Mt. Aspiring National Park region

Turns out that over 40% of the South Island of NZ is National Park territory or some other category of conserved land.  I'm just gonna be wandering from one NP to another and putting my boots on as much NZ dirt as I can manage.*  I have really loved the day-hiking in the area of Wanaka Lake, just to the east of Mt. Aspiring. All these lakes are BRIGHT BLUE, bluer than the sky and hard to capture in a photo, alas.

Diamond Lake/Rocky Mountain trail:

Isthmus Peak trail (for the record: neither an isthmus nor technically a peak, but a good way to spend a day anyway):

The treeline in NZ is at like 600 feet above sea level, so all these hikes are fully exposed, but since it's *not* unbearably hot here, I'm not complaining too much.

* Speaking of boots:  when you enter NZ, you must declare anything you're carrying that has touched dirt anywhere else.  They are carefully protecting their fragile ecosystem.  They will confiscate stuff with soil as you come through customs at the airport.  Happily, I knew about this policy in advance and cleaned both my boots and my poles with a toothbrush in Singapore.  The customs agent was SO IMPRESSED by my clean gear!