Friday 30th January 2009

Back in the tiny village of St. Arnaud, in the heart of Nelson Lakes National Park after two days spent 'tramping' in the backcountry. We had had a warm-up walk on Wednesday, around Lake Rotoiti (against which the village sits) to view the wonderfully named 'Whisky Falls'. Imagine my disappointment when I found it was water not Laphraoig! We sat on a jetty in the sunshine to eat our lunch whilst contemplating the mountains we would be among tomorrow. Thursday morning we climbed up a steep zig-zag track (appropriately called the Pinchgut track!) to arrive at the summit of Mount Robert, we then followed a wonderful ridge walk to the Angelus Hut (see photo), perched in a wonderful glacial valley by a crystal clear lake (we were glad of the lake as the water supply at the hut had dried up). Afternoon and evening, we rested up after the strenuous walk drinking tea and chatting to the other occupants of the hut whilst admiring the mountains enclosing us. A group of Israelis were in the hut and had somehow managed to lug a guitar, mouth-organ and other musical instruments up the mountain with them and kept us all entertained with and impromptu concert. We finally took to our bunks as sleep took over, lulled by a gentle bluesy version of 'Hound Dog' (if you can imagine such a thing!). This morning was clear and bright, so we abandoned our original idea to go back on a lower route and did the ridge walk back. A fantastic clear day; you could see for miles - a 360degree panorama of misty blue mountains in the distance, some with a shawl of cloud; whilst in the valleys the patchwork of fields and forest looked as though they had been newly painted overnight. Fab! St. Arnaud does not have the wildest of night life and after failing to find a bar (there is one shop and one restaurant in the village), we retired to our backbacker lodge to cook a frozen pizza and drink a couple of beers and rest our aching limbs. Tomorrow we head west; to Karamea, where we are told the 'real' New Zealand can be found. Sounds interesting!!