Nelson Lakes National Park

After waiting a week in Nelson, I get an appointment to see the podiatrist. He examines my feet and lower legs and criticises the flexibility of certain parts and the inflexibility of others. He displays his professional knowledge by using terminology and quoting scientific research, without concerning himself as to whether or not I am keeping up. He blames my parents for my unfortunate feet. He tells me to go and buy a squash ball to massage my feet; gives me some exercises to do and an appointment for 10 days’ time for him to make me some insole thingumies. I don’t like him much.

So now what do I do? I feel I have exhausted everything Nelson has to offer for now and feel like a change of scenery; but I also have to be back in Nelson in 10 days’ time. I talk over my options with the guy from the hostel and come up with a plan. I’ll hire a car and borrow a tent and drive off and explore the north west corner of the south island. I’ll go to Nelson Lakes National Park, where I can take in some different mountain scenery and do some interesting day walks, while I rest my foot; then go to the Golden Bay area, where there is stunning coastal scenery. I always feel better when I have a plan.

The next day I pick up my hire car, stow my belongings and borrowed tent in the boot and get ready to go. The roads are easy to navigate, as they drive on the left and everything is pretty familiar, other than they have a strange ‘give way to the right’ rule, which I’m not sure I understand. I make a trip to the supermarket in Nelson city to stock up on provisions and get tooted while driving round the car park. I think I got the ‘give way to the right’ rule wrong already!

The roads are straight and level along the valley bottoms and steep and twisty through the hills. They have helpful road signs alerting you to sharp corners, showing the safe speed navigating the bend.  After an hour and a half’s drive I arrive in the small alpine village of St Arnaud, which sits at the head of Lake Rotoiti and is a gateway to the Nelson Lakes National park. My campsite is a few kilometres from the village, on another part of the lake shore and I plan to stay here for 3 nights.

My camp

Lake Rotoiti

This area is the starting point for many multi-day tramps, but there are also shorter walks to do, which will suit me fine. In the afternoon I take a walk along the lake side, back towards the village to a busier area of the lake. From this beach people are messing about in boats and kayaks and water skiing. Some people try and swim, but the water must be pretty cold, because they mainly just stand in the shallows shivering.

Back at my campsite a guy called Terry, from Tiptree in Essex, has pitched his tent on the plot just across from me and we chat for a while. He is on holiday here for 5 weeks and has been coming here regularly for many years for cycling and walking holidays. We would both like to do some kayaking and as two people are needed we decide to try and join up for that while we are here. In the evening we share a bottle of red wine to seal the deal.

The next day the mountain tops are covered in cloud and bad weather threatens, so I decide to walk along the other side of the lake, through a beautiful beech forest and down to the lake side, where I get a great view of Mount Robert on the opposite side of the water, as the clouds clear. It makes me want to walk up everything I can see.

Beech forest

View of Mount Robert

The next day it is clear, but windy, and the lake is choppy, so still no kayaking today. I set off on a 3 hour walk up and around Mount Robert. First there is an hour’s climb steeply uphill through more beech forest, with occasional wide open views back to the lake and valley. I can see my tent from here!

Views from the Mount Robert track

After the tree line, the scenery changes and becomes alpine, with tussocky grass. It is exhilarating, and very windy, to be on the mountain top and a tempting track leads off along a bare ridge towards a tramping hut a few hours away. But that way is not for me today. I take another path which heads round the top of the mountain and starts to descend back towards the tree line.

The mountains on the opposite side of the lake form regular triangular ridges, covered with trees on their lower slopes, but with the mountain tops standing bare above the bush line.

Ridges on the mountain side

The way back down goes through beech forest again, then zig zags steeply across an open grass-covered slope and crosses occasional areas of scree.

The next day the lake is still too choppy and Terry and I are both leaving, so in a last attempt to get on the water we decide to take a look at the next lake over – Lake Rotoroa. This lake is much bigger than Rotoiti and possibly even more beautiful. The conditions look perfect for kayaking, with clear, glassy water - but no sign of any boats.

Lake Rotoroa

We find a small sign on a noticeboard advertising a Canadian canoe for rent and we go and investigate. We find Tony and Louise in a nice guest house just up the road and they have a canoe in the garage, which we can trolley down the road to the lake. Tony comes from Plymouth originally. He left there when he was 19 and came to New Zealand, married a Kiwi and has been here for 40 years. He has still got a Janner accent, mixed up with Kiwi. I ask him if he ever goes back to England and he says he has been back once 20 years ago. He is perfectly happy here going fishing on the lake, going out with his dog and hunting deer and pigs.

Tony from Plymouth

We take the canoe out for a couple of hours and it is the perfect way to see the lake.  We share the water with some girls who are doing some serious rowing training and from time to time we can hear the shouts of the cox carrying across the water.

Me in the canoe