Attempted Assault on Conical Hill via the Majuba Trail,Hanmer Springs

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I do not use the word ‘assault ‘in the meaning that suggests inflicting actual physical harm but rather the harm it might have done to us, the walkers, had we made it to the top.

Our only neighbour at the motel moved on this morning leaving us the sole occupants.

The owners had been away at the Women’s World Cricket in Wellington and one of their fathers’ had been looking after the place and watching over the renovations being done in three of the apartments.

We had been a bit mystified that the ‘house full’ sign was up at the end of each day and we had decided that he was only down to look after the guests that had prior bookings and save him having to clean.

The weather was a bit dodgy looking again although the hills in the distance did reappear as the morning wore on and the cloud lifted. To us this was a signal that the planned walk to conquer Conical Hill located above the village was a goer.

As the name suggests, Conical Hill, is the shape of a cone with the peak around 200 metres above the village.

Now that doesn’t sound very far but because of the shape of the slopes, those who constructed the trail wisely thought it best to make the way up by way of a zigzag path to reduce the steepness of a more direct approach.

We could have started our walk back at the start of the Dog Stream trail which we completed yesterday but because we knew there was uphill to be tackled we merely returned to where we left off yesterday and continued on through woodland.

On our arrival at another of those wide open spaces we encountered yesterday a sign directed us to the Majuba Trail which would lead us onto the Conical Hill trail.

The Majuba Trail had got its name from the final battle of the first Boer War in 1881 where a bloody massacre took place with the Boers victorious. New Zealanders, including some from the Hanmer area had fought with the British in the conflict. One can only think that the hill trail and perhaps the conical shape of hill we were about to climb resembled the Majuba Hill in the Transvaal, South Africa.

The trail up at first was relatively easy enough through stands of native bush and northern hemisphere Rowan Trees with their bright red berries prominent at this time of year.

Light rain started to fall as we joined onto the zigzag track which indicated we were now starting to make our ‘assault ‘on the summit of Conical Hill.

Shortly after we encountered the only two other people we saw on today’s walk and they were on their way down. A check with them to see how far it was to the top didn’t really tell us the whole story although we gained some encouragement when they said we were already a good distance on the way.

Of course they were on their way down and even a downhill zigzag path may appear easy when you had forgotten about the slog to ascend the hill.

The zigzag’s appeared quite lengthy in distance and we seem to be making that much in height to our goal.

The bush was quite dense so that you couldn’t easily see down to the village and try and gain perspective on far we had climbed. Nor was it any easier to look upwards and calculate how many more zigzags would have to be negotiated to reach the top.

Rain was now falling more steadily and dripping through the canopy of trees onto us and even though we had rain jackets on it wasn’t making the trek pleasant any more.

After a quick confab the decision was made to abandon the attempt to reach the summit and we headed back down towards the village and ‘our’ bakery to choose a late lunch to take back to our apartment and devour.

And wouldn’t you know it, as we emerged from the forest, the rain stopped and the sun poked through the cloud. There was no thought of retracing our steps and after getting wet for the last half hour we longed to dry out.

Lunch was a sausage roll and a mince savoury with two cream filled raspberry buns.

We put our feet up for the afternoon completing a blog that was now 2 days behind schedule.

As time for the 6pm news approached we decided we had watched too much doom and gloom with COVID rampant in the larger communities around New Zealand and the Russian invasion of Ukraine showing terrible scenes of innocent civilians being driven from their homes.

Even in this small village of Hanmer where COVID and invasion appear miles away, the television news brings it all so close again.

So we thought to heck with this we shall head out early and stroll up the main street for a pizza, a beer and a wine or two and avoid watching television.

However, the three establishments run under the Montheiths name which included the pizzeria were all closed with a notice saying they wouldn’t be open for a few days because of staff shortages.

This included the Irish pub called O’Flynn’s.And tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day!Whoever heard of an Irish Pub not being open and packed with people on St Paddy’s Day!

We found our way to another restaurant that was filling up quickly as we arrived and tucked into loaded potato skins and satay chicken skewers washed down with a couple of Waipara wines that filled our empty tummies just nicely.

Tomorrow it is north to St Arnaud, Nelson Lakes and a return stay at the historic Tophouse.

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