It’s mid-winter and it’s cold, so we decide to go for a hike to warm us up. The plan is to hike to Lake Catherine and see from there. This is the start, at Lake Selfe

We’re walking around Little Mt Ida, this is the view east, towards the Craigieburn Range

We’re at Lake Ida

The lodge that belong(ed?) to the Lake Ida Wintersports Association, unfortunately, like so often in New Zealand some bastard landowner (likely foreign, they are the worst) ruined all the fun for everybody, because ‘get off my property‘

It’s a real shame, for 50 years so many people have enjoyed ice skating here but because of some asshole landowner (looking at you Glenthorne Station) that’s not possible anymore

Yeah, thank you Glenthorne Station! Damn, I hate high country farming

No option to get across here

We’ll pose for a photo then

From memory they did some game on this small rectangular lake, maybe curling?

We continue the track to Lake Catherine

Once at Lake Catherine we decide to walk clockwise around it to get to hut on the other side and have a look, it’s slow going around the lake as there are these bushes everywhere

We made it to the northern end of Lake Catherine, from here there is a dirt road going south on the east side of the lake, towards the hut

The hut, not a DOC hut, and it’s locked, bummer

We have a break

We’re tracking south, out of this area again and back to the road. Rachel has a hard time keeping her feet dry

Looking back on the road we’re walking out on, mighty Mt Olympus on the right

Looking ahead, maybe 5 km back to the car from here

Lovely views

Mt Hennah. Not long after this photo was taken an approaching car stopped and the occupiers of the car gave us absolute HELL because we had the audacity to WALK ON THEIR ROAD! Imagine that, two adults, clearly without any bad intentions just enjoying a hike getting told off because they are walking on someone’s dirt road. These #&*^$&*#@$ landowners are sooooo obsessed with ‘get off my property’, sickening. I wish New Zealand was like Scotland or Norway where you always have the right to walk over the land, just leave gates as you find them. Not these big station owners though, they hate you, they own EVERYTHING and if they could they would even make you PAY for merely looking at THEIR mountains. The couple in the car and I exchanged a few minutes of expletives and then we moved on but their horrible attitude really ruined the day

The Craigieburns again

We’ve finished the hike, made a last stop with the car here at Lake Georgina and then went home

Map of the hike, it was 15 km and took us 5 hours