For our Christmas hiking trip this year we decided to return to Nelson Lakes National Park in the hopes of completing the Travers Sabine Track and getting up to see Blue Lake, home to some of the clearest water in the world. We haven’t had much luck with the weather when hiking in this area in the past and unfortunately the forecast wasn’t looking great for this trip either.
As our departure day drew closer, it became obvious that once again the weather was not going to be in our favour and so we made the decision to modify our route a little. We hoped that by sticking to a lower altitude route we would be able to avoid the worst of the weather and still get up to see Blue Lake once the weather system had cleared.
We had a pleasant walk through the forest, although it was clear that the area had received a lot of rain as many of the creeks were quite high. The forest in this section of the park was quite thick and so it was hard to tell where we were relative to the landscape around us. Although the good thing about the thick bush meant that we stayed pretty dry despite the requent showers. After a few tantalising glimpses through the trees, we eventually popped out at Lake Rotoroa where we were planning on staying for the night.
The next day didn’t dawn particularly nicely but we had high hopes that the cloud would start to burn off, so we started our hike up the Sabine Valley. Despite having the odd glimpse of the surrounding mountains, the clouds stayed pretty low throughout our walk towards the next hut. We were glad that we had hadn’t decided to climb over the saddle as it was unlikely we would have been able to enjoy the views.
Once we arrived at the hut we spoke to the hut warden who had received an updated weather forecast. Sadly the weather window we were hoping for to get up to Blue Lake had disappeared and the weather for the next few days was not looking particularly nice. We briefly debated continuing with our plans to head up to Blue Lake, but quickly decided that given the weather forecast it was not really going to be worthwhile. Much of the beauty of the lake comes from the extremely clear water, measured to have visibility of between 70 and 80 metres, which closely matches the clarity of distilled water which is around 80 metres. However, in order to truly appreciate the clarity you need the sun to be shining, which wasn’t looking likely for our visit.
We woke the next morning to the sound of rain drumming on the tin roof of the hut. As we lay tucked up and cozy in our sleeping bags it seemed like a pretty easy decision to put our plans to visit Blue Lake on hold and head back down the valley.
As we made our way back down towards the lake the skies cleared a little, however looking back up the valley all we could see was a wall of clouds trapped in the upper valley. We had a pleasant evening back at the hut on Lake Rotoroa watching the changing light over the lake from the sandfly-free shelter of the hut. The next morning Eric managed to snag a sneaky boat ride back to civilisation whilst I retraced our steps back to pick up the car…and Eric. Once reunited with the car and snacks, we could only laugh at yet another failed mission in Nelson Lakes National Park, but we both agreed that we would keep Blue Lake on the list of places we want to see.