Christmas holidays 2012 - part two

We had a couple of days in Wanaka before we were due to start walking the Milford Track. The weather was gorgeous so we figured we may as well go walking. On the 18th December we packed up a picnic lunch and went for a walk up the Motatapu Track to Fern Burn Hut. The walk took us over open farmland for a while. At one point there was great excitement when we saw a deer. The excitement soon dissipated when we then saw another dozen or so deer and realised we were on a deer farm. Soon we reached an area of beech forest where the track follows along a stream.

It was a nice walk through the forest and pretty easy going.

After a while you emerge out of the forest into an open valley of tussock. Here's a picture looking along the track with the hut in the distance.

After a relaxing lunch stop at the hut we turned round and headed back out to the car. The DOC estimates are 3-4 hours from the carpark to the hut. It didn't take that long. The track starts at Glendhu Bay and you can walk the 34 kilometres through to Macetown or even add on an extra 15 kilometres and walk to Arrowtown. 

The next day, 19th December, we did a short walk up Roy's Peak. We started the walk quite late in the day so didn't make it to the summit. We did make it to the ridge so had fantastic views.