With unusually warm weather we had breakfast outside today (could also have had something to do with the time). Seating in our foldup chairs, admiring the view, munching our porridge and watching several families trying to enthuse their children with the idea of a two hour walk.
As this was a rest day (between two walking days) we decided to drive up the Matukiluki Valley towards Mount Aspiring. Within a couple of miles the nice sealed road passed the entrance to the Treble Cone ski area then rapidly deteriorated into the bumpiest gravel road we’d travelled on. Driving slowly and with the odd drift for the wheels to resettle into the well worn ruts we made steady progress through pasture land bordered with green and brown mountains - very similar to the Lake District, but bigger. Not only were the mountains big but so were the animals. A large herd of sturdy looking Roe Deer and some truly huge bulls.
As the valley narrowed the river in its base took centre stage carving out a wide stony bed similar to the ones we’d seen in the Mt Cook national park. At one particularly spectacular pull off we decided we’d had enough bone shaking and stopped for a while taking pictures. Glenn forded a small tributary stream and crossed the vast gravel bed to get to the river bank proper. The water was snow melt cold and that wonderful crystal blue of such rivers.
Retracing our tracks we stopped at the field of bulls to watch two goliaths close in on each other. In anticipation of some collosus showdown we were somewhat disappointed when one bull merely licked the other and defused the conflict.
Once back on the sealed road we headed straight to Wanaka to service the van (we couldn't pass such a great dumpstation), shop for the next couple of days and investigate the purchase of a new camera, as the old one is still playing up. With the purchase looking like it will have to wait until Monday we followed our noses north along the shore of Lake Hawea, stopping for Ice Cream at Albert Town. Some way round we saw a lovely beach area with several cars with boat trailers parked up so turned off to join them. It was hot and we sat in the sun with a beer watching the boats return to shore to be loaded onto their trailers and driven home. We would have stayed a while enjoying the sun and the view but the dreaded sand flies were about and despite killing many of them we were taking hits ourselves so decided to retreat inside and make our way to our campsite.
We had been heading to a DOC site but on the way we passed an information board giving guidance on freedom camping so decided that spending the night by ourselves in one of the roadside turn offs would be better - fingers crossed our reading of the regulations is right. Dinner was taken admiring the views and then Yvonne demolished a bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut while watching the grey clouds gradually descend over the mountains.
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| The last of the clouds clears the glaciers |
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| Taking a breather from the bone shaker road |
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| The river Matukiluki |
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| Brawn meets brawn |
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| Beer and sand fly stop |
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