Just keep putting one foot in front...

...of the other and soon you'll look back and you'll have climbed a mountain. Well today with that phrase in mind we did! What an incredible hard climb it was! Roys peak is a backpacker hotspot and something everyone seems to do. I'd been wanting to climb it for the amazing views it gives you from the summit but we'd accepted the weather wasn't going to be on our side. We'd pretty much ruled it out this morning so once we'd packed up and were ready to go we headed on down to the Wanaka tree which I'm sure is one of the most photographed trees ever. It seems you haven't been to Wanaka if you haven't photographed this tree. As we stood on the shore line admiring possibly the loneliest tree in existence we realised the weather was greatly improving. After a quick check online and a few little words of encouragement from me we decided to take the opportunity and climb a mountain. The start of the track is only 6km from town and we set off on our ascent at 11am sharp. It's a 16km round trip that takes between 5-6 hours. What we weren't prepared for was the fact it is an 8km pretty much continual climb and at a rather steep gradient. The track winds and bends up the face of the mountain and every step feels like a mission to complete. We passed a couple where the girl was struggling as much as I was and she definitely gave me a look that said "my boyfriend made me do this". For us it was the other way around so I kept on trying to power on through knowing it'd be so worth it at the top. Nick was good at providing encouragement and helping to push me up the mountain, literally when needed. Around half way up we could actually see where the lookout point was and could make out the people on the ridge line. They looked tiny and every time you glanced up it felt as if they hadn't grown in size at all. In the end you have to just stop looking and focus on your feet and not the endless path in front of you. Many people do this walk in time for sunrise and I think they are crazy because one it's so cold at this time of year let alone at sunrise and two they miss so much of the view on the way up by climbing in the dark. It took all our might and strength to keep on going and eventually those little tiny people we saw became life size and we'd made it at least to an awesome view point. We queued up and became the people you can see from below waiting our turn to pose on the end of the ridge. The view was incredible. We ate some lunch as we queued and spent time just soaking it all in. After some photos I was determined to push one more time to reach the summit, another 1.5km steep climb away. Nick wasn't fussed so we parted ways and I started to ascend. He changed his mind and realised we've come this far and it's just one little bit more then we can say we climbed the mountain, he soon caught me up on the track up. As we got higher the snow and ice got thicker and some of the track itself was covered in compacted snow. Eventually we made it to the summit and I've never been so relieved and happy at the same time. We just sat down in the ice cold wind and stared down at what we had just accomplished. I'm so happy to say we climbed a mountain, all 1578m of it. It was hard to want to get up again to begin our descent down and my knees were really not happy about it either. After a trip to the toilet to apply my knee cream we set off back down the track we'd struggled so much on earlier today. We passed people still climbing up at even 5pm which I felt was incredible irresponsible given that it will get dark soon. It took us so long to climb down that I'm quite amazed we even made it up. The couple from this morning were walking quite close behind us and we felt they should just overtake us but at the bottom we found out why, they asked us for a lift. We only have two legal seats and had already decided to shower before we left so used that as an excuse to not be able to and luckily another couple took them. We both had the best most rewarding showers in the campervan and got into our pjs before even leaving the carpark. We drove to a campsite on the way to the West Coast and although it was quite late by this point all we had to do was make tea and get the bed set up. Our legs are aching, we will fall asleep before 9pm and we've both got headaches from not drinking enough but boy oh boy was it worth it! New Zealand has not beaten us yet!Read more