Nelson Lakes National Park Adventure

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By 8am Dave, Ana and I are zooming along in Ana’s car, food and packs safely stowed in the back. It takes 1hr 30mins to reach St Arnuad, a town in the Nelson Lakes national park where all the walking tracks start from. After a relaxed hot chocolate, we are joined by the rest of our group making us a rather amusing motely crew of 5, here’s the run down; Joan (Dick’s friend) horticulturalist, intrepid leader and fantastic lady aged 69; Lois a rather sturdy, plough through anything lady, a great laugh, and has a thick New Zealand accent, aged 59; Ana – we have been on many walks together now, and had become a good friend, she is a very straight talking, bean pole of a lady who is great fun; David a great humoured late twenties America with a great goatee beard; and finally….me!

Around lunch time, we all drive the final section up the mountain side to the car park and head off on our walk, straight into the steepest section – the Pinochet track which around an hour depositing us up at the ridge line. We then spend the next few hours battling the strong head winds, whilst we walk along ‘Roberts Ridge’ drinking in the stunning scenery, surrounded by mountain ranges with the tree covered hillsides below and stunning blue lakes way below. After lunch we head round Julius Summit at 1794m, and enter the mountain track, which is covered with around 2cm of snow. This makes for fantastic views and great walking, with very steep snowy drops on one side. The final leg of the walk, about 5 hours in, is to descend down, and finally the hut ‘Angela’s Hut’ where we are staying appears into view, which lies at 1632m.

The hut looks like a nice and quite modern one, and as we enter the heat of the fire hits us, which is fantastic, as it is cold outside, with snow still on the ground! We find some beds, sort out, settle down and have a lovely evening in the warm main area with some delicious pesto pasta and chorizo dinner which David has made for us. We chat to the other hikers, watch the pink sunset over the mountains and then gaze at the amazing stars, which just surpass those in Kairkoura.

The only issue is that room in the hut where all the beds are isn’t heated, so I actually go to bed with socks, jogging bottoms, a vest, long sleeved t-shirt and jumper on in my sleeping bag as it plummets to -4.6⁰C outside. But luckily I say toasty all night!

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