Wanaka and Queenstown are two places we’d heard about, almost fantasised about, but which seemed so abstract. Towns set beside picturesque lakes, surrounded by peaks of the Southern Alps. We’d heard that the biggest problem we’d face there was finding the strength to leave. That would turn out to be very true.

To begin with we were headed to Wanaka. Our first introduction wasn’t the most welcoming, we arrived in terrible weather as heavy winds lashed the lake, waves crashing into the shore. We sat in Kenji cooking dinner as we were rocked side to side, looking out trying to see through the dark clouds towards the mountains above us. We tried to find a coffee, but when we ordered one at the Big Fig cafe, the very ‘camp’ waiter beside the huge espresso machine said ‘sorry, we don’t do coffee’. We found another cafe to sit with a small and overpriced coffee, watching the rain lash down outside.

This district places strict rules on camping; it is such a popular area with travellers that for the comfort of residents, you can only camp in designated areas (unlike other regions where you can camp basically anywhere except town centres). We made our way to a designated freedom camping area, basically a gravel car park on the outskirts of town, and went to bed as wind and rain battered us in the dark night.

We awoke to sun beaming through the curtains into our cosy little living space. We uncurled ourselves and after some breakfast we made our way back into the town. The scene couldn’t have been more different to the previous night.

The still waters of the lake glistened under a clear blue sky, the beautiful mountains wrapping around this warm, relaxed little town. We fell quickly in love.

Driving 20 minutes out of town, we parked Kenji only 10 metres from a crag. We spent the day climbing, still learning the style of climbing needed for the young volcanic rock which dominates New Zealand.

Feeling pleased with our slowly improving climbing, we drove to the Wanaka ‘service depot’, a great little facility where campervans can empty out waste and restock on water, along with free hot showers (my first hot shower in a week). We tidied ourselves up and tried to look like respectable human beings, as we were off to have dinner with some acquaintances.

Taking a moment to flash back to our honeymoon, in April 2019 we were sat in the beautiful and luxurious Santorini Princess hotel on the Greek island of Santorini, a place where our weekly budget exceeded our monthly budget now. We were enjoying breakfast in front of a huge panoramic window revealing the caldera – the entire island of Santorini being an old volcano tens of miles across, with the sea flooding into the middle from one side. We don’t remember how it happened, but we entered conversation with a couple at the table beside us. John and Marelda struck us instantly as being warm and kind and interesting; we discussed our travel plans and they told us that we ‘absolutely must’ contact them when we’re arriving in their home of New Zelaand.

We did as instructed, and were invited for dinner at their second home in Wanaka.

And so…. Looking as respectable as a portable shower and our 3 items of clothes each allowed, we arrived at the address they’d given us for dinner.

It began embarrassingly, as John saw us arriving and indicated for us to turn into the drive. Unfortunately the drive is on a steep slope, and when I tried reversing onto the pristine white tarmac, the wheels skidded and left a huge black streak. The next day I was horrified to find John outside scrubbing away at the present we left for our hosts.

Skid marks aside, we were greeted warmly, and shown into their home. It was not what we’d expected. This three storey building led up through beautiful rooms to an expansive living room – kitchen suite, with a balcony and panoramic windows overlooking the whole valley. It was simply spectacular. As we were led past the bedrooms, John and Marelda casually said ‘this room is made up for you, we hope you like it’.

We did like it. We didn’t leave for 10 days.

John and Marelda showed us a staggering level of kindness and generosity during our stay. They had worked hard to be successful in life, giving them a lot to be generous with, yet it was their overwhelming warmth towards us as effective strangers to begin with that really shone out. Within a couple of days we felt truly a part of their wonderful family.

This was aided by meeting some of their adult children. In particular, we spent a lot of time with their eldest daughter Samara, who is just slightly younger than Ness. Samara (known as Sammy, but there are already a lot of Sammys in our life, so in this post we’ll call her Samara) had moved to Australia as a professional basketball player, and after injuries ended her career as a professional athlete she is turning to art. She produces some really cool work, and I’d thoroughly encourage you to look up @SammyG.design on Instagram (or click here).

