The Snow-covered NZ Alps stretch out to the North as
we approached the S Island of New Zealand
Cheryl and Barry walking through the flowering gorse at the beginning of
the Silver Peaks track near Dunedin (photo used with permission of Dianne Hendry).
Unfortunately, the Silver Peaks track deteriorated
into a slippery bog after a short distance (photo used with permission of Dianne Hendry).
The weather forecast was for clearing showers, however what we experienced was just showers with no sign of clearing. As there have been a number of rescues in this area recently, we took the cautious option and decided to turn back after we encountered high winds on the ridges near pulpit rock (photo used with permission of Dianne Hendry).
Cheryl and I are once again in New Zealand to do some more trekking in what must be one of the world's best bush walking locations - The South Island of New Zealand. It was tremendously exciting to see the Southern Alps as we approached the coast of the South Island. We are here to do some more trekking in this bush walker's paradise.
Our good friends Barry and Di were at the airport to greet us. The original plan was to walk the Milford track before the official season started on 27 October. Unfortunately, recent heavy snow falls have created avalanche danger that has closed the track. So instead we attempted a local Dunedin walk to Jubilee Hut in the Silver Peaks area.When the weather forecast was for clearing showers we set off on our walk. It was pretty muddy for a lot of the way to Pulpit Rock and the showers continued throughout the day. Approaching Pulpit Rock the wind was similar to what we had encountered in Patagonia, blowing us off balance and absolutely freezing! After a quick conference we decided that the safest thing to do was to return to the car while we still had daylight.
