After the relaxing rest in Akaroa it was time to become travellers again and head to the fjordlands of southern New Zealand.
We spent the 1st January getting over our new years hang overs and spent the first night of 2012 being rocked by a new string of earthquakes! so that put paid to any hopes of a good nights sleep.
We packed our bags on the 2nd January and headed to Queenstown the adventure capital of the south island.
From here we purchased enough provisions to last our 10 day trek and headed to a very small village called Glenorchy, home for much filming of the Lord Of the Rings films, so the scenery was guaranteed to be stunning.
We had decide that paying for the shuttle services to all the treks was to expensive so decided to hitch hike the 20 kms to the start of the track. We managed to hitch half way but ended up walking 2 and a 1/2 hours along a dusty 4 wd road.
After this we crossed glacial rivers and trudged through bogs and the rain, which left us very tired and we had to camp in the woods before we even got to the first hut!
What became quickly apparent was that the sand flies in this area were going to drive us mad, there were thousands of them, and they leave a pretty nasty bite!!!
The second day was due to be the hardest with the crossing of the 1400 meter Rees saddle.
The walk down to the Dart hut was steep and slippery but stunning!
Day 3 saw us walking down the Dart river for several hours until we reached a huge river bed where we could camp.
We completed the first trek in 5 days and headed back to Glenorchy. We spent the next 4 hours in Glenorchy washing everything we had!!!
Our next steps were on to the fabled Routeburn, after 5 days of sunshine we had been warned bad weather was on the way...
We met some great people on the walks a really nice couple called Patrick and Troian from California who we met up with in Queenstown for a night out to celebrate our achievements!
After we crossed the saddle the weather had really turned and we spent the next day walking in the rain and cloud with no views :-(
We now had 2 days to walk back to the Glenorchy valley in order to get our lift back to queenstown. Our first day was an 11 1/2 hour super hike, we dragged our selves to a camp site at 7.30pm by the time we cooked it was gone 9 and time for bed!!! Even then we were so exhausted legs were twitching and we knew we had to be up to walk again at 5!!! ouch!
Doing all three walks back to back was pretty tough but the scenery made it worth it, getting soaked for 3 days did dampen our clothes, tent and spirits but this was a trip we will never forget.
Once back in civilisation we had a good wash, feed and a few drinks! This ended with James riding a rodeo bull.
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