2528 - 2560 Lake Hawea
My tent has started leaking through the base. I don't know why. I camped on a high spot. This morning there was a little lake in it.
At some point someone worked out that we did roughly 2000m of elevation changes today. It certainly feels like it.
The first order of the day was 9.7km of rough terrain down the banks of the Timaru River until reaching a path that the notes say,"climbs steeply to the treeline" in a classic piece of understatement. 900m elevation up a shitty bluff would have been closer to the truth.
My only saving grace was that I had run out of cigarettes so I powered up the bluff and we had lunch at Stodys Hut.
The next part of the track was listed as a Te Araroa highlight and it was. It ended up on Breast Hill 1578m overlooking Lake Hawea and Mt Aspiring national park before "descending steeply" down to the lake.
Dinner was a seafood salad and a bottle of Coopers Creek Pinot Noir, for medicinal purposes, whilst the mountains we had descended glowed rose in the sunset.
Hindsight
- The walk from Breast Hill to Lake Hawea is one of the few places I would dread going NoBo.
- NoBo means North Bound.
Lake Hawea Map
