Roy’s Peak is located in the Otago region of the South Island, about a 10 minute drive from Wanaka. It is one of the most popular hikes to do in New Zealand due to its breathtaking views of Lake Wanaka and Mount Aspiring. It is a 16km hike to the summit with a total of 1250m of elevation, or 13km hike to the lookout, both via the same track on return.
We completed this hike at the beginning of February and were apprehensive to do so as, although my friend and I both have reasonable levels of fitness, we are not experienced hikers in the least! Also, everything we had read had described how hard it was so we were slightly worried! If you are feeling the same then i hope this post will make you feel better 🙂
What to bring:
- Rucksack to carry everything
- About 1 and a half litres of water per person
- A camera
- Torches
- Lots of snacks
- Jumper
- Headphones
- Lots of layers for the summit! I did not bring nearly enough and it is very cold; i wish I’d at least bought a hat and pair of gloves!
When to get up for the hike and parking:
When we walked Roy’s Peak, the sun was rising at 6:30am so we wanted to be at the summit for 6am to see it from start to finish. Therefore, we woke up at 2am (yuck) and got ready then drove 10 minutes to the Roys Peak track car park. It is definitely best to camp/ get accommodation as close to the car park as possible so you’re not having to drive far so early in the morning!
This is a big car park but still fills up quite quickly and there is a donation box next to the start of the track where they ask you to leave $5 for maintenance of the trail. We started walking at 2:45am and on reflection think this was a good time, maybe a tiny bit too early. If you are also of reasonable fitness but not hugely experienced hikers then a good guess is to start walking about 3 hours before you would like to reach the summit.
The start of the hike: kilometre 1 & 2
The first kilometre is actually the steepest of the whole hike, with over 200m of elevation again which really doesn’t ease you in gently at all! It is easy to feel demoralised quite quickly but it does get easier i promise! I remember looking at my watch that was tracking our walk and think we must have done a kilometre by now… and we’d only done 386m!
I was also wearing too many layers for the beginning and had to stop to take some off as i got too hot. We were not at all prepared and didn’t have any torches on us except for our phones, and were lucky to have a clear night and the moonlight guiding us.
The start of the second kilometre remained quite steep but then became a bit flatter. We quickly realised we were unable to talk to each other as we were too breathless, so listened to an audiobook together instead which was really helpful to take your mind off things!
Kilometres 3 & 4
Kilometre 3 was our fastest of all kilometres on the way up! It really levelled out and a lot of it was pretty flat which was a real relief after the first two. We were having breaks every 500m-1km and chugging water and eating lots of snacks to keep our morale high. It was fun to see the torch lights of everybody on the way up behind us to make us see how far we’d come already!
The first few hundred metres of kilometre 4 was really steep but after that was also pretty flat and our second fastest of the ascent. There were lots of people on the trail and everyone we spoke to was very nice and encouraging. We began to forget about the steepness of the first two kilometres and wonder what everyone was making a fuss about!
We realised quickly that it wasn’t worth paying attention to how quickly everyone else was doing it as some people went so fast they practically jogged it! Others kept walking really quickly and overtaking us, then having breaks after literally 200m so we overtook them again, and this played on repeat! We wondered why they didn’t just go a little slower and it would be more sustainable… but who are we to judge?! Everyone was very encouraging to each other and to be honest as long as you get to the top it doesn’t matter how long it takes!
Kilometres 5 & 6
It was great at the end of kilometre 4 to know you had reached half way and began to feel like you were really getting there. However, sadly the beginning of kilometre 5 was where it definitely started to get tricky again and live up to its reputation as a difficult hike. It started to get quite steep and we’d already been walking for an hour and a half at that point so we were starting to get tired. I think i ate about half a pack of oreos during this time to give me a boost!
The start of kilometre 6 was more of the same and the walk began to feel like it was going on forever! However, at the 6.5km mark is when you reach the famous Roy’s Peak lookout which was a great morale boost as then you knew you really were getting there. It was 5:10am when we got there, and originally we were going to stop here but we had been far quicker than previously thought so decided to continue to the summit!
