NZ placenames

Libretto Range, Opera Range, Faust, Lucia, Trovatore, Mephistopheles, Norma, Lucretia, Maritana, Zampa...

Moirs Mate, Phyllis Fell, Ben Cliberick, Dun Fuinary. There was a guy in the Chch Tramping Club who was attracted to climbing mountains with these kinds of names.

The peaks, lakes of the Haast Range: Moonraker, Stargazer, Cloudmaker. Waipara tributaries named after parts and personnel of a sailing ship from Engineer Creek to the Cabin Pass Rapids. http://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-44.33903,168.676952&z=14 At the opposite end of the spectrum of imaginative naming, all the peak names along the main divide from Mt Hopkins south: Hopkins, McKerrow, Sinclair, Humphries, Percy Smith, Williams, Browning, Clark, Ward, Baker, Hickson, Jackson, Barron, Dobson, Trent... It just keeps going through a dense list of presumably obscure surveyors names. http://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-43.860975,169.842361&z=12

Bowels of the earth. I think it's public land from memory.

Yeah. Planned on heading up Bowels of the Earth on a North Eyre traverse - just for the name. But wimped out & headed up Iron Spur instead as time was short. Amazing, wonderful traverse along that range from there to Ross Hut. Just east of the summit if the range there's a terrace all the way with fun scree scrambles over each intervening spur. The Valley of Darkness would be another in the same vane - on the todo list just for the ciil name!

I've sometimes wondered what the Mounds of Misery might be like to walk through. @Honora has been there I think...

Along the Hopeless track, up Hopeless Creek, to the Hopeless Hut, under Mt Hopeless. It's in Nelson Lakes, across from Mt Misery. I'm optimistic I'll get to do it. :) ""Mt Hopeless (7 routes) A striking peak, especially when seen from Cupola Basin Hut, with a variety of routes. An excellent spring and early summer traverse is to climb the Hopeless Couloir and descend the South West Ridge or the Hopeless Creek route to Hopeless Hut. Reputedly named by an early survey party with a poor attitude."" ""Hopeless Hut was built by members of the NZ Alpine Club and opened by Sir Edmund Hillary on 23 December 1967.""

"Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu" http://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/the-longest-place-name-in-new-zealand/

There are at least two hills named "Mt Misery" in Westland. One can guess at why they got such names. I have my own story about the one near the Hokitika Gorge. A few years back I decided to do a loop walk traversing Mt Misery from south to north and got off to an early start from the Hoki Gorge carpark walking first to Murray Saddle. Soon after this the untracked scrub zone, which was wet, became a decent work out on its own but two hidden guts in the scrub meant it took much longer than I expected to reach the summit. Next there was more scrub getting to the lower peak with a trig on it. When I started descending from the trig it was already mid afternoon and I thought I might be in for a night out if the going didn't improve but thankfully it did. However a band of supplejack and kie kie vines were hit and had to be negotiated before emerging on the track near the Hokitika Gorge swingbridge. In the fading light I unknowingly stepped out on to the good tourist track smack in the middle of a line of about half a dozen tourists who were somewhat startled and alarmed by my bedraggled appearance and possible intentions. I just said hello, smiled and hurried off before they could gather their wits. I was pleased to reach the car soon afterward and while driving home thought maybe an early surveyor did that same traverse before naming the peak.