Stephen had never been to the beautiful town of Glenorchy, so it was my goal to take him this Easter. Also, after climbing up to see Brewster Glacier last Easter, I thought it was fitting that we set a tradition and go in search of another glacier – this time Earnslaw Burn.

Many of you will have remembered seeing this location in the Lord of the Ring films, though I doubt Orlando Bloom would have walked the approximate 10km uphill. Luckily for them there is a helicopter service that flies and lands at the foot of the glacier, but is a bit out of our price range at this stage. Anyways, back to the walking version of this trail…

Lucky for us, Easter Sunday this year happened to fall the day after a “fall forward” daylight savings, which made waking up at 6AM a lot easier. Nestled in the mountains and a bit further south than Christchurch, we got our first taste of winter that morning and were met with a frost over the grass and thin sheet of ice on the windscreen. After scraping off the windscreen and warming up our hands, we drove off towards the trail head.

Getting to the start of the track may sound daunting, but its actually not too difficult to find. Out of Glenorchy, head towards Paradise (yes, there is really a place called Paradise – figures it’d be in New Zealand). Just before crossing the bridge over Earnslaw Burn there is a metal mailbox between metal fences on the right hand side of the road marked Lovers Leap Road. At the end of the road there is room to pull off and park. The track starts through the locked metal gate into the trees.

The first part of the track was a steep uphill climb through the trees. We marked where we were knowing that we had two paddocks/open sections to get through before the rest of the trail through the woods. Because we had some trouble putting together a plan this year and that we were unsure of what the weather would be, we decided we could accomplish a walk to the glacier and back in a day – hence the early start to the morning. However, there are plenty of places to camp in the valley by the glacier should you want to break up the trip – its about 20km round trip.

So into the trees, through the paddocks, and through the woods we went. We crossed the main river which was surrounded by rocks on either side and knew we weren’t far from the valley which is the last landmark before getting to the glacier. When we came into the valley we were surprised to find frost over the grasses. As we had been walking we watched the sun rise through the trees on the adjacent mountain tops. I guess we had climbed higher than we thought since there was still frost and ice in some parts.

Reaching the valley, you continue to walk another km before you can see the first view of the glacier and wow is it something. All through our walk up we kept hearing the faint sounds of helicopters coming in and now we were finally here – on foot.

Its pretty big. And pretty beautiful. There were waterfalls everywhere – by the glacier and on the valley sides.

We walked in and found a spot for lunch with quite a view. Spectacular sunny day with a yummy lunch after a few hours walking. We watched a few helicopters come in and waved at them from below. We filled our bottles up with glacial water (the best water – yes…it does taste different, and its fantastic).

Approaching early afternoon it was time we started heading back, so we packed up and headed back out of the valley with one last look at the glacier. Walking through the trees was a long walk back after walking all the way up there earlier that day. We got a little bit of hope as the we saw something familiar, knowing we only had a few more hours to go and our walk turned into more of a jog until we reached our car.

See…we have done this tramping and super long day walks thing a few times before and this was the first time we properly prepared. Sitting in the car, chilled by the coolness of the day, were a pack of ciders (we couldn’t find any beer – supermarkets had run out). Oh it tasted very much yum. We had a drink and watched the sun begin to set out of the boot of our car (for it was daylight savings). All up the walk took us about 8 – 8.5hrs including lunch (I think we may have speed up a lot and went on a marathon on the way back since others recommend 8-12hrs walking).

Beautiful day. Beautiful views. Waterfalls everywhere. Tired feet.