Lake Tekapo

Ok,
Now residing in LakeTekapo Village. The terrain settled after Waiau Pass, but after crossing the Rakaia River the trail's been quite tough and fun. Lots of following rivers up mountains and then climbing up and over passes. No one but TA walkers and occasional hunters even visit the huts on this route. Really cool old Mustering huts.

Arne and I even did a couple of side summits. Up an unnamed 1800meter mountain west of Clent Hills Saddle and then up Mt Beuzenberg - over 2000 meters for first time- two days ago from Stag Saddle which at over 1900 meters is the highest point on the Te Araroa. The views from Beuzenberg and down the ridge are of the Southern Alps. Really awesome.

Pics are:
Sunset from near Lake Clearwater
Me on top of Beuzenberg
Southern Alps - quite glacial even in high summer
A hut in the mountains
Huge ridgewalk down from Beuzenber towards Lake Tekapo

Methven and Onwards!

Hello all,
I was unable to successfully 'publish' this post when in the town of Methven several days ago. Here it is.
After te supplying in Greymouth...
Cool section over Goat Pass the same day as the famous 'Coast to Coast' race. The fast ones run goat pass' 25km or so in three hours. It took me around 12 hours over 2 days.
Then walked from highway to Lake Coleridge. Mostly river valley walking.

Greymouth

Just walked 4.4 days from Boyle Village to the next highway on the way south. My ride to Greymouth was with a guy competing in NZs iconic "coast to coast" race which is happening on the very track we're walking tomorrow. Pretty cool. The guy, also named Nick, is hoping to podium in the cycling kayaking and mountain running trans island race.the walk through Harper's Pass was fine- following the Hope and Hurunui river valleys to the pass and then a different valley out to the road this morning.
Hope all's well with everyone back home, and that those in the northeast are camping out next to a ski mountain for this big storm!

The pics include:
Me in a morning hot spring jacuzzi
A swing bridge over the Hurunui River
View up towards Harper Pass ( I think)

Randomly in Reefton

Yesterday, I finished off the Nelson Lakes - St. James walkway section of the trail. Nelson Lakes National Park is quite spectacular. Also, the weather stayed clear and sunny for the entire six day trip.

To connect from Nelson Lakes to the St. James, we climbed to Blue Lake Hut - next to what Kiwis claim to be the clearest and freshest water in the world. It is also incredibly cold, always between 3 and 8 degrees Celcius throughout the year. I took a quick dip and was mildly worried about giving myself a heart attack.

From Blue Lake Hut we had an awesome day to hike up and over Waiau Pass - at over 1800 meters the second highest point on the Te Araroa- which was super steep and fun. From there we dropped into the Waiau River Valley and walked a few miles to a camp spot called Caroline Creek Bivvy. There was a small herd of wild horses not far from where we camped.

The day following Waiau Pass I passed the 2000km mark of this journey. This is a good milestone as I'll only have 54km to walk after reaching 3000km.

So, after walking yesterday morning and reaching route 7, we (I'm walking with Arne and a Belgian friend of his who's walking two sections with us) ate the rest of our food and then walked to the side of the road and stuck the left thumbs out to try to get a ride 50km east to Hanmer Springs for a rest day and resupply. After 40 minutes of no luck Arne mentioned there's a town 70km west on the same road. "Oh yah, Reefton!" I exclaimed and with a bound I crossed the street and 20 seconds or so later the first car to drive west pulled right over and, though he only had room for one, I had to go for it. Arne and Wouter arrived in Reefton two hours after I did.

Next up is eating and relaxing in Reefton today and then hitching back to the trailhead to camp out this evening to begin the walk to Arthur's pass tomorrow morning. Reefton is a bit of a one horse town.

Pictures Include:
The Travers River
Blue Lake
View of Lake Constance from Waiau Pass
Me in the valley before ascending to Waiau Pass
The Waiau River Valley