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Published: March 17th 2007
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After watching Ben's rogaine, I was itching to get back into the hills. This was probably going to be our last tramp before leaving New Zealand and we wanted to do something a little more challenging. I think we found what we were looking for...
I dragged Ben into Lake Daniells, which is a nice 2 hour walk near Springs Junction on the Lewis Pass. I thought something was amiss. It seemed like I was charging up the track while Ben was lagging behind. Anyone who has tramped with Ben will know that he is always on your heels. For him to be even 5 steps behind is quite unusual.
The next morning I had a lot of trouble waking him up. I put the alarm over his ear. I poked and prodded him. I booted him with my foot. I brought him a steaming mug of tea and even breakfast in bed! Still barely a muffled mmmmph. Clearly, he needed more rest after the rogaine. So we had a pit day. I read almost all of my book and ate half our food. We went for a sneaky nudie swim away from the Canadian tourists.
The next
day we were off track almost immediately. We made our way over to Thompson Flats Hut, which looks like an old forestry service hut, but must be on private land now. From here, nothing seemed to go our way. First, the flats were really boggy and we got wet feet as we sneaked across them.
Then, as we climbed over the base of a ridge to get to an unnamed stream, Ben got stung by a wasp. The whole back of his knee swelled up into a red hot puff ball. Next, Ben got stuck in a mud patch. I mean really stuck. This patch beat even Stewart Island mud. It was thick, deep and ruthless. It took us at least 1/4 of an hour to get him out. No amount of pulling or pushing would do it. Ben had to scoop the mud out from around his legs with his hands. I kept back for fear of getting stuck too.
The stream was supposed to have good travel up to a saddle, but it was full of windfall and slippery rocks and took forever. We had a late lunch just on the bush line, watching the wind
and rain howl across the saddle.
Over the other side our route guide told us to look for a tarn and a blazed trail. We couldn't see much and ended up pioneering our own 'route' down a dodgy gut, followed by an old slip face, and lastly some grovelly creek beds and ridges, finally coming across the blazed trail when we didn't need it, near the bottom.
When we finally broke through the trees and onto the Glenroy River, we debated whether to push on to the hut. A track was marked on the map, but given our experiences of that afternoon, tracks don't seem to mean much. We cut our losses and set up camp. A good thing too, as we found out the next day.
Our not-so-trusty route guide said 'sidle high above gorges (blah de blah) following old blazed trail'. It wasn't so simple. It took us all morning to get about 500m up the river. The sidle was pretty terrible. Steep, greasy in patches, with lots of slips. There were remains of the trail in parts, but we wasted a lot of time trying to find it and often used the animal trails
instead. Ben managed to poke himself in his eye and ear with a stick. Later on, he had a spontaneous malfunction, lost his balance, and had the misfortune of falling back onto a patch of stinging nettle. Oh the agony - which was somewhat prolonged as I attempted to pull both him and his pack out of their predicament. His ass was on fire for the rest of the day.
By lunch we got to the flats where the hut was supposed to be. All we found was the remains of a huge bonfire. Someone had obviously had a party and burnt the hut for wood. Any mutinous ideas about staying at the hut for the rest of the day vanished and we continued our slog up the valley.
The lowlight of the afternoon was the most abominable scrub bash across and down what was probably an old avalanche path. The stuff was all but impenetrable. We could see glorious tussock flats, 200m away from us. It took about an hour of pushing, pulling, squeezing, cussing, swearing, crawling, and bum sliding before we found ourselves on the river once again.
Quote of the day:
Ben: (stuck somewhere,
with branches poking every orifice, hearing Kat's blood curdling screeches) "Kat do you need a hug"
Kat: (more swearing and bloodcurdling screeches) "I don't need a hug, I need a frigging HELICOPTER!!!!!"
By late afternoon, we had made it to the bush line. Keas laughed at us as we set up camp and watched the sun set on the tips of the hills.
The night was a little chilly, and it was only when our tent fly froze while we were having breakfast that we realised it was actually really cold (yay for down jackets). Thankfully my boots were still pliable, but pulling on the wet socks was mighty unpleasant.
We continued up the river to the head of the valley. Most of the travel was good going, although there were a few small waterfalls to climb up or around. I had the odd moment where I was clinging to a few blades of tussock, willing them not to break, while my legs scrabbled around for purchase.
Thankfully, it was a beautiful fine day. The sun burst over the ridge just as we started our climb to the Ferguson Range. The climb up the tussock slopes
looked steep from every angle, but it was actually very straight forward - our first gimmee of the trip. From the tops, we had a commanding view of the entire Lewis Pass area. Ah yes, that's why we do it. Tramping is actually fun.
From there, we set about finding our way onto the St James walkway and the Maruia River. The glacial valleys are all steep sided and there are not many options for getting off the tops.
We peeked over the edge and scoped the route suggested by the route guide. This was basically a very steep slip. Ben was adamant - "no frickin way I'm going down there". Instead, we took what seemed to us to be a much more obvious route down a creek formed at the bottom of a scree slide. This turned out to be superb. We practically waltzed our way down an easy gravel bed, popping out on the track about 20 minutes from Cannibal Gorge Hut.
The next day was an easy womble down the St James walkway. A nice tramping party from Auckland gave us a ride back to our car, rounding off the trip.
I think we are well and done with tramping now. My knees start to hurt if I even so much as look at my pack. Ben still has gaping holes in his feet, thanks to the rogaine and crappy boots.
Now, we are back in Wellington briefly. We sold the car and have a week to tidy things up before we head to Argentina!
Can't wait.
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Nick
non-member comment
Nice Bog
Like the look of the mud bog. Hows the spanish going