Okay so here I have summarized the best of the best of NZ hiking:
The Diamond Trek, just outside of Lake Wanaka. Often referred to as the prettiest short hike in NZ, we did this hike on a spectacular sunny day (the only one we had entirely without rain). We had the trail almost completely to ourselves, save for some curious four-footed onlookers.
Franz Josef Glacier hike. Definitely some of the most fun I had in the South Island. Every day the guides hack out a new trail in the stunning blue ice, a solid mass of more than a billion cubic metres moving rapidly each day. We spent a full day on the glacier, digging through ice caves, squeezing through tight crevasses and sliding down ice tunnels.
Tongariro Crossing. Renowned as the best dayhike in the country, this gruelling trail takes you through some beautiful and bizarre scenery. After walking through flat tundra-like landscape, you're faced with the Devil's Staircase - a steep climb up 1400m that passses lava flows and detritus from the still active volcano. We reached the 1900m summit in 3 hours, only to be surrounded by fog so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face.
Fast forward to the Blue Mountains, a region featuring spectacular rock formations, waterfalls and bushwalks (the Aussie term for hiking trails). A blue haze hovers over the entire mountain range, produced from the oil of eucalyptus trees in the surrounding forest. It's here that we endured the toughest and longest hike yet. Some locals took us through a relatively unknown trail passing through rainforest, steep rock faces and abandoned mine shafts. After 5 hours of hiking, we thought it would be a great idea to tackle the Giant Staircase, an absolute nightmare consisting of a steel staircase winding up vertical 300m and leading to the peaks of the Three Sisters. Its like doing a full day of tough hiking, followed by climbing the CN Tower. Somehow we managed. Two weeks of trekking produces some pretty solid muscle.
