It was relatively cold today and it sucks to start with wet shoes. But mine were still wet from the last river crossing. But the new socks feel great!We. Today was the day of Waiau Pass. We climbed about 700m in only 2km which resulted in a steep climb. But see yourself.
We even had to do some rock climbing for which I put my poles away and had parts where I was going through real chimneys using both of my hands. Different feeling than in the Alpes in Europe with a light day pack…
The views though were spectacular! Really the best stretch so far on the TA. I loved the more challenging climbing part a lot. 
And the on we went down on the other side again towards Lake Constance. What a beautiful lake framed in the mountains. The colour perfectly matches my new socks now… 
The decent was really steep and slippery on the scree slope.
We had another long break at the lake and enjoyed the view before we continued to our final destination today – the Blue Lake Hut. The blue lake is supposed to have the clearest water in the entire world with visibility between 70-80m (distilled water has 80m which is the max).
We enjoyed our dinner at the lake and also the bottle of wine. It was a great taste even though we had to really drink it the hobo-style: out of the bottle.
As we were sitting there a pair of blue ducks just stopped by. The blue duck is very rare and endemic to NZ. Estimations vary from 2000-3000 ducks left only. The pictures come with special greetings to Anthony & Fiona!
Thanks for the whio photos. We heard there were Whio at Blue lake but did not see them ourselves. Cheers
Not too far to Palmerstone North anymore!