Tourist in my own country (and a few others): January 2017

Braeburn Walk

We had finished Mount Robert in good time, so we headed over to Braeburn walk, by lake Rotoroa. It was an altogether different walk through all the ferns!

It ended up at a waterfall with just enough room to enjoy a beer and a snack.

Then carried on in a loop along the creek.

Plenty of ferns and some beautiful flowers. I need to look up the name of all these at some point! We headed over to lake Rotoroa afterwards, where we found all the sandflies!

Paddys track 2

We carried on to the DOC bushline hut, which was a great lunch spot.

And even great views from the toilets!

Looking at the track that we will be heading down.

More views of Lake Rotoiti.

Just kept going down and down. But definitely better to go up the pinchgut and down this one.

Split off to go back to our car, or continue on to the lake and campgrounds.

One small scree field to cross.

We headed back up some to get to the road which led to the car. Wonderful hike!

Paddys Track 1

Whole new weather as we turned on to Paddy's track. The clouds cleared again and we had blue skies and sun!

Looking back to the socked in section!

Glad we are heading in this direction!

And glad we don't have to walk down this scree...

The wide open track made for great views.

Kea hut below. This is a private hut for a skiing club. Also historic. We couldn't go in but stopped off to look.

The clouds were present on the other side of the mountain. What a difference from being in the sun and so hot just a few minutes prior, as we had climbed up the switchback track. Still geat views towards town below.

We literally watched the clouds roll in.

As we were quite cold, it was nice that the "relax" hut was open. Generally used for skiing, it's also nice to get out of the wind and dig out cold weather gear!

After leaving the hut we turned on to Paddy's track (we had been on pinchgut, aptly named!) The weather would soon turn again and once again we would be warm! Someday I'd like to continue on to the Angelus hut and maybe do the whole 5 day circuit!

Mount Robert circuit 1

For our full day in Nelson Lakes, we decided to do the Mount Robert Circuit. Luckily we had chose the walk on the correct side of the lake. This side was out of the clouds, where the mountains across the lake were socked in!