Stepping into a new world
THE SURFACE of Lake Rotoiti steamed and smouldered as the rays of warm early-autumn light crested the surrounding mountains and hit the cold surface of the water. Our small boat puttered its way out of the mountain shade and entered this bright sea of smoking fog, fiery with the brightness of the Antipodean sun. We were dropped off at far shore of the lake, and the noise of the boat’s engine receded, leaving us at the mouth of the immense Travers Valley, an enormous silence all around us. We hoisted our laughably oversized packs and set off through a wide, wild meadow of yellow grasses, flanked by hulking mountain ridges, their enormously flanks densely swathed in dark green forest. I was setting out on my first ever ‘backpacking’ trip – an overnight…
