Done with the Tramping

We have survived the final rounds of our tramping adventures.  We just completed the Gillespie Pass rout and the Cascade Saddle, both of which were amazing!!  These were more like normal backpacking than the Dusky track which was a nice change of pace and both were spectacularly beautiful.  Both of these where in Mount Aspiring National park so had much more of an alpine feeling to them.  The Gillespie pass took us three days and the last day we were once again running away from an extreme weather warning with gail force winds and rain.  We ended up taking a jet boat out rather than walking through farmland and dust storms.  Worth the money.
The Casvade Saddle was the more epic of the two and my favorite hike that we have done in New Zealand so far.  The first day we hiked out a valley for a couple hours and then proceded up the saddle which was a climb from 400m to 1800m over about 1km horizontal distance.  Needless to say it was a lot of fun!  But this was alright because we were looking across the valley at Mount Aspiring which is one of the tallest peaks in New Zealand and just amazing.  We ate lunch of salami and crackers at the top of the saddle with an awesome view and felt very accomplished.  For this tram we had absolutely amazing weather so we decided to camp up ontop.  Our site was absolutely amazing and had full views of Mount Aspiring and the Rees glacier as well as some of the other ice covered peaks, including my favorite Mount Barf.  That is its real name.  Ontop of the views our spot had a stream going through it that you could drink right out of and a 20' waterfall that you could shower under if you wanted an extreme instant brain freeze.  That was another thing about both these hikes, you could drink out of all of the streams which was sweet!  After coming down off the saddle we went to the bottom of the Reese glacier which was cool and proceeded to the Rees valley to meet up with the Rees-Dart track.  Here we camped outside a hut which added to the wilderness experience with FLUSH TOILETS!  That was crazy but very nice.  Then we hiked about 20 km out to a car park in the middle of no where with no idea of how we were going to get past the car park but luckfully a guy came out to paint and was able to give us a ride back to Glenarky.  And now we are back in Queenstown and I want to go bungy jumping.
We get on our bikes in three days and start the final leg of our journey up the west coast.  I am stoked and ready to get into some spandex!!  Also I am ready to do some river rafting which I hope to do on the Perth River if Eco Rafting tours has room for me.  I cant find out till the night before.  Or if I have to wait till I get home that will be hard but i think I can do it.  I also need some mexican food in a bad way! 
Till next time