The Circle Track Hike. Only Way To Get There Is By Boat!

People in the know around here made us aware that this was some of the scenery used while filming the Fellowship of the Ring movie a few decades ago.

Off on another adventure! Picked up this small water taxi right around the corner from our airbnb and took the 5 minute ride to the other side of the river where there are many trails to explore but no roads. Only met 3 other people and they were passengers on our water taxi too. Life jackets must be worn at all times by everyone in New Zealand with heavy violation fines. Helmets on bicycles for all ages at all times too.

One of the more remote and unusual trail heads we have seen. Hope those stairs lead to a nice day of hiking.

As usual, New Zealand’s trails are called tracks and measured in time and not distance. At first we thought that rather odd as everyone hikes at a different pace but have realized that the times are pretty spot on. As we only had 3hr and 45 minutes to make it back to get picked up by the water taxi we figured on not lallygagging to much.

Most of the trees were beech trees. They have tiny little leaves that create a very comfortable walking tread. We touched that fungus on the dead beech above and it was really hard. No mushy fungus for the Kiwis.

Laurie wanted a picture of me standing out on the edge but I was not so sure! How is that tree hanging on there? See the undercut? They say earthquakes are a common occurrence on the South Island. Just saying.

Found this fanny pack in the middle of the trail and knew just who it belonged to as there were only 3 people over here. One young lady was hiking a different track to the Hope Arm Hut and a young couple who were hiking our track. The bag contained a wallet, 2 passports, a phone and some other stuff. As we knew the girl was from Australia and the guy from Germany the outside of their passports matched that. Did not want to pry into someone else’s private stuff so that was all we needed to know. Question: Do you pick it up and try to bring it to them at the lookout spot a mile or two up the hill, or do you leave it figuring they would come back to find it? A tough call actually. We opted to leave it and take a pic with gps coordinates to let them know where it was if we ran across them. If not, the only way back across the river is the water taxi at 4pm so we would see them there. We did run into them on the way up the hill and they were thrilled we had seen their bag back down the hill.

Nature is so beautiful when left undisturbed!

This is how the trail maintainers for the DOC (Department of Conservation) mark the track’s endpoint. We went a bit further and found the views to be more spectacular.

Nice place to “drop pack” and enjoy the scenery with a bite of lunch!

When we stopped there to eat our lunch these two little guys joined us. Wonder why there were not skittish? No, we did not feed them.

Much of the Circle Track had us on the shores of Lake Manipouri on the way back to our “ride”. Nice to have hikes with differing scenery. The Southern Alps in the background are stunningly beautiful.

We said goodbye to the trail and our water taxi before heading back to our temporary home in the little town of Manipouri.