Roy's Peak in the snow

The weather was much better today so we decided to stay in Wanaka and take a walk. We chose Roy's Peak ... classed by the information centre as a difficult 5-6 hour return walk.

As we set off it was pretty warm with great views of the lake and surrounding mountains. It was a pretty hard constant climb so their rating of difficult was right! As we got about halfway it started to snow ... we'd brought layers and rain ponchos so carried on, although we met a few other people coming the other way who obviously decided the snow wasn't for them. As we continued it looked like it was stopping but as we neared the peak it really started to come down ... hence the pic (that's Andy by the way). We saw the peak which looked close but the path was slowly starting to disappear under the snow. We also saw a set of footprints in the snow ahead of us so decided to continue on for another 15 mins. Another 15 mins and we turned a corner and couldn't see a thing ... it was getting cold and we couldn't see the path so decided to do the sensible thing and head back. So near but not to be! By the time we got back it was a good 5 hour trek ... hard work but worth it. About 30 mins after we got down a French guy emerged ... he had just about made it to the top. His sensible girlfriend was in their van waiting for him.

Went out for a well deserved curry tonight and than parked in a free camping spot out of town.