The weather was still holding remarkably well - in fact, February has been a great month weather-wise - and so we decided to get another walk in. The Caples/Greenstone Circuit is an easy walk up one valley, over the hills and then back down the neighbouring valley. En route to the walk, we stopped overnight in Queenstown to appreciate how old we're getting. (It's the bungy capital of NZ and attracts the sort of crowd you might imagine). Then we drove to the end of the lake and the end of the road - a place called Glenorchy. A more picturesque spot is hard to imagine; apparently on average about 30 commercials are filmed here each year.
The weather held throughout the walk and we had four very warm and clear days for walking. There was almost a biblical plague of sandflies at the first hut and so we had to stay inside, but the next two nights were much better and we both welcomed a swim at the end of the walk.
At the third hut there was a German lad who came up to the hut from the river carrying the largest trout we'd ever seen. About a metre long and weighing at least five kilos, it was enough for the whole hut to feast on. Unfortunately, the hut warden appeared and informed the poor chap that he had just wrestled the trout for half an hour on the most controlled fishing beat in all of NZ. I think he got away without a fine, but none of us got to taste the fish, which was thrown back into the river. What a waste! After the walk, we pointed the campervan east and headed towards Christchurch with a view to selling Molly whilst there were still some buyers available. With the backpackers' season coming to its end, there are a load of vans for the sale just now and we expected it to take a while.
But, we'd only just driven up to the car market and were parked outside waiting for it to open, when a guy walked over and made us an offer. So we have now said goodbye to Molly. We think she has gone to a good home, but the guy did say that he was going to weld a tow-bar to her and haul his boat around. (I wouldn't want to be caught behind him going up a hill.) More thumbnails ...
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