Wanaka and the conquering of Mount Roy

The climb begins

Debo, with Wanaka in the background

Spectacular views over to Mt. Aspiring and surrounding mountains

Damn you summit.....stop getting further away!!!

Debo has a well earned rest near the top

The snow gets deeper

Hurray....the summit

(we got there, just as the cloud came down to spoil the view)

After a couple of days of rain, in Wanaka (we didn't really mind since the campsite had a nice wood burner, a free spa/sauna and we met lots of nice people), we thought we'd better go out and get some excercise. We saw there was a good trek up Mount Roy (1585m), so decided to give it a go.

Holey Moley !!! after a good 4 hours slog, we eventually got to the summit, for the clouds to come down and spoil the view. The snow was pretty deep at the top, but luckily most of it had frozen, which made walk (slightly) easier, but we still managed to sink in a few times. On the way down the cloud lifted and we got some amazing views. A helicopter also flew past us and landed at the top, let it's passengers out to take photos, then went on it's way.....CHEATS!!!

It took us another 2 hours to come down and at the bottom, we hobbled to the van (all our muscles were aching). When we got back to the campsite, we made good use of that free spa.

The next couple of days, we could hardly walk!!!!