Much of our time with this family was spent with Marelda providing us with endless amounts of food. I don’t understand how her family aren’t staggeringly overweight, probably because most of them play sport to  a very high level, but Marelda is certainly someone you would call a ‘feeder’. She also has the entire library of Netflix and Apple Movies committed to memory. Her heart was as big as her fridge, and we adored every moment with her.

John was a truly remarkable chap, and as Samara said ‘Jono looks after us pretty well’. I will save the details of this for a future post about the city of Dunedin, when the scale of his success in life became truly apparent to us.

Over the coming days, we climbed, walked, did some mountain biking on some nice single track above the town, went for runs, and hung out in this beautiful part of the world.

We were lucky enough to spend a day with the family and their boat, relaxing on a beach and flying across the lake, dragging Ness behind on a ‘biscuit’

We had planned to spend a few nights around Queenstown, exploring this iconic town, so headed out one day to check it out. We could easily see why Queenstown has a reputation as one of the world’s most beautiful and appealing towns, a lovely town set on a lake surrounded by beautiful mountains. We had a fun day there, and arranged to catch up with two other British travellers Patrick and Ruth, who we’d met in Indonesia and who were in NZ at the same time as us.

We also sampled the famous ‘Fergburger’, which was as good as legend has it.

We did discover though that Queenstown wasn’t quite for us. We enjoy the buzz and liveliness, and if we’d had the money to go to nice restaurants and splash out a bit then I’m sure we’d have fallen in love, but we found it a bit busy and flashy for us…. Too many tourists and too much going on. We decided that we preferred Wanaka, where life is less chaotic, giving more peace to enjoy the nature around.

One thing did linger in my mind though… Dominating the skyline over Queenstown was a jagged ridgeline, which I felt beckoned  me. I found it on a map – the Remarkables’ range – and will come back to this later.

We rather missed Kenji, so rather than sleeping near Queenstown, we took him to Lake Hawea back over by Wanaka for a night where we stayed beside the lake.

The next morning we went up Isthmus Peak. We’d wanted to do a mountain day over lake Wanaka, but wanted to avoid the tourist trail up Roy’s Peak, the very popular mountain overlooking the town, whose car park was always rammed. We enjoyed this walk, with beautiful views and not too many people.

One of our climbing days became more interesting than it should have been. We went to ‘little big crag’, a venue to do some multi-pitch climbing. This is a type of climbing where you go up, then rather than going down and swapping, the second person goes up as well, then the first continues up again. The consequence being that you end up much higher up he cliff. We’d chosen a very easy route but just wanted to go and have a short fun session. We got to the top in no time, it was literally all downhill from there.

Then I made what would be described as a seriously ‘rookie mistake’.

The route had been so easy, such a gentle angle that we’d been lulled into a false sense of security. We were to descend in two abseils, there being a middle ‘station’ where we could secure ourselves, pull our rope down then abseil again. I jumped over the edge and started working my way down to the middle station. Only after 10 meters did I realise that the wall was moving further and further away – it was now out of reach as the overhanging wall cut under the top. No big deal though, as I could see that the middle station was on a ledge, sure that I’d land on that ledge.

I didn’t.

I found myself hanging 25 metres below where I’d started, 25 metres above the ground, and about 2 metres away from the ledge I should be standing on, with nothing I could grab or push against. If anyone has ever seen the film – think ‘Touching the Void‘, but rather than being in a remote Patagonian mountain range hanging above a cravasse in a storm and with a broken leg, I’m in sunny Wanaka where my biggest concerns are that I’m not wearing enough suncream for this, and that we seem to be a point of amusement for passing motorists who are stopping to watch us, probably not realising that we’ve totally fucked up.

Anyone who has ever used a swing as a child (or an adult) will realise the obvious solution – if you wave your legs backwards and forwards then you can generate some momentum, eventually I would be able to touch the wall to kick against it and get on the ledge….

….nope…doesn’t work! If anyone understands this better than I, please email me (ben@ropeduptravel.com) or leave a comment below. Works great on a child’s swing, but all I was doing was flailing around, my centre of mass never moving. To make it better, I would often start just rotating around on the rope so I was facing away from the rock – even less helpful.

