Day 122 - and now a serious sunrise
Pakithui hut —-> Wanaka YHA
24km walk + 6km hitch
I ate my breakfast whilst watching the sun slowly illuminate the mountains outside the hut.
We left by 7.20am - a big day ahead of us to walk all the way to Wanaka.
If I thought the sunset last night was good, then the sunrise was unreal - the light hitting Mount Aspiring national park beyond with the softest of pastels.
The trail followed the ridgeline off Breast Hill and then down to Lake Hawea below - a descent of over 900m. The views over Mount Cook looking took away any sort of anxiety I had about the climb down - the thin ledges and long crevices to shuffle over seemingly easy when the views are that good.
Once the technical bit was over there was an endless trail of switchbacks to climb down to reach the lake. The water never seemed to get any closer despite how much my knees ached with the gradient.
Eventually after almost two and a half hours we reached the bottom, just as the sun reached the valley floor.
We followed the lake’s rocky beach around the waters edge, cursing at the instability of the rocks and the slowness of the pace. We had almost 35km to cover today and pebble beaches were not helpful for speed! It wasn’t until we hit the cliffs, with the only way forward through the water that we realised we’d gone wrong… and should have been walking along the cliff top path. We backtracked, climbed up the cliff and sped all the way into the small town of Lake Hawea.
After a short stop at a Lake Hawea cafe, we joined the canal path that would take us all the way into Alberttown, a small suburb of Wanaka.
The trail was flat and the terrain easy - we managed to cover a lot of ground in the next few hours, walking into Alberttown just before 3pm.
John and I were exhausted, and more keen to get to Wānaka than ever. The TA route still had another 12km to go, favouring the long trail around Lake Wanaka’s edge rather than the direct 6km down the road into town. We picked the direct route, and decided to try and hitch - I wanted to see some of Wānaka before it got dark and John was always up for a hitch.
We got a ride pretty quickly from a backpacker who was living in her car. As she pulled up there seemingly wasn’t a chance John and I were fitting in but she was determined to help us, moving stuff around to make room for us both and our packs.
She dropped us at the lakefront in Wanaka and I headed off to the hostel i’d booked last night from the top of Breast hill. John set off in search of a phone shop.
After putting a load of laundry on and washing the away the last few days of sweat, I spent the evening wandering around Wanaka. I met John in the pub and after a couple of drinks, we said goodbye - he was staying with a friend in Wanaka and because of his phone debarcle, needed to stay an extra day tomorrow to try and get a new one. My friend Michael from the north island was in town having finished the trail a few weeks earlier - I had some dinner and caught up with him for another couple of drinks before devouring the most delicious ice cream brownie I’d ever had and retiring to bed.
