“You can’t always see the light at the end of
Iroh – Avatar: The Last Airbender
the tunnel, but if you just keep moving you will come to a better place. “
Day 72 to 76
- Day 72 – St Arnaud to John Tait Hut ; 24 km
- Day 73 – John Tait Hut to Blue Lake Hut ; 21 km
- Day 74 – Blue Lake Hut to Waiau Hut ; 16 km
- Day 75 – Waiau Hut to Anne Hut ; 26 km
- Day 76 – Anne Hut to Boyle Village ; 29 km
Total hiked: 2080 km
I am social. If you know me, you know this about me. I’m friendly, excessively chatty and love being around people. If you don’t know me, then hi my name is Alex and I am social.
Some people are introverted and content in their own company. While I have spent a great deal of this trot alone and working on being happy and accepting of myself I can’t deny the fact that naturally I am extroverted and need to talk to someone! So as you can imagine when the opportunity arose to have a rest day in Nelson and see Jeni and Gary I was chuffed. Sadly as I have found with every day that follows a social excursion, when N.D and I returned to St Arnaud and were back on trail I wasn’t fully in it anymore. The feelings of isolation, absence and loneliness I felt when I would previously return to trail resurfaced. The difference was I now had N.D. So while my habit of finding the first day back tough, trying to get into the grove of trotting and distracting myself with things to look forward to emerged, I could actually chat to someone!
Working through these feelings amongst the gloomy, wet weather as we made our way to Lakehead Hut and then John Tait Hut for the night I discussed feeling ‘off’. We agreed that the best way to deal with these emotions is to sometimes just keep going and you’ll find your way through. And fortunately we were right.
The next morning I awoke bright and early at 5am to a bluebird, sunny day for the Travers Saddle and the rest of the beautiful Nelson Lakes ahead. 🙂
The early morning wake up was required that day as we aimed to climb Travers Saddle and make it past two huts, Upper Travers and West Sabine to stay at Blue Lake Hut that evening. But I’m still not a morning person haha.
While climbing up the Travers Saddle, around the scree slopes, waterfalls and in the presence of some awe worthy mountains I exclaimed to N.D “this might be my favourite day on trail”. The weather was perfect, the scenery beautiful and I felt great. Company was also not half bad. 😉
N.D replied “really? todays your favourite, but what about the Waiau Pass tomorrow?”. Hmm I thought, he’s probably right, given how stunning this is I bet it’ll be spectacular. “Well for now todays my favourite day on trail and tomorrow can be my new favourite day when it arises!”. I had just become an inspirational bumper sticker. But it got me thinking… what if everyday you tried to ‘live it to be your best day’… you’d end up with a lot of favourite days! That would be pretty incredible 🙂
The early morning start meant we had plenty of time to marvel at the breathtaking views from the Travers Saddle (1787 metres) which did become my favourite part of the entire Nelson Lakes National Park. We even fit in one, two or five muesli bar snack breaks along the way including a long lunch and many go go juice stops. Overall it was a fantastic day 🙂 and ending it at Blue Lake Hut and seeing the clearest water in the world wasn’t too bad either.
Blue Lake/Rotomairewhenua and Lake Constance/Rotopohueroa make up the valley floor of the Franklin Ridge. Lake Constance which is damned by the Sabine River slowly seeps into Blue Lake (well not after heavy rainfall or in flood like it was when we trotted past) . Eventually the fan of debris that is gradually moving from the Mahanga Range will impede the flow from the lake and completely infill it. Until then they are both pretty spectacular, especially when viewed higher up from Waiau Pass.
During this track I also passed a milestone; 2000 kilometres trotted on the trail! I’ve completed over two thirds of Te Araroa. Just 1000 ish kilometres to go 😛
The next day we trotted up over Waiau Pass and down along the river to Waiau Hut. If I made that sound chill then you are very mistaken. At 1870 metres tall Waiau Pass is the tallest thing to date N.D and I have scaled on Te Araroa and will be the second tallest ascent of the entire trail. Aside from the scree slopes we slogged up to make it to the top of the pass, the descent proved even steeper and much more technical. With shear slate rock face and slippery stones the poled route required rock climbing (or falling) talent to make it down and all while at a great height or on a cliff edge. Let’s just say I was happy when we made it to the river.
The remainder of the coming days trot to Anne Hut, past Boyle Flats Hut and out to Boyle Village went easy. A mix of one scorching hot and one overcast, tempting to rain day reminded us of why we get up early or why we should pack our rain gear and warm gloves at the top of the pack.
Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Nelson Lakes, the stunning scenery and copious amount of food we consumed (we learnt from the previous section to overpack food because we will eat it all) and keen to trot on to the sections ahead.
GC Chronicles 
Once again the views are great, cool video – well done 2000km, don’t think much of your saddle – you look good trying to ride it – ha ha
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