walking | The Slow Cycling Blog

We set the alarm for 5.15am so that we could leave at first light. The rest of the group had elected to do a shorter walk up to the Red Tarns but we felt we wanted to give ourselves something a bit more stretching. We knew it was a tough walk and we also knew we needed to be back down the mountain to coincide with the end of their walk, so as not to hold everyone up!

The forced early start gave us one of those truly magical moments. The sky was turning pink as we left, turning the glacier ahead of us a pale rose colour. As we started to walk the sky to the east was infused with a brilliant orange, the clouds shining and shimmering. It only lasted a few minutes but it was glorious and set us on our path in good spirits.

It was about a half hour walk up the valley to the base of the path up to Seeley Tarns. We were the only people about apart from one lone runner. As the path turned off it began to rise, seemingly almost up a cliff, and then it was steps, steps, steps and more steps.

The path is reputably called a “the stairway to heaven” and involves climbing about 2,200 steps – and going up the 600m of height gain it felt like it! However, as with so many mountain walks, the ever-evolving view kept us climbing and climbing.

We were going well – in fact so well that we almost missed the tarns. We thought it would be about 2 hours to get to the tarns (half way to the ridge) up but in fact we got there in just over an hour. The sign was tiny and we nearly missed it by continuing on up the path to Mueller ridge. After a couple of minutes, we realised we could see the tarns and went back to the side path. There were only 2 tiny tarns but there was a lookout point with amazing views.

About 10 minutes after us, while we were eating out breakfast of bananas, the next person arrived and by the time we were going down there were a steady stream of people coming up, so it was special to have the place to ourselves for a short time.

We climbed a little higher up the path so we could look down on the tarns and take some pictures, and then it was down, down, down the stairs – killing on the knees. Half an hour back along the valley to the hotel where we even managed to scrape into the breakfast we had missed, arriving at 8 minutes to 10 with the restaurant closing at 10. It rounded off the perfect walk.

We then rejoined the group and were taken in the minibus to the base of Mount John, at the edge of Lake Tekapo. This vast lake starts here and goes north, with Mount John at its side. The lake is an incredible blue colour, similar to lake Pukaki running up to to Mount Cook. The colour is caused by glacial flour – tiny particles of rock that are rubbed away by the glacier and remain suspended in the water. This fine silt absorbs the darker blue and purples of the light spectrum while to water absorbs the longer red, orange and yellow wavelengths, leaving an amazing turquoise colour.

The climb up the mountain was only about an hour long but we were feeling our earlier walk and took it slowly. We went through some woods and came out onto an open area and then the wind hit us – and boy did it hit us. The top of Mount John gives a 360 degrees view around the surrounding hills, all the way to the Mount Cook range. It is the site of the world’s largest International Dark Sky Reserve; but all we really experienced was the very strong winds. It was a shame that we did not return 12 hours later to see the southern skies as they are supposed to be truly astonishing.

Then back in the min-bus and the long journey to Christchurch which is still recovering after the 2009 earthquake.

We had a much quieter night in our lovely campsite under the trees and woke to another sun filled day. We packed up camp, had our usual porridge and coffee, and were on our way by 7.15.

The morning walk was a gradual climb up to Tama saddle through low brush. On our right the mighty Mount Ngarahoe, walking around the southern aspect this time, still black and brooding even in the sunshine. On our left the snowy Mount Ruapehu, gleaming white. Awesome, beautiful, stunning – we have used all these adjectives many times already and need some new ones. As we set off we saw a lone walker ahead of us (going faster than us and so not for long) but then we saw no one else for the entire morning. It felt wild and tame at the same time in this weather; much of the time I guess it feels wild and wilder as walkers are immersed in cloud.

We were walking really well and we seemed to reach the saddle in no time. We almost wanted to walk slower to make the walk last longer. There was a small side route which took just 10 minutes to the overlook Lower Tama lake; a glistening blue backed by jagged rocking cliffs.

We decided not to add on extra hour there and back to the Upper Lake as we knew we had a way to go to reach Whakapapa village (Wh is pronounced Ph/Fh we later found out). We thought, after reaching the summit, it would be a gradual down hill all the way, similar to the way up. But it undulated up and down with short but steep gradients. Suddenly we began to feel the tiredness in our legs; largely psychological when you have to go uphill when you were expecting to go down. However over the last brow we could see the village ahead and a steady path down. We also suddenly started to see lots of people.

The walk up the Tama lakes is a relatively easy day walk from the village, and more so at the Taranaki falls which is a 2 hour circular walk. We felt somewhat dishevelled, and probably a bit smelly, as we lumbered down the hill tortoise like with our worldly belongings on our back, as other skipped up fresh with gleaming white trainers. Everyone had a cheery smile and some even an admiring (or possibly pitying) look. No one quite said that we should not have left the old folks home but it was perhaps well hidden on their faces!

The Taranaki Falls was our last ‘feature’ stop. An impressive gush of water over a cliff, dropping about 30m to a pool before running off down the hill. David of course could not resist walking round the back of the falls and dipping his head into the water. He came out looking rather damp but gained the admiration of a group of lads who proceeded to follow him – and got a lot wetter than he did!

The last hour of any walk, whether 4 hours or 4 days, always seems a drag, and so did this one as we reluctantly reached the village and could not extend the walk any further as we handed in our emergency beacon (unused!) at the Visitor Centre. Then we had an excellent coffee and pie at the coffee-cart as we looked back up at the mountain and the route we had walked. Let’s be honest – we felt a tiny bit proud of our achievement. It was not just walking around the TNC with full packs, carrying our own food, camping and tramping all the way. It was that we had enjoyed ourselves so much. We were left to wonder what the experience would have been like in fog, wind and rain, with endless climbing and nothing to see at the top apart from more cloud. We were stunningly lucky and will have days ahead when the weather gods are not blessing us, but for now we were basking in the sunlight as we took a final look back at these wonderful mountains.