Walking the Walks

This week I have mostly been eating cereal bars. After last week's skydive (which was A-W-E-some and I absolutely loved it) we headed up Kinloch, a really small settlement on the north-west side of Lake Wakatipu. We used this as a base from which to go walking (or tramping, as they say here). We first headed up the Caples track for two days, breaking for the night in one of the many Backcountry huts. The end of the tramping season brings the start of the hunting season so we were joined in the hut by three deer hunters. They were nice guys (and evidently not that great at shooting deer) who generously shared their alcohol with us. All good. The second day of walking brought us to a road from where we hitched down to Milford Sound. Matt and I went on a boat tour of the Sound which was very beautiful. Due to the heavy overnight rain there were many waterfalls.

The three day trip back to Kinloch took us over the Routeburn track, one of New Zealand's Great Walks. We were amazingly lucky with the weather and got some stunning views. It seems like we have come at the perfect time of year to do these tramps as they are no longer charging high season prices, meaning we can stay in the huts for free with our hut passes. Unfortunately, the weather is less predicatble so we had to cancel our plans to do the Rees-Dart track as the heavy rain and snow has made it dangerous. Ah well, can't have it all.

We therefore hitched back to Queenstown yesterday and have found another walk to do. I have to say, when I woke up this morning and saw that a whole lot of snow had fallen in the mountains, I was glad not to be up there. Strange to think that as winter approaches here, the UK is looking forward to summer. Also, all this being upside down is seriously making the blood go to my head. Ok, now I'm writing rubbish. I am going to make an effort to upload some pics but I fear it may be more difficult than the video player at home and I am therefore in trouble. Time to recruit Mr Michael David Jones.