On the first day we started in the afternoon and went along an easy track beside the lake to Lakehead Hut. Although it was a hot day, it was a bit too cloudy and cold in the evening to go for a swim.
The next day started with heavy mist in the morning and an ice cold river crossing. Luckily the sun broke through soon enough so we were warm again. The Travers valley is relatively open so the track was really beautiful. We splashed in the river at John Tait Hut but the water was too shallow to swim in. When we came to the Traverse Falls, however, we could not resist bathing in the big pool formed by the falling water. Tired but refreshed we arrived at Upper Travers Hut in the evening.
Next day, on the 24th, we went up the Travers Saddle. As we had done most of the hard work (in terms of altitude) the day before, we arrived there early and had time to dump our packs and explore the area a bit. We went past a beautiful tarn up big boulders to Rainbow Pass and from there climbed up over loose rocks and boulders to a small peak little more than 2000 meters high, which is the highest we've been in New Zealand so far. We returned the same way back to our packs, had a nice lunch and went down the saddle on the other side. Here, it was way steeper than on the way up which is a pain for the knees. Good we had our walking poles. When we then arrived at West Sabine Hut we were quite tired. To have some sort of Christmas feeling we made hot chocolate and ate most of our cookies.
On Christmas day we had planned a short day. Just a four hour walk to Blue Lake Hut where we left our packs and made a side trip up to a high plateau and to Lake Constance. Unfortunately, it started to rain by then so we did not go further up but just returned to the hut, had more cookies and hot chocolate and generally had a lazy day.
Next morning the rain had stopped but there was heavy fog left in the valleys. As we climbed the way up to Moss Pass you could see the fog flowing around. At some points it was hard to follow the track because falling rocks had crushed the markers and the fog caused limited visibility but with a bit of patience it was okay. We found that we were faster than the times given by DOC so we did not stop at George Lyon Hut but went further down the D'Urville Valley to the nice and cosy Morgan Hut. After a refreshing dip in the river we had even more hot chocolate and some German guy had left an issue of "Der Spiegel" (a bit like the Times Magazine but more pages and somehow more profound) so we could catch up with some news from our home country.
The plan for the next day was to walk to Sabine Hut, but again we were much faster than the signs told and so we ended up climbing the painfully steep forrest track up to Mount Cedric and along the Robert Ridge to Lake Angelus. The hut there, with 26 places, was completely full and so we set up our tent at the opposite end of the lake which was much nicer anyway because if there are more than 10 people in a hut you can bet that at least one of them snores terribly.
We anticipated a short and lazy day so we woke up late, had a lazy breakfast and then went for a swim in the wonderful blue water of Lake Angelus. Although the sun had heated it up quite reasonably the day before, it was a refreshing experience. We then packed our stuff and started our way back. The ridge was not that spectacular from now on but there were plenty of the so-called vegetable sheep, a nice plant that grows on rock and makes it look like... sheep. The track became more and more crowded and touristy because we were coming closer to the carpark. We hurried really fast and on the last bit, which actually was a road, two nice New Zealanders took us with their van down to the lake where we had left our car.
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| Travers-D'Urville track |
Tomorrow we plan to go to Mount Owen in Kahurangi Nationalpark and try to climb it.
We hope you enjoyed the Christmas holidays and we wish everyone a happy new year!
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