Inspiring Mt Aspiring

Wednesday 18 March

A beautiful day for a drive into Mount Aspiring National Park.

There was a gentle dawn light over Lake Wānaka when I woke and an hour or so later the sun had burnt through leaving glorious blue skies.

We finished up the lovely eggs from Otago Fresh Milk (not so fresh any more, but still super tasty) with scrambled eggs on toast...yum! Then packed up a picnic and snacks for the day and slathered ourselves up in sunscreen.

Said goodbye to Banjo in her perfect spot by the lake, hung a right out of Glendhu Bay Holiday Park and then kept driving until the road ran out!

After maybe 15-20kms the tar seal gave way to a well graded gravel road for the next 30-40km to the end of the road at the DOC carpark. We attempted a detour up to Treble Cone in search of kea who often hang out up there, but a gate blocked our way, much to the shock of the nearby deer population 🦌 (Turned out later you can just do a google search and find the padlock code - next time we'll try that!)

The route up the Matukituki River valley was absolutely stunning with amazing and fascinating geographical features wherever you looked and sooo many waterfalls. The mountain by Phoebe Creek was like a microcosm of the environment, a patchwork of geographical features and vegetation rising out of green paddocks, through deep green forest to yellowy tussock grass and then up to craggy moss & lichen covered tock at the top.

The texture of these hills was intriguing - with rocky escarpments and grassy knolls as though the landscape had just slipped away in patches. There were several paddocks of cattle and sheep along the way - as can be expected in NZ - love the line of cows lying in the shade of the one big tree in their pasture.

We got a distant peek at Tititea, Mt Aspiring quite early in the drive and marvelled at the huge glacial ice sheets and a massive waterfall which could be seen from miles away. Tititea is the 23rd highest peak in Aotearoa, and the highest outside the Aoraki/Mt Cook region at 3033m. Tititea translates to "glistening peak" which seems appropriate on a day like today.

We paused along the way to marvel at rocky outcrops, remnants of ancient glaciers, hanging valleys, cascade filled chasms, glowing green farmland full of cattle & sheep, the grey green glacial flour waters of the Matukituki River and epic views of glaciers, mountain peaks & tussock grasslands. Leaving our riverside spot we crossed the first of several fords on the road - this was the widest, wettest and rockiest - I would imagine it would largely be impassable in winter months - currently little Aquas and Tiidas were happily tackling it!

Wishbone Falls with its rainbow 🌈 sprays and corton steel guardian was a favourite stop. There was a small carpark and we joined a gentle stream of visitors keen to experience it first hand. The falls were in full force and looked amazing; some brave back packers took a dip in the pool at the base and pronounced it to be absolutely freezing 🥶 It has since turned up on my FB reels so no doubt will join the list of Kiwi Insta spots in the South Island. We were fortunate to catch it on such a sunny day with the most fabulous rainbows refracting off the spray - stunning!

More beautiful waterfalls cascading through crevices and chasms in the hills around us - some were so tall & thin that they were like skeins of gossamer, almost invisible in the luxurious green vegetation

Finally we made it to the Raspberry Creek DOC car park, which was chockablock so we squeezed into an "off road" spot and had a fly infested picnic lunch by the river then set off with the intention of hiking to either Rob Roy Glacier Lookouts or Aspiring Hut.

However, it was absolutely scorchio, Louis had the wrong socks and was getting blisters and my knees were pretty grumpy so, on the advice of a lovely British family on their way back from a night in Aspiring Hut, we trundled along the easier path towards the hut for a few kms, encountered a gazillion sheep being brought down from the hills and then turned back.

We were walking along and suddenly found ourselves in the path of several hundred sheep being brought down from grazing up in the mountains! First they all shot through the gate to avoid us, then minutes later came streaming out again and headed up above our path! Soooo many sheep streaming in from all directions, I just loved how they follow each other along the tracks down from the hills - like Brits in a queue! Some of them were quite curious about us intruders, some stopped for a snack and some just pressed on regardless! I wondered why some were already shorn and others were very round and fluffy!

The farmer and the sheepdogs came through in a Ute - the dogs seemed super excited and keen to get back to work herding these indecisive sheep!

The rocky outcrops were fascinating - presumably deposited here at odd angles by the glaciers of the dim & distant past. This slice of schist in the last photo above was probably 3-4m high and 6-7m wide.

We wandered a wee bit further up the valley, marvelled at the view then turned around and headed back - to be greeted by amazing views of the Rob Roy Glacier. Geography 101 - Phenomenal example of tectonic uplift - the mountain you climb up part of on the Rob Roy Glacier View walk is just a sheet of formerly horizontal seabed which has been levered up by pressure from tectonic plates colliding.

The glacier itself was thick and icy with sparkly white snow on top even on a sunny day like this, so must be really cold up that high!

We’ll tackle both of the walks again another day when we leave earlier and it’s not so hot 🥵. And to be fair - we did see the stunning Rob Roy Glacier ☑️ and we both just wanted an ice cream and a cooling dip in the lake by now!

The drive back was as stunning as the way up - but we had a laugh at the sign after the Wishbone falls which promised much but delivered little; the ford was a trickle of water, more of a puddle, and the real fruit ice cream truck is apparently NEVER open!

Back at Glendhu Bay Motor Camp we fulfilled the ice cream wish (make mine a Solero!), Louis had a dip and I cooled my ankles but couldn’t face a full immersion!

Cooked bangers and Kumara mash for dinner and watched the sun set over the lake - perfection 🥰