It felt good the finally make it down safely to the river. Although what looked like a nice grass on the valley bottom from high up turned out to be thick tussock on closer inspection.. Which made finding the feint trail through the long grass quite tricky and led to a few twinged ankles when stepping into concealed holes.
There’s actually a more challenging route from the head of the Waiau River – it heads up the Lake Thompson (which we were told by a Serbian guy the other day is an excellent place to camp), over the Spenser Range into the Matakitaki East Branch Valley. Lower down it crosses back over the Spenser Mountains at Three Tarn Pass to join up with the St. James walkway and finishes on SH 7 at Lewis Pass. There was a DOC brochure about it left in Blue Lake Hut, I’m actually considering it as an option for something to do when some friends visit in a few weeks.
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