The weather looked reasonably good so we decided to stay in Arthur's Pass for a while and do the Edwards-Hawdon-Track. Just at the beginning we had to cross two rivers again but they were low enough to allow for an easy crossing. We travelled up the Edwards Valley on a well-maintained track, enjoyed some great waterfalls on the way and arrived at Edwards Hut for lunch. It was early and the day looked fine so we decided to walk on. First, we had to walk over a grassy flat with huge tussok plants which led to Tarahuna Pass which really is just a huge pile of rocks. From there a ridiculously steep "track" leads up to Tarn Col. The track was the dried bed of a small creek filled with snowgrass and loose rock scree. We used the grass and scrub to hold on to so we could pull ourselves up. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good anymore so we couldn't go for a swim in the little tarn. We set up our tent just below the tarn, had dinner and went to sleep.
Next day it was foggy and pretty cold on the saddle so we quickly cooked some porridge/muesli and tea, packed our stuff and started walking on the way down from Tarn Col. We passed a steep and narrow gorge. In the Otehake River we found some really beautiful spots for swimming but it was just too cold and wet up there. We continued through thick scrub on to Walker Pass from where we had to cross the Twin Fall Stream plenty of times. Actually, we spent more time with our feet underwater than on the riverside but once your feet are wet it doesn't make any difference. It did not take too much time to reach Hawdon Hut which was just built the year before. We had the huge hut all for ourselves so we got the fire going and drank plenty of hot chocolade while munching cookies.
The weather still hadn't cleared on the next day but there was no use in complaining so we just went quickly out to Hawdon Shelter. There we met two nice Kiwis and one of them drove us all the way back to the other end of the track where we had parked the car. We then signed out with DOC and fled from the rain to the east coast where we stayed at a nice campground on the Banks Peninsula.
Next day we visited Akaroa which is nice but not spectacular. From there we drove back to Christchurch where we bought heaps of food because there it's cheaper than in the small villages. We drove further up north and camped at Woodend Beach.
After that we started driving to the Nelson Lakes National Park. As it was on the way we stopped at Hanmer Springs which is a thermal bath where sulphuric water from natural hotsprings is mixed with freshwater so that you get hotpools of different temperatures. We soaked a bit in the pools but there isn't really much to do so we didn't stay that long. We drove on and camped at a DOC campsite somewhere on the way.
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| Edwards_Hawdon |
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