As we headed back to Lake Oahu from Mount Cook National Park, the wind started to pick up. We stopped on the shore of Lake Oahu and looked over to the distinctive shape of Ben Oahu in the distance.
Despite being an inland lake, the wind coming down the valley made the lake shore feel more like the ocean. We watched the waves for a while and picked out the distant valley at the end of the lake where we were planning on hiking the next day.
The next morning, we were lucky enough to have another beautiful, sunny day and made our way west along the shore of Lake Oahu to the Hopkins River Valley. Parking at the trail head we quickly found ourselves in the river valley surrounded by tall peaks.
We knew that the track had suffered some damage in recent storms but that we should follow the North Branch of the Temple River. As the track wove in and out of the bush we decided that it would be easier to simply walk in the river bed.
We followed the river up the valley, and managed to pick our way over the rocks such that we didn’t need to get our feet wet. Occasionally the track would be clear enough and we could follow the river bank in the forest for a while.
Eventually our luck came to an end and we needed to cross the river, we were able to find a tree to inch our way across the river allowing us to continue a little further up the valley.
When we came to the second river crossing we decided that we would instead stop for lunch and enjoy the view. After lunch we made our way back down the valley, finding a little more of the official track through the forest which made to going a lot easier!