The afternoon sun is hot on my shoulders as I make my way from my car to the start of the track. Above me, the peak rises almost vertical, the trail obscured by the shrubs and tussocks on the mountainside. There are still people arriving – like me, late to the party – to the already full carpark. I make eye contact with a few groups of people but I am already shouldering my pack to begin hiking Roy’s Peak. My knee brace – that horrible thing that has thus far been a lifesaver – constricts my movements and is sweaty against my bare leg, so I also am wondering how this hike will turn out.
hiking roy’s peak
The grassy trail zigs and zags up through private pasture, the sheep seemingly unconcerned with sharing a landscape with us strange, tall, loud shapes. It is literally straight uphill, and after about seven minutes I am sweating through my black tank top and leggings, wishing I had a pair of shorts. Ahead of me, a couple have been stopping and starting at about the same rate as me, but I soon overtake them. I decide to try and keep pace with them; either stay just as far ahead of them as I currently am, or outrun them by a half an hour.
I stop often, ostensibly to take photos of the ever-expanding view but mainly just to breathe. I’m also going through my water at an alarming rate and I know its a good thing that this hike is only a short one. How people survive on multi-day hikes, I will never know. Below me – far, far below me – cars are still arriving, the people like tiny ants on the gravel lot. Cars swoosh by the parking lot as well, and boats in the lake leave a white trail that makes me wish I too was in the lake. It’s freaking HOT. Something catches my eye below and I peer closer at it – it’s a person making their way up the mountain at a fast pace. Instead of walking along the manicured, grassy trail, she is powering up the false trails – the ones made by people like her, the unofficial trail that goes up, up, up. Every time I zig, I look out for her, and every time she is closer.
meeting cat and greg
Soon, I reach a slightly flatter area and I slow my pace. I round a slight corner and have to do a double take: ahead of me, there is a man on the edge of trail with a computer in his hand. As I get closer, I see that in fact it is an iPad, but that his computer is resting on the ground by his backpack. He’s dressed for a hike, though, so maybe he’s just had an urgent need to check his email. After I pass him, I turn back to get a snapchat video of him – and see the woman in orange, now running up the incline. Behind her are the two people I was trying to keep pace with. We make eye contact and as she passes me, I look back at them and shrug. We all start to laugh, and within minutes we are chatting as we walk.
Cat and Greg are friends from Bristol, England, who both live in Queenstown. They’re here because they both have a day off from work and were keen to do a hike. As for me, I’m grateful that they added me to their little group. It turns out (I knew this already, I think) that talking to people as you hike is a very good way to pass the time. You have someone to complain to, you have someone to take your picture, you have someone who can push you a little bit harder.
We have a lot to talk about, being newfound friends who know nothing about one another. Conversation ranges from what we do, to what we have done, to what we want to do next. I’m secretly thrilled to find people that are just like me – undecided as to their path in life but content with where it is, or so it seems. Maybe I am not content, but at least I don’t have to mull this over in my head for the next four hours hiking alone.
another twenty minutes
Onwards and upwards we go, stopping often to admire the view – which admittedly gets better as you go up (much, much better actually), drink some water, and take a few deep breaths. Cat keeps looking up – “which one are we going to?” – and I say I think its the right one, where the people are larger than they are at the peak on the left. We climb over one more stile into the Stacks Conservation Area and the brush around us changes instantly.
No longer is the grass green and the path covered with sheep shit. Tussocks are everywhere, lethal speargrass pokes out in places, and the path is a hard dirt path with large rocks. It is infinitely harder on my knee. But I keep going, one foot in front of the other for a very long time. We begin to wonder aloud how far we are from the summit, and someone says “another twenty minutes.” It’s our refrain for the rest of the trek. Someone or something is always “another twenty minutes.”
