My mouth watered as I pored over the ridges and contours of Kahurangi National Park on my map. From our little bach near Kaiteriteri, the huge and tempting vastness of Kahurangi was almost close enough to touch. 

With school holidays imminent, I planned a route that took in as much as possible: a partial traverse of the Douglas Range from the Aorere Valley, linking Boulder Lake and Adelaide Tarn with a low route under the Dragons Teeth to Lonely Lake Hut, then peeling off the tops to find our own way down the Stanley River to connect with Kill Devil Track near Lake Stanley before heading out to Uruwhenua Road.

My daughter Emilie and I arranged a ride to the start of the Boulder Lake Track in the Aorere Valley with our friend Helen. 

By 11am we were clambering through dense and muddy beech and mānuka forest and leaping across gaping cracks in the limestone on the climb to Cow Saddle.

There was a break in the turbulent spring weather and the forest was soon steaming in the midday heat. I was hardly enjoying the long uphill slog through the moist bush, the heaviness of my boots sucking me into the muddy track, when Emilie shouted up ahead. She’d come across a special treasure, the gleaming gold shell of a carnivorous land snail, Powelliphanta superba, as large as her fist and seemingly unperturbed by our presence as it slowly navigated an obstacle in its way. We knelt in the leaf litter, entranced by the snail’s tenacious journey across the path, which seemed to reflect our own slog through these damp yet beautiful forests. 

As the taller trees dropped away to reveal the muted red, orange and olive palette of the subalpine vegetation, the enormity of our surroundings came into view. We were high on a scrubby ridgeline that fell away on our right into the steep river valley that drains from Boulder Lake. The land on its far side rose in a series of dark-green ridges to form the jagged backbone of the Lead Hills, topped by 1622m Clark Peak.

At the head of the lake a long tussock flat led up-valley to Green Saddle. According to my track notes, we would pick up a cairned route along a narrow unnamed ridge there to find a flax-choked gut that would lead to the Needles Eye and down to Adelaide Tarn.