I did have an emergency solution, which is to prussik up the rope. A prussik is a bit of string that you can tie around the rope to create a friction lock, which you pull up on. Climbing 25 metres using a bit of string is about as hard as it sounds, and not without some risks. It wasn’t an option I fancied and it would be staggeringly hard work, but was there as a last resort. Meanwhile, Ness was securely fastened above me, watching intently but completely unable to do anything to assist.

I had about 5 metres of loose rope below me, so I tried all manner of options. Throwing it against the rock generated a bit of movement, but nowhere near enough, and by the time I’d pulled it back up to throw again, the momentum had gone. I even tried blowing in the right direction to try to move – obviously that didn’t get very far.

There was a loop of metal wire in the rock where I needed to be, and I managed to throw an end of rope through that, but was obviously unable to pull on it without pulling the rope out.

My final idea was to put a knot in the end of the rope and try to throw it through the loop, hoping the knot would jam. Having been dangling in my harness like a fish on a hook for some 45 minutes (not a comfortable experience as a gentleman, I can tell you!), this was my last ditch before I began to prussik up the rope….and it wasn’t working.

Then the knot caught! I pulled ever so gently….once, then swung back….twice, then swung back…..a third time and swung back….and in my fourth time I got my toes against that beautiful rock. I kicked hard and swung back into the rock hard enough to grab onto the loop. I was back!

As Ness lowered herself down, I vowed to never be a moron again.

Since our visit to Queenstown a few days earlier, I’d had that striking ridgeline stuck in my mind. It was so viscerally appealing that I found myself thinking about it constantly. I’d learned that the name of the mountain range was ‘the Remarkables’, and that to climb the ridgeline I was staring at was called ‘The Grand Traverse’ – even the name is inspiring!

I messaged another climber we knew in the area, a chap called Craig who we’d met in the mountains of Northern Vietnam. He’d been planning an expedition with his friend Kat, who runs an organisation taking executives from big companies into challenging environments. They’d both just finished trekking around Sapa and we had a long chat on the bus back to Hanoi…this had been in July, which feels like a long time ago. I messaged Craig to ask about this route, and he told me that it was the best single day Alpine route around.

It wasn’t an easy thing to throw ourselves into though. When we’d first come to the area we’d wanted to do something like this, a mountaineering route which combines climbing and walking, but had struggled to find something to fit our desires and our equipment. We’d gone into the office of the Department of Conservation (DOC), where the lady we spoke to didn’t understand many of the terms we used. She told us with great condescension that “you’d best take it gentle….mountains here aren’t like your little ones in England, they’re much bigger”. I wanted to tell her to stick her mountains up her backside, and considered pointing out that Mount Cook (the highest mountain in this continent at 3,700m)  would barely register in the European Alps or the Himalaya, but I decided to smile and walk away. We’d found some possible routes, but them ruled them out for any number of reasons.

We were ill equipped to do the Grand Traverse, not having much of the gear we have in the UK. We’d read that some experienced climbers do it completely unroped, and so decided that by making a few tactical purchases, we should be able to keep ourselves safe.

I researched everything I possibly could about the route, and we decided very tentatively that we would do it, and that we’d do it on Sunday. I was nervous, but I always am before doing something big and new.

For every mountain day we’ve done in NZ where there was any real risk, we’ve given our plans to a couple of people back in the UK, including where we were going, amd a time at which they should contact the NZ emergency services…. A normal precaution. For this trip, we also left a note with the wonderful family who were hosting us. Samara looked at me with an intrigued face…. I responded to the implied question with ‘yeah, it’s a pretty serious thing, 2 people died doing it a couple of months ago’. The shadow of two recent fatalities, two people who had been roped up and with a guide, had cast a big shadow over our planning.

We left the house at 5am, coming through the mountain pass towards Queenstown as the sun rose. Parking was at the Remarkables’ Ski Area car park – as climbers when we are in Alpine areas we often walk through out-of-season ski areas, always a strange experience. Buildings and lifts, which would be buzzing and heaving in winter, instead a wasteland of cold steel above barren slopes. We weaved up a path under a ski lift, and began following the route description, picking it’s way across slopes of loose scree and towering rock. We went very wrong twice, wasting a good 60 to 90 minutes including downclimbing. This meant that having been the first people on the mountain, a couple of other groups ended up slightly ahead of us….making the route finding far easier!

