Lake Rotoiti (Nelson Lakes National Park)

Because three of us are doing the Nydia track in a fortnight (an overnight hike) I thought I'd best do a practice run with a full pack on over a reasonable distance. After a bit of research I decided the walk into Whisky Falls and back out would be an equivalent sort of distance.

I picked A up this morning and we headed up there. We stopped to use the last available facilities which are at West Bay on the lake (didn't want a repeat of my walk to the Centre of New Zealand on Thursday). This is the view of Mount Robert from the jetty there at 8 this morning. Beautiful.

The lake shelves quite steeply here but the water is so clear that you can still see the stones on the floor - see here for clearer stones.

The walk was great too and gave me a bit of training. I chose this walk because although it is a fairly equal distance, I had theorised that this one would be 'easier' because we didn't have to cross a 400m saddle. Well I was right in that respect, no saddle, but we did still walk up a 200m hill so it was really even better practice than I had thought it would be.

Apart from a little stiffness now (which I'm about to attempt to resolve in a radox filled bath), I feel great and reassured that I will cope on the 'real' walk in a fortnight.