Roys Peak is a ridge of golden tussock above Lake Wanaka, in the Otago high country of New Zealand's South Island, and the view from it is one of the most photographed things in the country. The famous frame is not the summit. It comes from a short, narrow spur that branches off the main track well below the top. There the grass falls away on both sides, the blue arms of the lake wrap around dark islands far underneath, and the Southern Alps fill the skyline behind. That one image turned a sheep-station track into a queue: by mid-morning in summer people line up along the spur for a turn at the exact spot, one at a time on the grass with the drop behind them. It is a real climb to get there: 16 kilometres return and about 1,200 metres of ascent, on open tussock with no shade and nothing between you and the wind.
You leave the car park between four and five in the morning, like almost everyone else, and the head torches make a line of lights up the hillside. First light is the reason. The lake below lies mirror-flat, the snowfields of Mount Aspiring are the first thing the sun touches, and at that hour you have the spur to yourself. Out among the islands is Mou Waho, which holds a small lake of its own about 150 metres above the water it floats in — a lake, on an island, in a lake — and from the ridge you can pick it out. The land underfoot is a working farm, so the track shuts for six weeks each spring for lambing, and in winter the slope above a thousand metres ices over and turns into serious ground. Almost everyone turns around at the photo point. The actual summit is another kilometre and a half on. Up there the view closes into a full circle: the Southern Alps the whole way round, the lake end to end, and the valleys running north that the famous spur never shows.