After having spent a very peaceful night at the Diamond Lake trailhead we woke up to a lovely sunny morning. We were happy to see the clear skies as we had a longer hike planned for today, although the lack of cloud cover overnight also meant that we were greeted by a layer of frost on the windows of the campervan! After a warming breakfast, and a quick scrape of the windscreen with a credit card, we continued on up the Matukituki River valley towards Mount Aspiring National Park.
The dirt road passed through fields of crops and sheep along the valley bottom whilst the mountains rose pretty steeply on either side of us. The road also crossed several fords which added to the adventure, before arriving at the trailhead.
The hike to the Rob Roy glacier started out alongside the Matukituki river, we followed the river up the valley, walking through more sheep pastures and watching the clouds on the mountains either side of us.
The track soon crossed the river on a swing bridge giving us a great view down to the crystal clear water below us. Luckily this bridge was a lot sturdier than some of the other ones we have crossed, allowing us to enjoy the view a little more.
After the crossing the river the track started climbing up the side of the valley and soon we were walking through the dense forest. Occasionally we would get a glimpse through the trees at the valley below us.
The track continued to climb as we went up through the forest, and when we got to a break in the trees we started to notice that the clouds were once again starting to form in the valleys.
We decided to continue on, hoping that we would still be able to see some of the glacier. The track through the forest was very pretty, and despite it being autumn, everywhere you looked in the forest there were so many different shades of green.
Shortly before arriving at the first lookout we had one final glimpse across the valley to the mountain on the opposite side of the valley. The clouds were continuing to build but we decided that we had walked far enough towards the first lookout that we would continue hiking.
We arrived at the first lookout and had a great view of the Rob Roy glacier despite the low cloud. We could see the cracks in the glacier and the unique turquoise colour of the ice.
We decided to hike on towards the final lookout, and as we walked we could hear the booms and rumbles from the ice moving and cracking on the glacier above us echoing around the valley.
The final viewpoint gave us a great view of the glacier, and even with the clouds we were able to watch the light changing over the glacier. We spend a while watching the clouds race across the glacier and listening to the ice move before we decided to retrace our steps back to the campervan.