We we kicked steps across an icy snowfield then scrambled up through rocky cracks to the ridge. As we walked the couple of hundred metres along the ridge, our next task loomed menacingly over us.

We reached the end of this part of ridge, and the end of the ‘approach’, ready to enter the climbing… we’d been going for 3 hours – on schedule despite our detours.

We were stood on the helipad, at 2200m altitude, named for being a slightly wider part of the ridge where helicopters could land to facilitate rescues on the dangerous ridgeline. Below and behind us, Queenstown looked beautiful beside a sparkling lake.

Ahead of us was Double Cone, the first summit we were to climb. The rock was dark, almost black, and the developing cloud was swirling around it’s Eastern flank, in stark contrast to the beauty below on the West in Queenstown. We looked up and thought…. ‘shit’. It looked hard!

We knew from the research that this route was well within our grade, within our abilities. We kept reminding ourselves of this as we looked up at steep and seemingly blank sections of ominous dark rock.

The other parties carried on further before putting on their climbing gear, but we made use of the wide and safe plateau to put on harnesses and helmets, making the rope ready to quickly deploy when we got to a tricky section. This allowed the other groups ahead of us a little, and we were back to delicately picking our own route through the maze of towering rocks.

It wasn’t long before we roped up and began moving together. This is a type of climbing where both parties are tied to the same rope, which is shortened by taking coils around your body. Rather than climbing one at a time with the other person belaying, both people climb and by keeping the rope fairly tight, you act as a counterbalance should the other fall. This enables you to move much faster than pitched climbing, which would be far too slow for a route like this, but it carried significant risks. If one person falls then they will pull the other off, meaning two people falling onto the protection, doubling the forces. It also means that should the system fail in a fall then one person would drag the other off the mountain. While risky, if done correctly it is the safest way to move over this terrain where being slow can lead to getting stuck overnight in a hostile environment.

We weaved across the ridge, looking for fault lines in the rock which we would climb. Often we would ‘follow the polish’, where years of mountaineers going ahead of us in boots or crampons had smoothed surfaces of the rock, indictating routes previously taken. Unfortunately polish often leads to dead ends, where someone going one way then backtracking leaves double the amount of polish.

We came to one section where I saw the last member of a group ahead of us going to the left, up a steep and very exposed wall. I saw a route around to the right, more over the centre of the ridge. We took this, and a few minutes later we rejoined the middle of their group. The leader of that group would later say that the section they’d been on was where the party fell to their deaths a couple of months ago, he’d heard that their rope had been cut on a sharp edge.

We soon reached the first summit of Double Cone, at just over 2300m. We looked across at the second summit, a very short distance away, but between us and it was a steep drop into a gully. We’d read that you can abseil down into the gully, and as we downclimbed towards it I found the abseil point, looking very tatty. I decided that I preferred our chances roped together and downclimbing. I saw the party ahead of us abseiling and soon caught up with them as I climbed into the gully. Unfortunately, as soon as I stepped off the rock and onto earth, I found that it was crumbling away under our feet. I warned Ness who was coming behind me, and we carefully made our way across to the rock on the other side.

The climb up to the South summit of Double Cone was over in a flash, and we looked around us at this incredible ridgeline, excited that we were so lucky as to be able to experience it up close. Ahead of us, a few hundred horizontal metres away, was the summit of Single Cone, the highest point in the Remarkables’ range.

We stepped off to begin the descent into the col between Double and Single Cone, and as we did we heard rockfall in the trecharous gully behind us, another group having the same difficulties as us. I heard them talking so knew they were ok, then we set off.

We padded gently down into the the col, trusting the grippy rubber of our mountain boots to stick us onto sloping rock.

Moving together up the side of the ridge, we were surprised by how quickly we reached the final summit at 2319m. As we’d read, the climbing had all been well within our abilities, and the first section had been by far the hardest. We sat atop the summit of Single Cone and had our lunch… it had been 3 hours since we’d left the helipad, still on schedule, with hopefully 3 hours left for the descent.

