It was the Christmas holiday and Stephen and I had headed up to the north of the South Island to visit with his family. Since we were so close Nelson Lakes National Park, we took a few days off relaxing and sipping wine and went to the wilderness for a few days.
Since first hearing about it, I had always wanted to do the Travers-Sabine trail (about 6 days walking – mostly in the forest). I’d rather do more alpine trekking rather than walking through the woods and over tree roots, so we decided to do a modified version (which still captured Blue Lake – the clearest water in the world!). The plan was: water taxi into Sabine Hut, walk along the river to Blue Lake Hut and camp there for the night, wake up and climb up and down Moss Pass and onto Morgan Hut and camp, walk out to D’Urville Hut to catch the water taxi back to the car. Plan set, let’s go!
Day 1
We packed our bags and arrived at the lake for an 8AM water taxi. Waiting for the boat, we were eaten alive by sandflies! It was a relief when the boat was ready – and we were on our way for 3 days of wilderness. The first day we followed the river with a lot of uphill and downhill and uphill and downhill for 8 hours until we reached Blue Lake. It had been a long day leaving the house at 6AM to make our water taxi, so by the time we made it to Blue Lake we quickly made up the tent and cooked a curry dinner (which put us in a better mood, though still tired). A bit happier, we went over to the lake to admire the clear water and bright green and blue colours and skip some rocks 🙂 We washed up downstream and drank some of the freshest water in the world (best part about tramping!) and crawled into the tent to sleep.
Day 2
Well, tenting was fun…I don’t think we did a particularly good job at setting up the tent on level ground (the slightest slope and some Darth Vader snores made for a short night sleep). Anyways, it was early up to make it across the pass. We started up, and it was a climb through tussock and alpine plants. A small bouldering section, and we had made it up to the top of the first hill, which both provided stunning views of the lake behind us and showed the challenge to come. Looking ahead, the path was steep (like really steep! – near vertical rock climbing section through the gully), rocky, and seemingly treacherous. Well, on we went…
I don’t have many pictures from here to the top of the pass since both of my hands were used for some intense climbing. There was also some internal conversation of fear, possible vertigo, fear, and motivation. Stephen is about 6’3″ so his reach and steps for the gully rock climbing was a lot further than mine. He was also pretty amazing too, cheering me on 🙂 Anyways, we made it to the top! and we had a mini celebration – wohoo!
What goes up, must come down…and down we went. The first downhill section was loose scree, followed by some mild bouldering. It had been an intense morning so we took a lunch break at a picturesque tarn and enjoyed each other, the scenery, and some chocolate 🙂
Onwards and downwards. Here’s where it started to get rough – when we entered into the bush and had to climb down tree roots. Like I said, Stephen is quite tall, so his step is a bit bigger than mine. It was an awfully long and steep way down and I just about had it when my knees started giving out about 2/3 of the way down. Nonetheless, we made it to the bottom, bruised and battered and continued on our way on the more flat ground…or so we thought. Turns out the track had been damaged by some recent storms and earthquakes – there were a lot of fallen trees to navigate, which chewed up some time.
We had made it to George Lyon Hut and took a break on the grass. Sitting there and knowing our predicted camping spot for the night was another 3.5hours away, we decided to take the night here and even stay in the hut, which we had to ourselves that night. It was quite a charming older style hut and really nice to have some time to relax together. The playing cards came out and dinner tasted great, followed by a much better night sleep.
Day 3
We had originally arranged for a water taxi to be picking us up from D’Urville Hut this morning at 11AM. Because of the track condition and our pit-stop, we were definitely not going to make that. We had planned to make it to Morgan Hut by 10AM to radio to the taxi that we would try to catch a later one at 2:30PM since we knew they were coming out again at that time.
The first part of the day consisted of us getting our boots wet walking through mud and the rivers. To make a long story short for that day, we basically hoofed it through the relatively flat river banks in the attempt to make it to Morgan Hut (btw, the DOC time recommendation signs on this trip seemed pretty accurate for us, which never happens – usually we’d be an hour or so ahead…probably all the fallen trees). Anyways, we got to Morgan Hut and were disappointed to find no radio. We continued on and put a significant snap in our step to make it to D’Urville Hut by the 2:30PM departure (though there is a radio at D’Urville Hut, should you need to call). Basically we ran a marathon with packs on, but it all paid off and we arrived as the boat pulled up 🙂
Smiling at each other, we hopped on the boat and jetted off into the distance feeling accomplished and for me thankful we could do this together 🙂
Just Living the List 