Young/Wilkin

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This was a nice little 3 day trip up the Young River, over Gillespie pass into the Siberia Valley, then down the Wilkin.

On arriving in Makarora, DOC told us the river was 'in flood' and we would need to take a jet boat. Strangely enough, the jet boat guy reckoned we would need to take his jet boat as well.

Not convinced, we thought we would go down and have a look for ourselves. The crossing was a waist deep affair, but not too swift and we were pleased that we gave it a go (even if that meant wet undies for the tramp up the river). We later found out the trampers before us that decided the river was flooded were from Aussie and weren't used to seeing water in rivers.

The tramp itself was uneventful. Beautiful rivers, spectacular pass, fantastic weather, blah blah blah.

My boots started to give me some grief after 17 days tramping without a decent wax, so I wore Ben's running shoes for most of it.

We did our traditional farm traverse at the bottom of the Wilkin. This consists of skirting around herds of curious (and somewhat threatening) cows and making even wider arcs (usually through prickly shrubs) to avoid the huge bulls. Ben normally forgets about his promise to save me from harm and walks as fast as he possibly can, hoping I am enough of a distraction should one decide to charge.

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Photos

Siberia Valley
What idiot decided this was like Siberia? Quite the opposite.