Somewhere along the way, I decide that whoever thought that walking uphill for four hours was fun, was a sadist. This is not fun. It is brutal. My knee hurts, my knee is sweaty, my back is sweaty. I am almost out of water. My shoulders are burnt, despite the sun cream I put on before leaving. My ankles are grimy from the dust on the trail. And then I turn around. Lake Wanaka falls away from the foot of the mountain like a veil pooling at a bride’s feet. I can see all of the inlets, all of the islands. Town is but a speck on the far horizon. I turn and shade my eyes to look upwards – another twenty minutes.
what a view
We pass a couple of girls who tell us we are “so close” to the viewpoint. We get a burst of energy from that, but the next bit is likely the steepest part of the trail and we struggle to climb it. All of a sudden, we are at the viewpoint and we can see why this is such a popular hike. Not only is the lake below us in all her glory, but so too are the mountains of Mount Aspiring National Park to the north and west. The road to Treble Cone is visible too, snaking up the hillside to the ski resort.
Cat and I sink to our butts on a rock and pull out apples. There is a tiny path that leads to a photo op spot – but none of us are keen to even get up and move for another year. Cat spies a friend, however, and he says they’re going to the summit. Maybe another twenty minutes. His words, not ours, and we all three know that if we don’t do it we will regret it.
So, Cat, Greg, and I finish our apples and once again shoulder our packs. The path is almost vertical at times, and narrow in places. We end up taking an unofficial trail up the ridge, faster than the long way round but probably triple the gradient. And soon we are at the actual summit of Roy’s Peak. Yann gives us a broad wave and I definitely pump my fist up in the air.
We sink gratefully to the ground and look around us in awe. The viewpoint that we had stubbornly thought we wouldn’t surpass is almost a hundred metres below us. The view of the surrounding countryside is absolutely breathtaking. We aren’t at the highest summit of the mountains around us, not by far, but we are certainly up there with everything. It is exceptional and I am so happy to be here that I could cry.
and we’ll never be royal
There’s a guy with a ukulele up here. Soon he’s taken it out of its worn case and is strumming it, his back against a big pole that is covered in names and dates. I add mine, of course, I’ve been doing it everywhere else, and I want the world to know I made it here. Then I look up to the top of the pole and I spot a Royals sticker… It seems like home follows me around as much as I try to shake it off. We all get a few photos of ourselves and some of the jaw-dropping scenery around us. I take a few videos and panoramas in addition to the usual Instagram-worthy images I strive for. 😉
A couple of minutes later, Yann and Chiara are ready to go. Everyone else has wandered off too, so its just us and the ukulele guy. We decide to leave him in peace and begin the long walk back down. There isn’t much stopping along the way; someone (it might have been me) said that a cider sounded damn good (ok, it was me, and it was about an hour into the hike) and we all agreed then. Cat brings it up again and we almost quicken our pace to the bottom.
Halfway down, my knee is in so much pain that each step is a trial. I’m looking for the best places to step so I can keep it as straight as possible, only bending it where absolutely necessary. Cat and Greg notice that I’m way behind and stop. When I tell them that they can go ahead and I will meet them at the bottom, they say, “we are a team!” so I grin and bear it, moving only slightly faster than before. But they’re awesome – they slow their pace so I don’t struggle as much.
cider time
Soon – another twenty minutes – we are at the bottom. It doesn’t seem like we are that close, but the last few zigs and zags are steep, and we reach the car park quicker than we expected. Cat heads straight for the low fence and sits on it as she takes her shoes off. I do the same, and I also wrench my knee brace off my leg. It is dripping with cold sweat and I know my car will reek later. I stumble across the lot to my car and grab my flip flops, then walk back to Cat. Yann and Chiara are at the bottom now and we’ve met a French guy named Florian whom we invite for drinks with us.
Twenty minutes later (seriously, I’m not making this up), we are seated around a large table at a bar on the waterfront with pints in front of us. We cheers – to us, to the hike, and to new friends. (Cat and Greg – I am so thankful for you guys! Thank you for the chatter and the laughs, both on the trail and after. See you somewhere else in this wild world! xx)