Finally, it is time to get your hands dirty. Time to leave civilization behind and to follow the call of raw nature. Mount Aspiring National Park is just 50km away of Wanaka, and possibly one of the greatest places around.
The National park is mainly a long vast valley that ends on the foot of some of the highest mountains of the southern alps, including Mt. Aspiring with 3.033m above sea level. From the head of the valley, several ascents to different summits and plateaus are available. Certainly a paradise, for everyone who loves the back country.
At the beginning I was planning to explore all those trails by myself, but Lara wanted to join me spontaneously. An offer I could hardly decline.
The plan seemed quite simple. Get a lift into the National Park and then start walking. Simple as. What could possibly go wrong? The weather was nice, we were well prepared and the moral of those two hikers could not have been any higher.
Well, sometimes the problem starts directly on the road. No one wanted to pick us up. Why? Well because no one went into the National Park. Great.
So we decided to start walking, not because we were expecting to get there by foot, but it keeps you busy at least. Unfortunately the road was long and empty.
After a while we came across two quite hairy fellas, that seemed perfect to me to get on our way to the national park. But Lara had some objections towards my vicious plans…
So we kept walking… and walking… and walking. And then, when we thought that it is hopeless, all of a sudden a Belgium guy appeared and gave us finally the long awaited ride to the park. Strike!
He was a nice guy by the way. Totally apprehensive of anyone who told him, he were French, but apart from that very chatty and he had some nice stories.
Eventually, we arrived at our desired destination: Mount Aspiring Valley.
Thanks to our delay, we got there fairly late around noon, so we knew that today we are not gonna make any steps into the mountains. We would rather try and reach for Mt. Aspiring Hut, which lies close to the head of the valley, so we can start our ascent tomorrow in the early morning hours.
In my opinion the valley itself is a very thankfully, easy place for hiking. Naturally flat without many obstacles it seems more like a stroll rather than a serious hike, (something that will change on the next day). But I realized, that this is partly because of the fact, that I am wearing proper hiking Boots.
Lara, who doesn’t own such gear, went with here good old Handball shoes on that trip. It proved just what I was thinking all the time already: She is either very brave or horribly insane. I still can’t tell which of these options is more real.
Anyway, without waterproof shoes, even a little stream might become a cumbersome obstacle.
But by all means, such little problems couldn’t really stop us from proceeding. No, in fact we had lots of fun all the way up the valley, no wonder as the weather conditions were simply perfect. We simply had a great time.
There was only one thing. Since I made lots of fun about Lara and her walking barefoot sometimes, we made a deal that we are walking the last bit of the trail barefoot. Of course I was not too fond of such a perspective, but I am not a chicken, so we did it. And regretted it immediately. Although the weather was quite sunny today, the ground was very wet and muddy and very cold in particular, so instead of having warm feet, we arrived at Mount Aspiring Hut with cold and wet feet. Ah well, what the heck.
Those back country huts, such as Mt. Aspiring hut, are rather odd places. Some of them are very basic and give you barely some shelter from nature, while others have proper kitchens, bunks, even energy and of course a warden who collects the money for your stay. Mt. Aspiring hut was more on the sophisticated side. Well, we didn’t complain about some unexpected back country comfort.
At least, we were going to head to other regions of this valley tomorrow, that might be a little bit less gentle as the following picture might illustrate:
It became dark quite early tonight and after dinner we went outside to have a look at the wonderful environment that surrounded us, as it was a starry full moon night, somewhere in the middle of the southern Alps, where the only noise at night is made by a very nosy, yet obnoxious mountain parrot called “Kea”. These little birds are quite famous for that area and renown for stealing shoes or anything else they can reach. So whenever you are out there, don’t forget to hang your boots up high or take them inside. Otherwise they might have became a little nest for one of those nasty buggers.
Since the conditions of this night were so special, I decided to take my camera out to make some shots of the valley only with the light of the moon. The following shot of Mt. Aspiring Hut was taken around 10 o’clock at night. It was pitch black, apart from the Moon that was lurking over the tips of the alps. Certainly one of my favorite pictures.
Well then, I have to go to bed, to prepare my self for the following day. 🙂
More pictures of the first day in Mt. Aspiring National Park:
Awesome man !!