Wanaka Weekend Warriors

Roy's Peak track

We knew the moment would come. The moment when we stop playing everyday, find a job and settle down for a few months to earn some money. Two days after completing the Routeburn and Caples circuit and the weather looking horrific for the foreseeable future, we had our moment, we decided to look for jobs and a room and now, three weeks later we can officially call ourselves weekend warriors again.

After a few days in and around Wanaka, we knew when the moment came, Wanaka would be the place to periodically settle down. With a lifetime of walking, mountaineering and climbing within 2 hours of driving we spent most of our first week sport climbing, broken up with job interviews and room viewings.

Jobs were sorted fairly quickly with a lot of shops taking on summer/Christmas employees, but rooms seemed to go like hot cakes! Three nice room viewings and they all went the same day. After missing out on the chance of living with a crazy cat woman, we started to think we would spent the rest of the summer in the tent and even started to plan how to make the tent as comfortable as possible. But then a house that we were waiting on got back in touch and we had a room! Away from town, next to the climbing wall and great views across Lake Wanaka, the gods had aligned again.

So two weeks in and we're saving money, trail running in our spare time and warrioring it out on the weekends.

So far we've popped up Roy's peak, done some more sport climbing and I've had a mad one man mission up Mt Tyndall as Lucy had to work. But with an ever growing list of climbs, peak, tracks and trails, our weekends will be booked up with playing for the foreseeable future.

The appoarch valley to some of the treasures of Aspiring national park

As we descend back into weekend warriors, we hope that the weather will sort itself out, as a stormy spring has decided to plague the Alps. Snow down to 600m, strong winds and the occasional superheated day, mixes to form; weather watching, last minute decisions and praying. But this is all the fun of becoming a Wanaka Weekend Warrior, a skill we hope to master in the coming months.

Mt Aspiring from the start of Mt Tyndall's north ridge

November Garmin VIRB videos

Back in June both me and Sam entered a competition to win a Garmin VIRB elite action camera, after a couple of weeks I received the email; 'congratulations you have been selected to be one of the 50 testers'. I was very excited having been chosen over Sam, my Dad and Paul. I accepted and was committed to uploading a video every month till December.

I have no experience using an action camera so when it arrived I was excited and a little apprehensive (Sam was like a kid at Christmas). Receiving the camera before we went to New Zealand was a blessing and has allowed us to video some of our adventures.

Our two videos from the great walks were taken in completely different weather and in turn give two very different videos. Even after 3 and a bit months of editing, I still seem to find new ways and guages to showcase all the extra information the VIRB picks up. GPS, speed, G-forces, altitude and I haven't even played with syncing it up to a heart rate monitor or other gizmos yet.

All in all a fantastic camera to share our travelling experienes.

Milford Track

Kepler Track

Killing time in the mountains

500 km and 6 days, is what separated us from Peel forest and Te Anau, our next planned adventure in the form of the The Milford track and the whether was looking like a mixed bag.
The weather was looking good for a day at Mt Cook and we couldn't resist a view of 'The Cloud Piercer', so headed along a very scenic road, which traversed the shores of Lake Pukaki towards the seamlessly increasing lump of Mt Cook.
$20 brought us a campspot at the end of the road with a 360 degree mountain vista; Mt Wakefield, Mt Oliver, Mt Cook and Mt Sefton, cocooned us with an alpine evening glow from their glaciers, ridges and summit.

Mount Cook 

Mt Cook

A startling alarm clock woke us early with the rumbling and crashes of the steep icefall from the Tuckett Glacier, below Mt Sefton. With the illusion of being able to reach out and touch the cascading snow and ice, gave us a 10 by 3 kilometre TV screen as we sat, cooked and ate breakfast.

Alarm clock, in the form of Mt Sefton Icefall

We had a forecast of one fine day, turning into 100kph winds and rain for two days, and after researching most of the classic two day trips from the village we managed to settle on two different day walks. Lucy went for a pleasant walk to Kea view point and the Hooker Glacier viewing area, spotting ice bergs, Mount Cook Buttercups and bouncing on suspension bridges. I must have picked the shorter straw and went for the endless staircase up to The Mueller hut, but managed a traverse of the fake summit of Mount Oliver, needless to say we both had amazing views and spent ten minutes showcasing our photos to each other.

Iceberg

Swing bridge

Mt Oliver ridge

So with the weather turning, we decided to head to Wanaka and see what we could find to entertain us for the next couple of days, and we found a bit more than a couple of days worth of entertainment...
Wanaka was described to us before we left the UK as having the "Wild West sorta' feeling", but when we rocked up and into a hot tub at the Mount Aspiring holiday park, we lost any wild west expectations. Googling, skimming lonely planet and a long browse through the mountaineering guide book, raised the expectation of the chilled out, lake side town to a new level and we seemed to be bombarded with single and multi day trips, but of course the weather and maybe the hot tub and sauna dictated our days. Two days chilling and exploring the town and one day hiking up a steep slope with ever expanding views. Managing to ascend the height of the UKs highest mountain, Ben Nevis without even reaching the summit of the very impressive looking and aptly named Shark Tooth Peak, but decided to call it a day at 1,685m and head for the tub...

Wanaka Frisbee golf

Mt RobRoy

Unlike Queenstown, it looks like Wanaka is going to leave a burning desire to return and explore the hidden and not so hidden adventures in the area, with a list that's already too long, we'll have to make sure our next time here is a lot longer than we first considered.

Wanaka tree

Day 1 of 'The Wheelwrights' mountain biking coast to coast

Intro:

 The next adventure came round two days after our return from scotland, with the classic mountain bike coast to coast route written by Tim Woodcock. For the ease of logistics, we hatched the plan for Lucy to be in the car joining me when she fancied and it meant she got a day at Whinlatter trail centre!  Research showed that people have completed it in all kinds of times, from 28hrs to 7 days and our plan was for five days based round staying in hostels. 

Day 1: St Bees to Coniston 61k

 The  first day started early with a five o'clock start and a three hour drive to the start at St Bees. The cycle network leads quickly to the start of the spectacular Ennerdale valley, which gives a pleasant cycle through pine forests up to the Black sail yha. From here on in its up and down, with Black sail pass, Eskdale Fell, Harter Fell and Walna Scar road. Lucky the weather was great and I made steady progress until looking up at the 500 metre climb of Walna Scar which disappeared into the clouds late in the day. After reading blogs describing the lakes as a 'handbag section' I was a little anxious on what to expect, but all in all it wasn't too bad with only the Eskdale and Harter Fells slow going because of the boggyness. 

St Bees excitement

View into Ennerdale

On top of Black sail pass

View back into Wasdale

Looking back at the Scarfells