Awesome walk along the new Millennium track in Wanaka that has now been extended out to Glendu Bay and goes right around the lakeside. Stopped at the Glendu Bay caravan park for more Fruju's (Ice pops) then headed up onto the dusty road to the start of the Motatapu track. A lovely bush walk alongside the Fern Burn Creek then headed up to the Fern Burn Hut.
A relatively easy walk if you weren't carrying 4 days of food and walking in 33 degrees of heat! This track is on Shania Twaine's station and the three identical huts on this track were paid for by her (good work)! The second day of the Motatapu track was listed on the awesome TeAraroa notes as being 'the most challenging' with 3 climbs one after the other of over 1000 metres up and right down again so we decided to wake up at 5.30am (yes that is early for me) to beat the feet before the heat. Being a long 9 hour day that was impossible but at least we got a bit of it out of the way before we were sweating and dying to be down by the river again. 
By the time we got to the Roses Hut we were ready for food and bed pretty much straight away especially with another early start the following day. We had a lot to get through as Nicks flight out of Queenstown was on 9th Feb so we had to keep moving and they had agreed to meet Simon (the little Tunnell brother) in Arrowtown - Boys!! The following day heading out of Roses Hut to Macetown involved another climb of 1270 metres over the Roses Saddle then dropping down to the Arrow River to Macetown. As the water levels were low we decided to walk in the river all the way to Macetown rather than along the track, lovely and cool afternoon. Saw some old Mining hut ruins and old gold workings along the river en route; unfortunately we didnt find any gold!For some strange reason from Macetown rather than continuing along the lovely cool Arrow River we decided to take the Big Hill Saddle route over to Arrowtown; this involved another 1000 metre climb but we were rewarded with the most stunning views of the Wakatipu Basin and Lake Hayes - we knew we did these things for a reason.
We met Simon in Arrowtown (the first time all the Tunnell brothers had been together in 4 years) - they wanted to all play camping geeks in the same tent but there was no room in either for all 3 of them - very sad! Nick headed off on the bus the next day for his flight to Auckland to start his new job and Simon took the bus to Queenstown as had another day off work so we were to meet him there later.
A lovely walk into Queenstown through the prestigious MillBrook golf resort then onto various walkways to the old historic Shotover Bridge then past the "lovely" oxidisation ponds to the Frankton Events centre before dropping down to Frankton Domain and picking up the walking trail alongside Lake Wakatipu to Queenstown.
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