From Wanaka to Stack Conservation Area
Hiking time: 02:15p.m.-08:15p.m.
Daily/Total distance: 20km /906km (230.5 hitched/skipped, 84 biked)
Steps: 32938
Weather: rain in the morning, clouds from noon onwards with clear weather after about 5pm

This morning I lazily got up at 9am to start packing my things. All my clothes had dried over night and were ready to be packed away. After finishing this off, I went to the front office to pick up my fully charged powerbank as well as to put my backpack into their storage. With it currently raining outside I didn’t want to head off just yet. So I picked up my food from the kitchen for breakfast and then left for the library, to enjoy some better Wi-Fi. I spent half an hour there before heading back to the hostel. There wasn’t much to do around town, so I just sat about, reading to pass the morning. At about 1pm I finished off the rest of my pizza from the previous day before heading outside to go.

I stopped again on the waterfront at Subway to take advantage of the Wi-Fi there again while eating a cookie. Then I was finally off toward the Motatapu track.

At first the path lead along the waterfront. There were some very nice trees about. I took pictures of a bunch of them, wondering where I would find #THATWanakaTree. Then I finally found it, where all the tourists were to take a picture as well. So I stopped and took some pictures as well before continuing on.

After taking a bunch of pictures of the tree while passing I continued on, now meeting fewer people wandering about. The path continued along the lake with some gorgeous views of the surrounding landscape.

Even here you could see that parts of the path were damaged in the recent storms.

At about 6:30pm I reached the Glendhu Bay campground. I didn’t want to stay here though, as I didn’t fancy paying for another nights accommodation. So I continued on, after making a short stop at the restroom. My plan was to continue to the trail head and camp close by there, as there is a longdrop at the trail head. So on I went. At the end of the campground though I had to climb over a gate, as it was locked. I had asked the woman at the reception before, if the trail was through here and she said yes. So now I had to climb over the gate or go back for a detour.

After the campground the trail continued on a gravel road. The sun was getting lower and lower, which was understandable, as it was now 7pm.

A short while later I reached the trail head. There was a big No Freedom Camping sign here, so I couldn’t sleep here. My plan was further to walk a bit onto the track and sleep there. But one look at the sign shows a now camping allowed except in the vicinity of the huts statement, as all of this is private land. Well, bugger this. I do not have enough time to reach the hut in daylight, but I also do not want to go back to the campground. Especially not after I have already walked here. I found a mention on the board though, that one hour into the track I would cross over a small portion of the Stack Conservation Land, meaning public land. So I ventured on in the hopes of being allowed to camp there and finding a suitable spot.

The path no went through a bit of farm land. Mainly deer farms for venison. Left and right of me I saw deer running off away from me. I didn’t try to sneak up on them, but I must have startled them a lot. At one point I cam upon a fence between fields and had to climb through another ridiculously small gate in the fence, made even harder by my huge backpack.

By 8pm I reached the Stack Conservation Land and found to my relief that camping was not prohibited here. Now I had to look around for a good spot to pitch my tent. While there were plenty before, now I was suddenly in a forest next to a stream and there didn’t seem to be much where I could pitch my tent. Though in a pinch, I would have pitched it in the middle of the path. After 15min though I managed to find a really flat area on a rise about 15m above the track. So I would be of the track and have space. So I fetched some water and went up to pitch my tent. It was getting steadily darker by now as the sun was soon setting. So I set my water to filter and then pitched my tent, trying to find a spot without horse droppings lying in the way.

Once I had my tent set up I went inside to make dinner and unpack everything I need. I had another ramen bomb for dinner. As I was eating my dinner with a fully closed tent, I suddenly heard a noise towards my right. I peeked with my torch under the tent fly and saw something long and sleek. At first I got a fright thinking there was a snake. Then, upon realising that there are no snakes in New Zealand, I realised I was looking at a rats tail and made loud noises to scare it away. As I continued to eat, I suddenly heard a loud noise at about my head level in front of me, that had me screaming out loud in fright. At this point I was seriously freaked out and wondering what was out there. I did not want to look and would rather not know what was out there. The forest can be a scary thing at night. Then I thought a bit more and realised that there is nothing in New Zealand that could be of danger to me, which relaxed me a bit. Though I was still unsettled. It could probably have been a deer. Who knows.

I didn’t see anything anyways when I went out to clean my pot and brush my teeth a little while later. Then I spent quite some time reading. All the while I heard screeching in the forest, which made me wonder just what the hell is going on in here. After many hours, I do not actually know how long I spent reading, I finally went to sleep, ignoring the unsettling noises I was hearing in this forest.