Cold morning! Everything was frozen when we started hiking. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a pretty sunny day on the trail ☀
Leaving Christopher Hut in the morning, we were surprised how cold it was. Everything outside was frozen. The sky was perfectly blue and no clouds were in sight.
After about 15min of hiking, we realized that we have to cross a creek. Nothing spectacular but in this COLD weather we really didn’t feel like this is the best thing to do in the morning. But unfortunately we had no choice, so we went for it.
When we got to the Te Araroa trail, the trail became a 4×4 track and the walking got really easy. It was a beautiful valley with great views of the surrounding mountains.
Stopping for a lunch break was impossible though… Sandflies would have turned us into lunch then! When we stood still for just two seconds, a swarm of sandflies would come out of nowhere and start attacking us.
Just before we reached the new Waiau Hut, we saw a tent pitched up. It later turned out that the two hunters staying in it didn’t knew about the hut yet because it was brand new. It just opened in January this year. It was a pleasure to stay in it. Another hunter who said he just saw the hut before pitching up his tent as well was already there. Later, the Scottish couple that we met earlier in Hanmer Springs joined us. They told us that they actually had lunch in their inner tent because the sandflies were so bad. I truly understood them!
