Days 103-108: Nelson Lakes & Waiau Pass

Wow! Another amazing stretch of trail! I can see why lots of people cite the Nelson Lakes region as one of their favorite spots on the TA. We were a bit nervous about Waiau Pass, the highlight of the section, but it turned out to be easier than we were expecting. We spent five and a half days getting from St. Arnaud through to Boyle Village, and loved almost every minute of it.


We spent a long time at dinner the night we got to St. Arnaud with Gordon and Sharon, the mountain bikers we met on the road, and Jason, who we've been leap frogging with for a while now. Gordon has done quite a bit of tramping, and kept us entertained with all sorts of stories. He also had quite a few tips on the trail sections coming up - unfortunately I didn't have a notebook, so chances are I'll forget half of them until it's too late.

We also all ate three or four plates full (and I mean full) of food. The BBQ was pretty good, but the highlight for us was the selection of salads and vegetables. If you are in St. Arnaud on a Sunday, and hungry, you must go to the Alpine Lodge for the all you can eat BBQ, assuming they didn't go out of business after we left.

We took the next morning off in St. Arnaud to rest up a bit and have time to finish all the town chores, like laundry and blogging. After that we had a short, easy 9 km to Lakehead Hut. This is the first hut on the Travers-Sabine Circuit, which is a very popular 5-6 day hike. Because of that, all the huts along the way are huge and in great condition.

Lakehead Hut. The Nelson Lakes huts are super "flash" (American translation: fancy). This one had 24 or 30 bunks.

I wonder how many people see this outlet and get really excited before realizing it can't possibly be connected to anything

We found Jason at the hut, and later a family of four, a Czech, and a guy from Atlanta showed up. We had a lazy evening chatting, and then spent most of the night listening to Mr. Atlanta snoring. Pretty sure he has sleep apnea, because it sounded like he was dying half the time. Huts are great, but do have the occasional downside.

The next day was also pretty easy. We had a bit of climbing in the afternoon to reach Upper Travers Hut, but the track was well maintained and well graded. It was kind of a relief to have some slightly easier going after a week of tough trail in the Richmonds.

Morning sun, clouds, mountains... makes it hard to take a bad picture

Nice easy walking next to the river

We love waterfalls!

Travers Falls. It was a short climb down to it, but well worth it -
mostly for the cool breeze it generated on a really hot day!

Alpine flowers

As we climbed up the valley and got closer to the hut, the scenery just kept getting better. It started to remind us a bit of the Sierras - big, rocky peaks all around. The hut itself was our favorite so far. Huge, well laid out, and amazing views. We could have stayed for a week. We ended up there with Jason again, and had another enjoyable evening swapping stories and talking about the "real world," and why hiking is so much better (except for the pay...)

Upper Travers Hut is in the lower left of this picture... not a bad spot.

Whew, glad it's not in the avalanche path. Not much margin for error though.

View from the hut's porch. We debated becoming permanent residents of this hut.

Another example of the sun + clouds + mountains formula working out

The next morning, we got going early for what we expected would be a long day. We had a good climb up and over Traver's Saddle, then a long descent, then more climbing to reach Blue Lake Hut. The signage for Traver's Saddle made it sound a little intimidating, but we found it quite easy for the elevation (1750+ m). Apparently it's also a popular trip in the winter, when it is a much more serious undertaking, requiring crampons and ice axes.

Views like this make it easy to get up early

We weren't very worried about this section until the
sign asked "Are you prepared for Travers Saddle?"

View back down the valley as we climbed toward the saddle

The climb was strenuous but overall not bad

The views around the saddle were incredible. I think they were enhanced a bit because we weren't expecting it to be so amazing. Most of the focus for this section is on Waiau Pass, so this saddle doesn't get the love it deserves. It was a highlight for us though.

On top of the saddle with Mt. Travers in the background

View from the top of the saddle

Other side of the saddle

I took a lot of pictures from the saddle

The descent from the saddle was long but also fairly easy. Following a popular trail usually means that, wherever there is a tricky drop, someone else has already strategically placed a rock step or dug a foothold. Thanks, trail maintainers!

These yellow flowers are pretty but very pointy

We stopped at West Sabine Hut for lunch. We were expecting the climb to Blue Lake to take about 3 hours from there. We met a lady who had just arrived down from Blue Lake who told us "I don't care who you are, there's no way you can do that in less than four hours." Groan.

Picturesque river, close to the final climb to Blue Lake Hut

Luckily, the lady was not familiar with the level of fitness that walking every day for 3 months brings, and we made it up in 3 hours, including a strategic Snickers snack break. We made it just in time too - it started raining about an hour after we arrived.

