After an unsettled start to the summer, which forced us to change our plans for our first tramping trip of the season, we weren’t too surprised when we needed to make some last minute adjustments to our Christmas trip as well.
The forecast for the Christmas break was all over the place and depending on where you looked at the weather forecast and when you looked it had completely different predictions.
Eventually we ended up shifting some of our reservations and deciding to risk a bit of rain to allow us to do some of our planned hike. Luckily we had planned on taking the tent on part of this trip so we would have plenty of flexibility to pick and choose when and where we hiked.
After spending the night in Wanaka, Christmas Eve dawned clear and sunny, so we set out towards the East Branch of the Matukituki River where we were planning on hiking. Not willing to risk any unnecessary river crossings, we drove a little further to the swing bridge that would take us across the Matukituki River.
The extra hiking to get into the valley from the bridge was well worth it knowing we could start the hike with dry feet and that we didn’t need to worry about river levels whenever we finished hiking. The bridge also gave us a clear view of the valley we would be hiking up, although I am not sure we really appreciated how much of our route we could see at this point.
Once we joined the main track through the East Matukituki valley, we had a couple of easy, but slightly boring kilometres through some farmland before we arrived at the boundary to Mount Aspiring National Park. Upon entering the park the track almost immediately climbed straight up into the forest to a bridge perched high above the Glacier Burn Valley.
The trail continued to follow the river upstream, occasionally popping out onto small beaches alongside the river. We stopped a couple of times to fill our water bottles and admire the beautiful turquoise water. The majority of the track was in the forest and we found ourselves constantly heading either up or down as we climbed over obstacles and gullies as we made our way up the river.
Eventually we arrived at our destination for the night, an area known as Aspiring Flats near the headwaters of the Kitchener River. The valley was beautiful, but as we arrived and started looking for somewhere to camp the first drops of rain started to fall. We quickly put up the tent and hunkered down inside whilst we waited for the shower to pass.
Christmas Day was pretty wet and we spent much of it in the tent listening to the rain and the roar of the waterfall at the head of the valley. We later figured out that the Turnbull Thomson Falls were 370 metres tall, which explained the noise of the water that echoed through the valley. A couple of times we heard the distinctive rumble of avalanches high up in the valleys above us, in the natural amphitheatre they sounded so close, but when we looked around we couldn’t see anything.
Once the weather cleared, we packed up our things and made our way back down the valley to Junction Flat where the Kitchener River joins the main East Matukituki river. After crossing a short three-wire bridge, which is always a challenge, we found ourselves on some gravelly river flats which would make the perfect campsite.
The next morning dawned perfectly clear and we took advantage of the beautiful weather to head up and over the Bledisloe Gorge in the hopes of getting some views of the upper valley. Like most tracks in New Zealand, after crossing another three-wire bridge, the trail went straight up the side of the mountain. Without packs we were able to make pretty good time and arrived at bush line to be greeted with stunning views back into the Kitchener Valley and Aspiring Flats where we had previously camped. We could also just make out our tent sitting on the river flats, in the bottom left of the photo above.
The hiking track continues high above the river for some distance, passing the steep-sided Bledisloe Gorge providing stunning views in all directions. Eventually we passed through the gorge and were able to look down into Ruth Flats, the area we were hoping to visit. With the next wave of bad weather approaching, we knew we didn’t have enough time to get all the way into Ruth Flats and enjoy the area, so for now we found a rock to perch on and enjoyed a leisurely lunch whilst looking down on Ruth Flats and planning how to get there on a future trip.
After lunch we slowly retraced our steps back towards Junction Flat. The early morning cloud had all burned off and the Kitchener Valley was looking so beautiful, and so very different from the misty valley we had stayed in a couple of days ago.
Before crossing back to Junction Flat we took a short little detour to visit Hester Pinney Falls, a small waterfall that we could see from our campsite. The waterfalls were tucked away in a valley and as we got closer we could see more and more pools and cascades that continued for some distance up into the bush.
After another crossing of the three-wire bridge, we arrived back at our campsite and enjoyed a quiet evening before retracing our steps back down the valley the next day.