Day 84: Lake Wakatipu, Sheep!, Hiking Part of the Roteburn Track

The previous day did not have the best weather, but today seemed promising.  So a drive and a hike was planned.  It's hard to hike last minute on the Great Walks in NZ, as all the places to stay are usually booked up well in advance.  But that doesn't stop you from doing day hikes.  So we went to do the first section of the Roteburn Track.

The view from the drive.  This is Lake Wakatipu, a large, lightning bolt shaped lake carved by glaciers.  It stretches over a hundred miles in the mountains, from glacial melting in the North, past Queenstown, and with other headwaters in the south.  It drains from the area around Queenstown, and carves a very deep gorge on its way out of the mountains.  If you have ever been bungy jumping, you can thank this lake, as the gorge is where it was really popularized as an activity.

As we crossed the very northern edge, we were greeted by a living wall...

of sheep!  They were being herded from one paddock to another.  And they were in our way.

After we asked the rancher in front of the herd what to do, she responded, "Just drive slowly into them.  They'll move."

So we did.

And eventually made it to the other side.

After a half hour drive along a dirt road (most good hikes in NZ seem to start that way) we reached the trail head.  The stream we would walk up had shockingly clear water, much like the Pupu spring in Takaka.  So clear it appeared blue like the sky.

Hard to make out, but there is a tiny little forest dwelling bird right in the middle of this picture.

It's hard to get a picture of a tiny bird in flight, just so you know.

Grey with yellow ings.

The little bugger wasn't being cooperative in these attempts to photograph it, obviously.

On the far shore, a couple of people, we think DOC workers, were chainsawing trees, almost as if they were trying to clear a new trail.

Yes, the water was really that color.

Three different panoramas of the same swing bridge.  They really really love these guys in NZ.

After a bit of climbing, we suddenly came upon an alpine-esque meadow.  Another feature very common in the mountains of NZ.

Waterfalls in the distance.  We'll hike to those later.

These streams are so crystal clear.  It's astounding.

After a quick lunch, Molly and I went to hike up a bit further, and meet up with Mary and Monroe back at the car.

Off we went, up the mountain.  This is still mid Summer in NZ, by the way.  But there is still a bit of snow up on the mountain.

Reaching the pass at the top.  The weather started to look unfriendly, so we didn't continue on.

She looks great, as always.  Me, I'm getting fuzzier every day.

Back down a bit, the first DOC hut.  It was essentially built on the side of a mountain, stilted up over the forest floor.  And above it, a rather luxury looking private lodge.  All told, there might have been more than 100 bunks between the clusters of buildings.

We were planning on leaving NZ soon, but with views like this, literally around every corner, its hard to think about leaving.

We would have gone swimming, if the water weren't ice cold, and it wasn't about to rain.

In fact, we made it back to the car just in time.  It started to rain for the first half hour driving down the dirt road, but we got lucky, and it didn't really pour.  Back home, cooked dinner, and started packing.  We start our journey to Christchurch in the morning.