It's a chilly morning so Kai breakfast by the lake is an indoor affair today. Cloud hangs over the tops of the hills in the distance but that should lift and dissipate by some time this afternoon. The long drive down the familiar Matukituki valley to the roadend at Raspberry Creek. Dodging sheep, cows, and tourists (day-trippers to the Rob Roy Glacier) in the early parts of the valley but tranquility returns after Aspiring hut. Quick chat with the hut warden at Aspiring (Stu North - a man of some legend in the hills here) confirms that a half hour or so about French Ridge hut the terrain turns into mountaineering land and thus requires kit I don't have with me. So that confirms the plan for the next couple of days - up to French ... read more

Rain, rain, rain, and some more rain. Good day to let the feet recover, wash the tramp out of my clothing, do some planning and generally not do much else.... read more

Hard hike (8 hrs) up through very overgrown, very eroded route into the upper Copland Valley. Hard but beautiful.... read more

Long drive south to Franz Josef with a pause for a decent breakfast (SEBI 6.9) in Hokitika. Franz Josef is the usual bustle of tourist coaches and backpackers. I find my digs, change into trekking clothes, sling a waterproof in the day-pack just in case and drive on south to Mt Fox. Not able to work out why I ended up booking digs in Franz Josef as opposed to Fox but never mind. A half hour's drive and I'm parked up at Thirsty Culvert again - as I was all those years ago, but this time without RA, without the rain, and - amazingly - without too many sandflies. I discover the tailgate of the van (Rob - same size as a Toyota Lucida, seats taken out the back to make a bed) does not lock. ... read more

An hour in to the day the wanderer wanders into the DOC office in Motueka. Granity Pass hut? "Dunno - no-one's been there for a while, but there's no chance of there being any water up there. But if you do make it there can you pop in and let us know what's happening up there?" The wanderer agrees of course but wanders out of the building wondering how much water he needs to carry for three days of trekking in this heat. A lot. Even if one allows the bare minimum of two litres a day, that's six litres, which is 6 kg in the pack. And that's just for hiking, what does one do about evenings and mornings? An hour's drive to Tapawera is interrupted only by a high-speed collision with an insect - ... read more