The group we’d heard behind in the gully caught us up as we finished lunch. They had done the route before (we were the only team on the route that day who hadn’t done it before) and had decided to solo the route. This meant climbing without a rope, so that though you are with team members, if you fall then you fall and nothing is stopping you until the bottom. We reflected that it was within our abilities to solo, yet if we were to do it again (we’d love to!) then we’d opt to take harder lines up the rock faces but still use a rope, rather than take the easy lines without a rope.

Until now, the handful of other groups we’d met had all been very experienced and well equipped (according to their chosen style of ascent). As we began descending, we started meeting teams coming up the other side with starkly inadequate kit. A team of Germans had soloed up the South face of Single Cone, up a sketchy steep snow filled gully…they now had no rope or gear to abseil.

We met an older gentleman who I think said he was 65, havu g done this route many times he had soloed the route until now, but had with him a short and light section of rope to facilitate the final abseil. We were lucky to end up with him and the group ahead, so could just jump on their ropes and whizz down the two rappels, less faff for us!

We were down and out of the main danger area in moments, while the other parties were trying to pick a way around the snow. As we trudged away on gentle angled snow,  taking bounding steps on the easy terrain, we looked back to see that they were trying to work their way down the steep rocky rib. We met a few other people who had gotten part way up the mountain but done the sensible thing by realising that they weren’t set up for it and turning around. We did later see some of those unroped teams at the car park, so knew they got off safely, though with a lot of faff and a lot more risk than us.

The descent from there was long but easy, and after a couple of hours we arrived at Lake Alta, set in the middle of the horseshoe shaped ridge. We’d worked up a sweat under the sun, and I was all too eager to jump in the icy meltwater. We enjoyed sitting in the cirque and swimming in the lake, admiring the beautiful peaks above us.

Sat beside the lake, I remembered that at our wedding last April, the tables had been named after our favourite mountains. I asked Ness whether these would have counted if we’d been getting married after travelling. She said that like me, today had been one of her favourite routes, but that Double Cone and Single Cone were incredibly boring names, hardly inspiring grand visions.

From there it was a short walk back to the car park. This section was moderately busy with walkers, and as we neared the car park a couple asked us to take a photo of them sat on a ski lift. They asked whether we’d done the ‘big one’. I smirked at the term and said yes, then she said ‘wow…you went all the way to the lake??’. Haha! I pointed at where we’d been and wished them a wonderful day.

We got back to Kenji 9 hours after we had left, perfectly on schedule. We let everyone know that we were finished safe and sound, then headed down into Queenstown.

On the way into Queenstown we saw a young woman hitchhiking so offered her a lift into town. She put her stuff in the back, then sat on our bed rather than in the spare front seat. After much explaining she sat in the front….possibly a mistake as she talked very loudly and very fast for the next 15 minutes until we dropped her off. She seemed rather confused that we hadn’t dropped her actually outside of her hostel. It wasn’t until several hours later on our way home that we realised I was missing a shoe from the back of the van…. We went back and recovered it in the road where we’d picked her up.

We got a coffee and an ice cream, and sat on the shore in Queenstown for the late afternoon, looking up at where we’d been that day. Beaming smiles lit our faces as we reflected on the experience of going from sitting here and thinking ‘that looks cool!’ to sitting here having done it.

We returned to Wanaka and crashed into the sofas. As always, Marelda had a queue of Netflix films lined up for us, but tonight we made our escape after the first, sliding into bed and a very satisfied sleep.

We hung around in Wanaka for another day and a half, resting and taking in all the beauty we could. We really didn’t want to leave the area or the wonderful family who had welcomed us into their lives, but we were 3 weeks into our planned 9 week stay in NZ, and we’d only travelled the tiniest amount of the country. We’d absolutely fallen in love, Wanaka was perfectly suited to us and we didn’t regret a moment we’d spent there, but it was time to move on.

On the 21st January we got back in Kenji with a food care package given to us by Marelda. We set our sights South, heading towards the iconic fiords of Milford Sound, and the South coast beyond it.

We were saying goodbye to Samara who would be heading back to her home in Melbourne, but thankfully we didn’t have to say goodbye to the rest of the family… We were to be seeing them again very soon!

The route out took us through Queenstown and past the Remarkables’, time for one more glance at their beauty, before being again in the unknown.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this then you might enjoy reading some of our other posts. Try looking at our library of all posts, or maybe just about our amazing stay in New Zealand.