Mt Aspiring, altitude 3025m, towers over the national park of the same name in New Zealand’s South Island. Presiding over its part of the Southern Alps, west of the town of Wanaka, Mt Aspiring is sometimes referred to as the Matterhorn of the south, being of similar shape and formed by similar geological processes as its European counterpart.
Another fine and sunny day for another bushwalk that I’d hadn’t done before. Another long train trip was involved to get to the start of the walk at Wondabyne station, on the banks of Mullet creek. I use the word “station” loosely as the platform is shorter than a single train carriage. Martin got on the train at Berowra and Anthony was already at Wondabyne having travelling down from Gosford. The track starts at the south end of the “station” and leads up to the top of the ridge pass a quarry. From here it was an easy walk along a fire trail for a 1 km or so. We took a left side road and then to the start of the walking track that leads to Lysippus pass. >From here the track continue thru open gum tree forest covered in huge spider webs. We briefly stopped at Timotheus heights looking for any aboriginal artifacts hidden in the sandstone over hangs. Before reaching Timotheus heights, I ended up walking straight into a huge spider web complete with a spider in the middle. I’m not sure who was more frightened, the spider or myself.
After some interest in this walk everyone piked so I ended up being the only one to turn up at Heathcote station at 9:40. I decided to do the walk anyway as the weather was perfect and thus the trip become a re-con mission for my next visit.
Greg and I spent a total 9 days walking up the Tasman glacier and then down the Murchison glacier in Mt Cook National Park, New Zealand. We initially travelled over the lower moraine (huge piles of different sized rocks which lie on top of the glacier) before reaching the knobbly ice-topped section of the glacier, and finally the smoother snow covered section higher up (with larger crevasses that must be walked around). This was all reversed as we walked down the Murchison glacier, except there were some easy rocky river flats at the end of the Murchison glacier in the valley.
After getting the taste for South West Tassie this time last year, a handful of curious bushwalkers flew down to the Natural State to do some more exploring. The idea was to traverse the Eastern Arthur Range and climb Federation Peak.
A thunderstorm over the Kanangra region on Thursday influenced the decision to do a Kanangra trip on the weekend, as there was the prospect that the storms may have recharged parched waterways, filled pools and made waterfalls flow again. So a trip to the upper reaches of a well known creek in this area was in order.
We met up in front of the Women Sports Centre on the beautiful Sunday morning. Kate kindly dropped round to make sure we have enough cars for the trip. After a bit of a chit-chat, we headed to Heathcote Station and left a car behind, and then drove to Waterfall Station where the walk started.
– Day 1 – Bullfrog Ck to Ettrema gorge After a car shuffle we began our walk heading for a side creek that would take us down into Bullfrog creek. Just as wed started to descend in the side creek Joe had a fall and was injured. First aid was provided and after some deliberation Joe decided not to press on. So after just 15 minutes we were already down one person. Luckily this wasnt a sign of things to come! I walked Joe back to his car and bid a very sad farewell while everybody else continued.
Our aim for this week was to head into an area that neither of us had been to before and explore for canyons and other places that are nice to be in a hot dry week of summer. It was an excellent trip, and we certainly found what we were looking for.
That gave me a bit of time for a walk – so I went by bus to Lewis Pass to do the St James Walkway. “Walkways” are fairly easy walks – and this one certainly wasn’t hard – but it was very pleasant. The walk was a loop. I had chosen to start from the Boyle River end and this meant that I would finish at Lewis Pass itself.