22-11-2019 Carpark Rarakau - Waikoau - Track Burn Creek, South Island, New Zealand

text and photos: Xavier

datasheet:
Distance - 15,67km
Height gain - 150m
Height lost - 150m
Altitude Max - 68m
Altitude min - 0m
Type - linear
Effective walk: 4h30m
Degree of difficulty- T1
track: here


video of the day

I woke up at 5h45m to watch the sunrise, as soon as i saw the oranges in the sky i went out to appreciatte the sunrise.

After having breakfast we went again to the lake Hauroko to do some hiking there, we stopped a dozen times to remove trees from the road that had fallen during the night, but 500m before reaching the parking there was 2 gigantic trees blocking the road, impossible to continue, the weather was still very windy and we were afraid of getting stucked in that road, so we hit south.

At Tuatapere we went to the information point, in that zone of the national Park, the Southwest tip, there is a 3 day trek, the humpridge track, unguided, it costs 265NZD per person that includes two nights in huts, we were still with some hope that the trails at Te Anau will be open before the end of our vacations and we wanted a lot see penguins, so we did a day trek in the area, from the Rarakau parking until the Track Burn hut.

First we hike inside a forest near the beach, then the path goes down until the beach and crosses a spectacular bridge, followed by 4/5 kms a in magnificent beach, it seemed that we were in another country, very awesome scenario and temperature. 

Then we entered again inside the forest and a few minutes later we were at the Track Burn hut where we started the return, a very nice hike of about 16km in a tremendous day, we were having some good moments in New Zealand.

After finishing the hike we took a nice shower in the van, went again to Tuatapere to the dump station, life of camper is awesome, continued south and then East, at the Monkey Island the weather was brutal with some awesome clouds. I still drove for a couple hours, passed Invercargill, the biggest city that we crossed in our vacations and continued along the Southern Scenic Route until Fortrose, where we arrived at 9 p.m. , guess what, another intense day!

New Zealand robin














































Track Burn hut

Track Burn Creek

return point
















































Monkey Island
Monkey Island












crazy sunset