his neighbour turned up and told us he was down
in Haast on a job and wouldn’t be back till Friday – bummer! So back to the
campsite it was, via the Glow Worm dell which was pretty awesome, and we picked
up a French guy called Vivian who shared his crisps with us and then pitched
his tent so close to ours I couldn’t peg our tent down on one side.
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Blue's smiling! |
We paid for a hot shower at Hoki swimming pool the next day
as we were getting pretty stinky, and started the drive to Nelson Lakes
National Park via the Pancake rocks.
Again having underestimated the amount of time it takes to
drive places, we reached Nelson Lakes after night fall and pitched our tent in
a freedom camping spot there. Tired and
lazy we made cheese sandwiches for dinner and had an early night as the next
day we were attempting our first multiday tramp, wahoo!!
Two of the kiwi boys we were playing cards with caught up
with us when we got stuck at a creek and couldn’t decide on the best way to
cross – having much longer legs than us they just hopped over, but with a bit
of bravery we also managed to hop over without incident. They walked faster than us and soon
disappeared in the distance, but at the next creeks we found they’d left us
little piles of rocks where they’d crossed to indicate the best crossing, which
was such a lovely thing to do!!! We
caught up with them at a much larger creek where they had waited for us as they
weren’t sure we’d make it across without their help, ha!! Very sweet of them
and we ended up walking down the rest of the way with them.
We had booked into a more upmarket campsite (a whole $4
extra!) so that we could have a shower and shelter – even though we had only
showered 2 days previously we were so stinky it was gross – the shower was much
enjoyed!!! We saw one girl who'd been in the hut with us and her hair still looked perfect and luscious, and my hair was a dirty little greaseball. I just don't understand. We spent the afternoon sat in a lodge to abuse their
wifi and have some well deserved dinner!
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View from our campsite |
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Stinky and tired and sweaty and gross but happy we are alive haha |
The next day was spent driving to Picton where we had a
pleasant stroll around and I realised
that even though I have been there 3 times now, this is the first time I have
actually wandered around the shops. At
1pm we boarded our ferry and I said a sad goodbye to the south island! I love it so much, I have had some amazing
experiences and met the best people and I hope I have just as much fun on the
north island!!
Shame on you, you mixed up the photos...the first one of you beside the tree was at the lake angelus walk ;)
ReplyDeleteoops!!!! I need you here to help me write the blog :)
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