Steamers Beach
Thursday, March 7: Cloudy for most of the day, sun in the evening
GPS Tour
Marian Falls
Was on the road a little after 9:00 and found the beginning of the route just after 10:00. Parked the car at Smithys Creek campsite, applied sufficient DEET, and started off hopefully down the road. Crossing the river was the least part of the problem – it was only knee-deep, but very cold. The real problem was hiking up the creek – small rocks and pebbly beaches giving rise to boulders and becoming steeper the further up the mountain I proceeded. After about an hour of this I decided to call it a day, as there was no way I was going to repeat this with a full pack and possibly less time. At least the boots got a good wash. This would probably only be a good idea with someone who had done it before and knew which turn to take at the top of the mountain, although you will still have to be very desperate to try it.
View of rock fall along the track to Lake Marian
With so much of the day left I decided to head for the Hollyford Valley and try reaching Lake Marian. Had lunch in the carpark, reapplied the DEET, and took off up the hill. After passing the viewing gallery for the waterfall, the track revealed quite a bit of damage – both from the storms and from water. Eventually made it to the top and it was quite a sight. On the way I had spotted those trees with the white blossoms again and asked some locals whether they knew what it was called. To no avail. Have taken some pictures of them.
Lake Marian. Detail from the bracketed panorama
At the lake took a bracketed panorama of it and the surrounding mountains, as far as they were free of clouds.
| GPS Tours | |
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| Dore’s Pass | Lake Marian Walk |
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Click on a Tour to Load…
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On the way back down CHDK stopped working briefly; will try partitioning the card & making it bootable (at least the unlabelled card) and see if this is better. Drove up to the entrance of Homer Tunnel but there were not too many views to be had and returned to Te Anau. Bought a screw top plastic container that I will use for margarine and see how well it holds up. Also some loose paper for making some lecture notes.
Dinner was a can of Watties beans, sausages, bacon & mushrooms in tomato sauce on toast. Worked reasonably well but not very filling (should have been, but compared to what I’ve been eating it wasn’t very). Showered, found a work-around for the Purple Picture Processor’s insistence on having more than one digit in the bracketing code.
