Hiking adventures in New Zealand
Hiking adventures in New Zealand
The Nydia Track in the Marlborough Sounds is a beautiful 27Km tramping and mountain biking track stretching from Duncan Bay at the end of Tennyson inlet to Kaiuma Bay Road, in the Pelorous Sound. We walked 19Km of the track from Duncan Bay to the Nydia Lodge DoC accommodation on a winter weekend, at a very leisurely pace. DoC times recommend 6 hours to the lodge, but we made it in around 5 hours including plenty of stops for...
This is a great little 15Km hike in Mount Aspiring National Park. It takes in the Sugarloaf Pass via the Sugarloaf track, then heads down the Rockburn track to the old Rockburn shelter site. Finally it picks up the Sylvan track around Lake Sylvan and back to the Sylvan DoC campsite. Apart from the initial 650m climb, it is a moderate (I didn't find it too easy nor difficult) loop trail, and I made it in a 7 hour day. DoC rate it as an...
If you're looking for a fantastic multi day tramp with beautiful dense forest, mountains galore, wide valleys, rivers and a beautiful lake, then the 58Km Gillespie Pass Circuit in Mount Aspiring National Park might be for you. It begins close to Makarora, a small settlement an hours' drive to the North of Wanaka.
The Gillespie Pass circuit is a loop track. You can start just South of Makarora up the Wilkin river, or from a few Kms North of Makarora up...
Christmas Day on Te Araroa trail 🙂🌲 We got up at 4am as Flo wanted to call his family in Europe on their Christmas Eve when we got a signal at the top of the mountain. We were ready to leave Top Wairoa hut just as it got light at 5.15am.
We began the day with an 800m (2600 ft) climb from Top Wairoa hut up Mt Ellis 1615m (5300 ft). It started with rock-hopping the large...
This week's adventure brought me back onto Te Araroa Trail, nine months after I left it. If you followed my Te Araroa trail journey over the 2017/18 season you'll remember that I skipped the Richmond ranges twice due to bad weather and, if I'm honest a case of the heebie jeebies.
Knowing it would be one of the most difficult parts of the trail, with high mountains over 1500m, big drops, some scrambling and technical...
I woke at around 6.45am this morning and Mike, Phil and I had a quiet breakfast while the hunters still slept. I didn't have a great sleep last night - I had a mouse visit at midnight, chewing through my toilet roll bag! Everything else was in a dry bag hung up over the edge of the bunks. Also my bed wasn't on a wooden platform, but on a fabric sling of sorts, so I was sleeping in a bit of a dip. We debated the weather again over breakfast.
It was raining pretty steadily, but according to...