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Published: March 26th 2010
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I finished working in Christchurch so it was time to travel again. My first stop was Lake Tekapo, in the Mackenzie basin. After 4 hrs I arrived at this amazing place. My bus left Christchurch quite early so I had still time to go for a walk. I went on top of mount john, up there is a observatory as there is just no light pollution here. Anyway, the scenery was just stunning. I really can’t describe it, the intense bright turquoise lake at the one site and Mount Cook and other peaks over 3000m with glaciers at the other side… After this first great day with a 5 hr walk I wanted more so I hitchhiked to Mount Cook national park the next day. It was a bit scary, as I got dropped of at the intersection where the road goes to Mount Cook national park and just 2 cars passed by in the first 10 minutes. Luckily I got picked up the 3rd car though. The weather wasn’t quite as good so I couldn’t see much of it really. Anyway still impressive to walk in the narrow valley and see the glaciers coming down the mountains. After 2 hrs
(as far as we could have been away from the car) it stared to rain really badly we got in a hard storm. As we got back to car (another 2 hrs), we were all soaking wet. Me and another guy from the hostel I stayed at were thinking about trying it again the next day but we could already see the clouds over mount cook so we decided to do some more hiking at Lake Tekapo and had another wonderful sunny day there.
On Monday I took a bus to Lake Wanaka. Lake Wanaka is surrounded by very steep mountains and not far from mount aspiring national park (mount aspiring, 3033m, is the highest peak in nz outside Mount Cook national park). The weather wasn’t great when I arrived here Monday afternoon so I went claybird shooting, which was really funny. Tuesday morning me and a Dutch guy started a 2 day walk. We walked to a place called Diamond Lake and on top of mount rocky where we had amazing views. Lake Wanaka is unlike Lake Tekapo very blue and surrounded by very steep mountains. We stayed the night in a hut near the lake. On the
second day we climbed to summit of Mount Roy (1580m). The way up was hard, as we walked from the lake (280m) to the top in less then 3 hrs. After Mount Roy we went over the ridge to the summit of Mount Alpha (1630m) this was the nicest and hardest part of the trip. There was basically no track and we had to find our way to the summit which included some proper climbing… After we had lunch on the summit and enjoyed the view for a long time we made our way down over the ridge again. After another hr we turned south and finished the walk after another 3 hrs walking in a beautiful valley with just a very small track. After leaving the summit of Mount Roy we didn’t meet any human soul in the last 6 hrs. The Landscape is just amazing with the steep mountains and dark blue lakes but well just look at the photos and imagine it even better 😉
Yesterday (my muscles aching a bit) I hitchhiked with a Danish girl I met in the hostel to Mount Aspiring national park and did the Rob Roy glacier walk. A nice
half day (3-4hrs) walk but just not as good as the day before. The weather was as great either and we some clouds but luckily no rain. The way there was quite an adventure with lots of cows and cheeps on the street and driving through several rivers.
I will take a bus to Queenstown this afternoon where I will spend another 2 days before going to Te Anau to do the 4 day Kepler track.
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