Te Araroa Day 76, Blue Lake Hut to Anne Hut

Starting km: 2025
Finishing km: 2066
km covered today: 41

Now that was a day of tramping. I've been wanting to do the Waiau Pass Route for years, and have now finally done it. And my high expectations were met and then some.

The day began with saying goodbye to Ryan. We both had big mountain passes on our agenda, but his was Travers Saddle and mine was Waiau.

I was on the trail at 05:50 and chugging up the hill that leads to Lake Constance, the source (via springs) of Blue Lake's crystal clear water. Once there I met with the first challenge of the day. The way to the head of the lake is barred by cliffs that one must go up and over to get past.  There were poles marking the route, but I decided to try an alternate easier (looking) route that had been marked on a photo in the hut. 'Twas not to be. Though it involved less climbing, it also required tougher scrambling than I could manage with my pack on, so I had to haul my butt straight up the hill to rejoin the main path.

The way down was scarcely any easier, being steep, a bit loose and often damp.  Down at the bottom, however, I was left with lovely views of the lake and first light on the mountain tops. And an easy walk along the rocky lakeshore, then up a grassy river valley to the base of the pass proper. All the time the early morning sun illuminated more and more of the mountains above.

After wringing out my socks and insoles (which had already been soaked during a couple of stream crossings) it was time to tackle the pass.  From a distance I'd looked at the mountain wall and thought "that can't possibly be it there." But of course it was. The walk up was through steep grassy, rocky slopes but with the exception of about 300m of tricky, slippery scree slope really wasn't all that tough. My walking fitness, well earned on the North Island meant that I reached the top of the pass (1870m) at 08:30.

There was not a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind on the pass, so I stopped for a small second breakfast before starting down the far side.  Rather to my surprise, shortly after leaving, I met a young Kiwi woman coming up. My first northbound Te Araroa thru hiker.  She warned me of the steep rocky bits to come and she wasn't kidding! Use of hands, bum shuffling and small jumps down were all regularly required. Thankfully the rock was sticky and there were plenty of foot and handholds, so I made it down fine.  The very steep rocky bits were followed by quite steep grassy bits.  I'd have to pause regularly to look at the spectacular mountain amphitheater around me because this wasn't the sort of terrain that allowed one to look at anything but where the next step was going.

Around this time I was caught up by XXx, a trail runner doing TA at least partly as a training exercise. He took quite a few breaks, but when he was running he was quicker than me and while walking about the same speed, so we spent a good chunk of the day walking together.

The quite steep grassy bits were followed by a merely steep trail following the bank of the west Waiau River, which must have gone over half a dozen waterfalls before finally flattening out a bit down at Waiau forks.

The next hour or so was a mix of crossing the bases of big scree slopes and cool young forest, still surrounded by towering mountain peaks, now even more frequently with snow on them on the south side of the pass.

The final, and longest, part of the day's walk was following the broad grassy Waiau Valley for a good 25km or so. This section of trail passed through what was, until recently, St. James Station, a huge backcountry sheep farm.  Because of this the valley floor was almost completely grass covered, giving great views of the now smaller but still beautiful mountain ridges and peaks ahead, behind and to either side.

It was on this section that I stopped for lunch at the brand spanking (by which I mean less than a month old) new Waiau Hut. I also met a couple of DOC workers who were out to tidy up the (in my books already very tidy) track in anticipation of visits from various bigwigs for the upcoming official opening of the hut.

The valley kept going and going, and though my feet were constantly soaked by river and stream crossings, the sun was shining and there was just enough breeze to keep it cool.

Towards the end of the day the trail joined the St. James walkway, a popular and relatively easy walk. So I was a bit surprised when my home for the night, 20 bunk Anne Hut had only 5 residents, all of us TA walkers.

I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking, but I'll close by saying once again that I loved this day of walking. It's now pretty clearly my favourite on Te Araroa and puts in a pretty fair bid for being my favourite single day of tramping in NZ ever. Woo!