A sign at Blue Lake informed us that it was tested and found to be the clearest freshwater lake in the world

We went to bed prepared to wait out the next day if it was still raining when we woke up. Waiau Pass is not one to mess around with - it is definitely a good-weather-only pass. The weather continued to be in our favor though, and the skies were completely clear the next morning. We set out excited and nervous for what we knew would be a tough day.

Blue Lake from above as we climb towards Waiau Pass

We climbed from the hut, and got some good views back down over Blue Lake. Before the pass, we had to climb up and over some bluffs on the edge of the lake. While it was a bit steep at times, we never felt like one misstep would send us over the edge (like we did at a couple points along the Wairoa River). After that it was an easy but intimidating walk over to the start of the climb. From the bottom, it looked like we'd be going straight up.

View of Lake Constance as we climb back down over the bluff

Approaching Waiau Pass! We climbed up one of the scree sectionson the left slope

The climb was steep, long, and slippery in one section that cut across a thin bit of scree, but we made it up in about an hour and a half.

Halfway up. I think everyone who climbs the pass takes this same exact picture

Lake Constance from above. I loved the sandy, squiggly head of the lake.

Almost there!

View over the other side of the pass

The views from the top here were fittingly stunning. You don't have a great view of Lake Constance from the top, but I couldn't stop turning around to look at it on the way up. I probably took enough pictures of it on the way to make a stop motion movie of the view as you climb. The landscape on the other side was also impressive - rocky, craggy, and wild.

The descent was much easier than either of us expected. It was mostly rocky and steep, and had hardly any of the slippery loose rock slopes that gave us such a hard time on Little Rintoul. We encountered one tricky spot, but made it down with zero tears.

All of the water was SO clear

Upper Waiau falls, a nice after dinner mint to the pass

After the main descent, the next few kilometers were surprisingly unpleasant. We kind of expected to cruise down after we got past the steep stuff, but it stayed rough, and we had to rock hop across long bouldery sections that slowed us down. It took us way longer than we expected to reach Caroline Bivvy, which is a tiny, awful hut that was built in the sixties. So bad that we decided to set up our tent outside of the hut instead of sleeping inside. Also, the sandflies there were brutal. It was a fairly miserable evening - we didn't get as far as we wanted to, there were annoying, biting insects everywhere, I had slipped on a stream crossing and had wet feet, and we actually had to set up our tent! How quickly we were spoiled by all the huts... Too bad we ended one of our favorite days so far on a down note.

Early the next morning was not much better - we had 29 km to go to the next hut, it was freezing, and we immediately had to get our feet wet on a river crossing. The trail markings were also a bit sparse, and we wandered around a few times trying to figure out if we should be on the river bank or up in the bush. Luckily, this only lasted an hour, and after that the trail became a cruiser. We spent most of the day walking through grassy fields, and arrived at Anne River Hut a little after 4 pm.

Downstream from the lovely Caroline Bivvy, the going got a lot easier

Liz was very excited about the heart on the mountain

The hut was fairly crowded that night - a school group and a few other groups of people were already there when we arrived. Luckily there were still bunks available. We were up early the next morning, thanks to loud hutmates, for another long, but easy day out to Boyle Village.

Amazing morning clouds from Anne River Hut

Walking through the river valley was quite nice

I'm not sure how it happened, but it seems like they... missed... when building this bridge

More pretty, easy river valley cruising

We met our first set of northbound TA hikers on the way, and spent a while swapping notes on what was coming up for both of us. They were nervous about Waiau, and we tried to reassure them, and we tried to figure out which next section would be the toughest for us.

We made it out to Boyle "Village" around 5:30, a little later than we would have liked, and were worried we'd have a hard time finding a ride to Hanmer Springs, a tourist town 56 km away where we were planning to take a rest day and buy food. The road we came out to wasn't encouraging - traffic was light. Luckily, it only took us about half an hour to find a ride with a trio of twenty somethings. They are all working for construction companies that are rebuilding Christchurch after the devastating earthquake 2 years ago.

Hitching on an empty highway

We arrived in Hanmer and immediately went out and ate a lot of food. We're spending today relaxing and doing all of the normal town chores.

Chowing down on some pizza in Hanmer Springs. First decent pizza we've found in NZ

We're also trying to figure out how to deal with a little wrinkle coming our way - one of the upcoming sections of the trail (the Mingha-Deception track, what a great name) is part of a coast to coast endurance race, and we're scheduled to hit it on the day of the race. It's a 2 day section for us, but apparently the top athletes complete it in 2-3 hours. So we're trying to figure out if we can speed up and get through before the race happens, or if we need to slow down and wait for it to pass. For added fun, apparently the town of Arthur's Pass, a planned stop for us, is totally overwhelmed with visitors around race day. It's never simple!

Instead of ending the post with a gripe, I'll leave you with my favorite picture of the trip so far:

Approaching Blue Lake. Best spot ever for a snack break.