After a great day skiing Coronet Peak, we decided to have a change of pace for our second day in Queenstown as I wasn’t too keen on squeezing my ankle back into my ski boots.
We drove up the Seven Mile Creek valley towards Moke Lake, hoping to take advantage of the clear morning to do a short hike around the lake. As we climbed higher into the valley, the heavy frost remained, but luckily the gravel road wasn’t too slippery.
After bumping along the dirt road for a few kilometers, we arrived at Moke Lake and were rewarded with beautifully clear reflections in the lake. We left the car at the trailhead and set out on the loop track around the lake.
Early on this winter’s morning we had the entire track to ourselves and were able to enjoy the changing reflections as we followed the track around the lake.
The final section of track took us across some boardwalks through the marshy outlet of the lake. With the mud starting to thaw, we were pleased to be able to keep our feet clean and dry as we made out way back to the car.
As we headed back into town for some lunch, we were flagged down by someone standing at the side of the road just outside the gates of one of the sheep stations. It turned out that he was a shepherd who had been on a sheep muster in the hills above Moke Lake for the local station. He asked if we could give him a lift back to his truck which was parked at a nearby shepherd’s hut.
I am not sure we shared the same definition of ‘nearby’ and we ended up bouncing across some fields and climbing some very rough tracks that took us deep into the private sections of the station. It certainly gave Eric an opportunity to test the off-road capabilities of his ute! It was a very unexpected end to our gentle morning hike, but was a unique opportunity to see different parts of the usually private high country station and to learn about sheep farming in the area.