After hiking to the Rob Roy Glacier, we returned to our van, packed our camping essentials, and got a very late start to our first overnighter of the trip. To be honest, I was a tad stressed, especially since we had yet to filter water. But after a bit of walking and fuming, even my bad mood was lifted by the beautiful scenery surrounding us.
The path to Mt. Aspiring Hut runs in a level valley through sheep and cattle fields, meaning that the whole way is blessed with views of the mountains above. The sun sank below the mountains just after we started walking, but it stayed light long enough for us to get to camp and set up our tents.
As we were walking, we kept startling sheep, who seemed to take offense to people being in their trail so late in the day. They would try to escape us by running, but they usually ran straight ahead of us along the trail, so we had many kilometers of following sheep. Seriously, if I were sheep or a cow, I would want to live in that valley. It would totes make up for the getting eaten eventually thing.
The next morning, we paid $5 each for having used the campground. That’s one of the main difference between hiking in the States vs. New Zealand: here, they pretty much have campgrounds inn all campable spots, and they charge you for the pleasure of using them. In this instance, though, we got to use a real toilet in the middle of a backpacking trip, so it was worth it.
And on that picturesque note, I’ll leave you with a few more photos from the walk out the next morning:
Trask Mountain Editing 