Tramping (Hiking) in New Zealand #14: Heading for Arthur's Pass National Park

Next 2 days we had a reservation for the Welcome Flat Track. However, due to the heavy rain the track had been closed for a week. We went to DOC visitor centre a few days before and checked with rangers. They said it might be open on the day of our reservation. The field ranger go check out daily when the track is closed and let the visitor centre know by 9 a.m. 

In the morning of our reserved day, we went to the visitor centre and found out they decided to keep closed. We were a little disappointed, but at least they refunded the fee for our reservation, and luckily there are many many great hikes we could do instead. 

Probably we just got another reason out of many, to go back to New Zealand again. Someday I want to go tramping on the Welcome Flat hut track. 

Welcome Flat hut is an extremely popular hut to stay, so it is now reservation only. The attractive point is not only the scenery but also the hot spring. There is natural hot pools at the hut. That is the reason it is so popular.
At previous night at the hostel, we saw a German guy who were staying in New Zealand for 5 weeks. I was jealous. Europeans have a lot of vacation. 5 weeks in New Zealand. Well, we were also there for almost a month, though. The German guy was also staying a hut  only last night instead of camping, due to heavy rain. He had visited New Zealand 2 years before, too. He said that he loved Welcome Flat track. He stayed at Welcome Flat hut for 2 nights and enjoyed the hot spring for whole day! 

In the morning at the visitor centre we saw him again and he said he was going to small glacier walks at Fox and Franz Joseph and next day he planned to go to Alex Knob.
We looked up hikes at the DOC visitor centre and decided to go to Aurthr's Pass National Park, but found out the road got closed around 8 a.m. However, the German guy told us it was open again at 10 a.m. Wow. He checked road status a lot. I found another German meticulous. 

So this day we started driving toward Arthur's Pass national park. We arrived at Arthur's Pass visitor center in the evening. There were some tents right next to the visitor center between the camper vans, but it didn't look nice (in the cars....). We asked if there are campsites in the park. The ranger said Keas rip apart the tents near visitor centre. He recommended a nearby campsite, which is 10 min drive from the visitor centre. We went there and it was really pretty. Thank you ranger! 

Pretty!

Tent

The camp area is just a vast meadow and anywhere you can pitch a tent. There is a river nearby. We sat down there and enjoyed the evening scent and view.
Flowers along the river were very pretty. Clouds were passing through fast and sometimes it was drizzling. Due to that we saw a nice rainbow. 

Rainbow