The end of the walk – kilometres 7 & 8
The last 2 kilometres are very steep and overall just really hard work to be honest! The seventh especially feels like a slog as you just want to reach the end – the sun is starting to rise though and you can see a glimmer of light over the horizon which is great!
We made the final kilometre a lot harder for ourselves as we accidentally went the wrong way and chose a much steeper path than we could have! We didn’t realise this until we were coming back down a much easier route than we came up oops. So make sure you take the route that curves round to the right instead of the extremely steep one that goes straight up. It is very hard to see as it still almost pitch dark but the path shouldn’t be practically vertical.
The summit:
It is such a relief to reach the summit and finally be able to sit down after over 3 hours of walking. We got there just before 6am when the sun was properly starting to come up. There were a lot of people already there so we found space between them to watch the sun rise.
We quickly cooled down and realised just how cold it was at the summit and put all our extra layers on. Even on a summers day, at sun rise it is only about 1°C (33.8°F) and I cannot emphasise enough how cold it was up there!! I was wearing just shorts and a t-shirt to do the walk and put on a hoodie, coat and trousers and was still freezing. I wish I’d bought a hat, another jumper and a pair of gloves as my fingers went completely numb; I couldn’t even take pictures with 2 of them as i couldn’t feel them! A lot of people around us were feeling the same and grumbling about how cold it was.
Everyone was taking photos and having snacks and were very happy when the sun finally rose at 6:30am and it got a tiny bit warmer. The views were absolutely mesmerising and made the effort of the climb to get there worth it! You start to see just how far you’ve come to get there which is really satisfying. We watched until 7am when I was actually too cold to stay put any longer and we started the climb down.
The descent:
Funnily enough, the descent was far quicker and it took us just over 2 hours in total compared to over 3 hours on the way up. This does not mean it was lots easier though – it came with a new set of difficulties! It took us 30 minutes to get down to the Roy’s Peak lookout and the views were gorgeous on the way there:
We stopped for about 20 minutes at the lookout to take some photos and admire the views, and there is also a toilet here. It would be gorgeous to watch sunrise from there, but I would personally say it is definitely worth the extra effort to get to the summit if you have the time and energy!
To be honest a lot of the descent was a bit of a blur! We were very tired and hungry by this point and had both gone very mute. Walking downhill for so long began to hurt our knees and you begin to want to walk uphill again just for something different, which is something I never thought I’d say! Most of our kilometres downhill took about 15 minutes so it was a lot faster-paced than the way up.
It was great on the way down to see how far we’d come up; we couldn’t believe we’d done it to be honest! I was grateful that we had done the ascent in the dark so I couldn’t see how much longer we’d have to go, because I think I would have given up before we’d even started! It was nice to really appreciate the views of Wanaka and Mount Aspiring on the way down too.
When you have about 3 kilometres left you start to see the car park getting closer and closer which is very motivating. The last few kilometres also have lots of short-cuts through the middle of the path which is great! We got back to our car just after 9am after doing 25,000 steps overnight – very odd.
Conclusions and main recommendations:
- It is HARD but so so worth it – it feels so satisfying to reach the top and see how far you have come, you forget about 3 hours of pain for a truly gorgeous view.
- It really is a hike for anyone, if you have lower levels of fitness then just get up a bit earlier and do it slowly and take lots of breaks. For us, social media had dramatised how tricky it was and made us more anxious than we would have been, it was tiring but definitely very do-able for most people.
- Hike all the way to the summit – not just to the lookout, the extra few hundred metres of elevation are so worth the better view.
- I would definitely recommend doing it at sunrise. It is horrible when that alarm goes off but nice to do the walk before it gets hot, and to see the beginning of the day on top of a mountain.
- If you’re doing the walk with someone then bring AirPods so you can listen to music/podcasts/audiobooks together
- Bring lots of layers for the top and lots of snacks – it is freezing and you will thank yourself for carrying them up with you.
- Bring lots of snacks – it really gave us a boost when we were feeling particularly tired.
Thank you so much for reading this blog. If you enjoyed it, please have a look at others I have written below:
Guides to the following places, including general information, top recommendations and camping information:
Everything you need to know before doing these hikes:
Robert’s Point Track in Franz Josef
BellaGoesBackpacking 
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