Queenstown to Te Anau

Day 80: Greenstone Road End to Taipo Hut (23.5km / 7.5 hrs)

Saskia very kindly drove us to Queenstown to meet up with John again for the three of us to get our shuttle to the start of the Greenstone track. 

The first shuttle took us along the Glenorchy Road to Glenorchy. This has to be one of, if not THE, most scenic drives in New Zealand. Absolutely stunning. 

In Glenorchy we changed to a smaller minibus along with three others. They were going to walk the Rees - Dart track and our driver dropped them off first. Our driver was great at giving us to get the full ticky tour - explaining the (real) names of mountain ranges, the Hobbit / Lord of the Rings names for places, great local walks and so on. All really interesting. 

40 minutes or so later she dropped us off at the Greenstone Road end  which is the start of our walk. 

The first part was along the Greenstone track up to the Greenstone hut. As this is a popular track for families it was fairly well groomed and pretty easy going.  

However,  once we got to the hut we then detoured off the Greenstone track to the Mavora Lakes walkway. This was a lot more rooty (is that a word?) and technical as we climbed up through beech forest but fortunately not too steep. We then started heading down towards the first “lake” (aka a pond - which reminds me, when does a pond become a lake? - I digress….) 

We saw a few small lakes/ponds on the way then reached Taipo Hut where we were planning to stay that night. 

Unfortunately the hut was full so we camped outside and cooked inside. As it turned out the camping option was a good one as we could hear one of the hut dwellers snoring in the hut from inside our tent!!  

A good day. 

Day 81: Taipo Hut to Carey’s Hut (20.8km / 6 hrs) 

Once we had “de-camped” we crossed a swingbridge and with me leading, I then headed off in completely the wrong direction! Doh! Fortunately Roger was on to it and we were soon back on track! 

It was a relatively easy morning and it was not long before we got to 

Boundary Hut where we had lunch. 

After lunch we walked along the 4WD track, looking down on the North Mavora Lake. We then dropped down to lake level and reached Carey’s Hut.

 

I was going to have a swim in the lake but chickened out as it was so cold. Roger, however, is a braver man than me and he had a full on dip in the lake! 

A pretty cruisy day.  

Day 82:  Carey’s Hut to Te Anau (18.3km) 

It was 10km along a 4WD track to the Mavora campsite which is basically at the southern end of the North Mavora Lake. Just before we got there we met a lady on her horse who was trying out horse Hiking (if there is such a thing) for the first time. Interesting! A lot easier than carrying all your gear yourself I guess! 

From the Mavora campsite we crossed another swingbridge and headed in to a lovely beech forest alongside the South Mavora Lake. About 6km in we dropped down on to the beach to have lunch by the lake whilst John had a swim. 

We had heard from a number of people that the track becomes impassable south of the Kiwi Burn junction and most people end up crossing a bridge on to the road and either walking along the road or hitching - either to the start of the next trail or further in to Te Anau to re-supply. 

Roger and I decided to cross one of the earlier bridges (at the bottom of South Mavora Lake) and basically hitch in to Te Anau from there. 

We were incredibly lucky as it only took 40 minutes to get our first ride out on to the main road and then a couple of minutes from the main road to Te Anau. We were thinking it might take about four hours and had worked out what time we would need to start walking back in to the next hut so you can imagine how pleased we were! 

A good day with very easy walking and nice views of both the North and South Mavora Lakes.