Hiking Galore

Over the course of the next week or so, Kayleigh and I hit the trails hard.  The Queenstown area is ripe with mountains, forests and lakes for the picking and we hardly left any stone unturned.  In fact, Kayleigh was a little taken aback by the amount of hiking on the schedule, since she had assumed our time in Queenstown would be spent doing the adrenaline pumping adventure activities it is known for and prowling the pub scene at night.  Sorry Kayleigh, but I promise I'll make it up to you ;).  She held in there like a trooper.  Check out some of the beautiful pictures we got just for you.

Queenstown Hill - The obligatory NZ town hill, complete with awesome view

Routeburn - One of the most renowned of the 9 great walks of New Zealand.  We didn't have a booking, so instead we chose a beautiful sunny day and sampled the first day of it, hiking to the Routeburn Falls Hut and back

Lake Wakatipu on the road to Glenorchy

Routeburn Track

Routeburn Falls

Looking back down the valley

Wanaka - This is sort of like Queenstown's sister city, located just over the Cardrona Pass from QT.  Located on the shores of Lake Wanaka, many say that this smaller, quieter town rivals QT in beauty but without the price or crowds.  I completely regret not coming here in the winter season to experience the incredible snowboarding it offers.  Perhaps the impetus for a future trip? We'll see.  For now I busied myself climbing both Iron "Mountain" and Mt Roy.  Iron Mountain is a mere hill amongst the giants surrounding the Wanaka Basin, but Mt Roy proved a real challenge.  Climbing nearly 4000 feet in 5km, it's easily the steepest track I've ever completed in my life.  It will forever be known by Kayleigh as "that cheeky day hike", since the comfort of the words "day hike" after so many multi dayers seemed innocuous (we did this one post Kepler and Milford which you'll hear about soon enough). The punishment you suffer morphs into ecstasy when you reach the summit though.  The view was worth every grueling step.

Mt Aspring, Lake Wanaka and the winding trail to the summit

Rob Roy Glacier - The drive to get to this hike was half of the adventure.  The trailhead is located in the backcountry of Mt Aspiring National Park and the road to get there is LONG and ROUGH.  We were driving unsealed road into the mountains for well over and hour before hitting a series of 9 or so stream fords before finally reaching the parking lot.  Luckily there hadn't been so much rain lately, but fording 6 inches of water on a rocky streamed in a minivan without any 4WD or previous experience was both an anxiety prone nightmare and quite a rush.  The trail itself was filled with spectacular views the whole way and the final twenty minutes or so opened up to the gigantic face of the Rob Roy Glacier and its dozens of waterfalls. One of particular note plummeted straight down a cliff face of about 1000ft from a hanging valley.  One of my favorite day hikes in the entire country.

1000ft falls

Rob Roy Glacier