Day 16 - Taipo Hut to Lake Wakatipu > Queenstown, 24km, 7 hours 13 minutes

Eli & I enjoying a view of the magnificent Greenstone River

With a biggish day ahead of us, it was another's relatively early morning. We awoke to find snow to low levels, not far above the hut.



The day started with a traverse to a saddle that would drop us down into the Greenstone Valley. We had two routes to choose between, a high one and a low one. Generally when faced with such a choice it's a good idea to pick one then stick to it. We prevaricated between whichever route was looking easiest at the time (the two were only separated by a couple of hundred meters) and so ended up zig-zagging all over the saddle. I'm pretty sure on the GPS breadcrumb trail we'll look drunk.



In any case, we eventually settled on the high route, which took us away from the bog of the lower route, and into some lovely forest as we dropped down Pass Burn towards the Greenstone Valley.



We entered the Greenstone Valley at a magnificent intersection of 3 valleys, not far from the Greenstone Hut.




And so to the hut itself where we had an early lunch. It's a 20 bunker of great walk quality, and a permanent DOC warden in attendance.


The afternoon was a pretty easy burn following the Greenstone River to Lake Wakatipu. Stephen's feet were really suffering again, so he and Eli took to running it.


We were about half way out when we ran into my friends, Hamish and Janine, who had kindly offered to pick us up from the trail head, and even more kindly have been putting me up (or is that, putting up with me?) for the past few days.


A swim in the chilly Greenstone River, a coffee and a beer on the way to Glenorchy, then a burger in Queenstown rounded out an excellent section of walking.

Thanks to Stephen & Eli for coming along, and Hamish and Janine for their hospitality.

Having Stephen and Eli has really helped on this difficult leg, but to be honest it's still difficult to believe that Caleb isn't around to enjoy it with us.