19th Dec - Walk on the Kelper Trek

Up at 6.30 to get ready and on the start of the walk by 8.30. The weather was gray and raining first thing and the route through the trees along the lake was erie. I chatted with Christoph for a while and then we both put on audio books and went off into our own worlds. The walk goes for 8km flat along the beach of the lake and then up through the forest climbing for about 15km. After the tree line there is then a 6km walk to the first hut. It was supposed to take 5-6 hours to get to the first hut but we did it in 3.5. We were doing a good pace. We met a Israeli chap on the way who walked with us for a bit. Had lunch at the first hut. There was no view at all and all of the mountains where covered in cloud.

We took the 10 min detour to go and look in the caves at the back of the first hut. The Israeli chap had a torch and came with us. It was very cold down there and interesting to see.

We then went on up to the top of Mt luxmore - another 7km up (1500m). We were up there by about 1. Fortunately the clouds cleared and we had a great view from the top. I think I feel most happy when I am on the top of a mountain having hiked or biked up :-)

The weather cleared more on the way down and we ended up having some good views over the lake and mountains. The route through the forest in the sunshine felt different to this morning but felt much longer than the way up because we had already done it. I much prefer circular walks where there is something different happening all the way round. I actually got a bit bored of walking by mid afternoon. We had done the hard walk up, got to the top and the walk back to the car was dull and I wanted to just be back at the house chilling. However, it was a great walk - one of the famous Great Walks of NZ in fact. The route should take 4 days to do the whole thing - stopping at each hut for 1 night - a total of 60km. We ended up doing about 42km in one day!
I went for a swim in the lake at the end of the walk - just as the weather turned again and we walked back to the car park in the rain.

We managed to eat 3 peanut butter and jam sandwiches each :-)

Popped to town for a bottle of wine and then back to the house for a very relaxed evening. So great to have house, cookies and tea and warm shower to go back to at the end of a long walk. My legs feel very nicely exercised today. Great evening watching a film on Christoph's laptop.
An awesome day - shame the weather was not a bit better as we did not see the best of the views.