The weekend with trap monitoring and Mike away skiing

 Hi,

What a fantastic weekend.  Mike will blog and tell you all about his ski weekend - and I hope he tells you all about the cow they bought.  Yep - anticipation right there.

Friday night I went out for drinks to Dockside after work with some work mates.  Went to Willis St New World before I Ubered home.  So I was a bit late starting my packing for the tramping weekend.  After some hassles I had gathered most of my gear and fell into bed.

I was up super early Saturday morning (5.20am) and away by 6.30am.  At Sally and Andrew's place just before 7am and swapped my gear to the Corolla and they kindly let me park the Focus in their garage.  Left my keys with Sally in case she wanted to drive the fast car. :-)

Then we were off.  Stopped at the French bakery for brekkie (Pain au Chocolat for me, some hideous raisin thing for Andrew) and got to Holdsworth car park at 8.30am.  Ate our pastries there and then kitted up for the trap monitoring morning.

Tararuas at 8.15am looking like a winter wonderland

The recent snow had left the park looking like a magical place - the tops were covered in a decent amount of snow.

I was paired with Jackie and we did line 2.  Up 3/4 of the way to Atiwhakatu Hut then into the bush.  The river was up after the recent deluge so we couldn't do half our line.  We rock hopped up the true right of the river to keep dry and then headed up, across the track to Atiwhakatu, and on up the bush.  Did our 5 tunnels and back to the track.

Jackie and the snow

We were out by 12:05pm.  We found Andrew already out after splitting his line up with someone.  Eric took us back for a cuppa at his place before we devised a plan to have us lay out the monitoring pads for a few of the lines across the river.

We would get the warden's keys for Atiwhakatu hut and head up there for the night.  Get away early and cross the river (which would have dropped level by then) and head up the spur to the top of Pinnacle ridge.  From there we would lay out line 4 and line - the other number.  Which I forget now.

Andrew and I in the warden's room

 After having a lovely cup of tea courtesy of Eric and Deb we swapped out our gear for our overnight gear and left the car park at 1430.  We got to Atiwhakatu by 1640 or so and settled into the tiny warden's room.  Andrew made a space for us on the table by rearranging the cleaning products.  There was a camping chair so I sat on the bottom bunk and Andrew used the chair and lit the candle he brought.  After a bit he made dinner (boiled water on his penny stove for the dehy meals).  I had chosen Malaysian curry and Andrew had vege stir fry.  But after we tasted each others one, I asked him for his.  It was good enough that I ate the whole meal.  And Andrew also made dehy apple pie.  He decanted into the billy for his portion and I ate my way down the remainder in the foil pack.  And I discovered all the raisins.  Yuck.  Andrew got the last bit to eat.  It was basically just raisins!

Into bed by 8pm and well asleep by 9pm I reckon.  I was woken up by someone growling at a group of young people playing a game in the common area around 9.30pm.  Ironic that the happy conversation from the group was fine but the single irate person woke me up!

Selfie time

Awake at 6am and after stuffing down muesli (okay - not the best for brekkie for me) we were away by 7am.

Immediately crossed the river but probably too far downstream.  Had to wander through a low, slushy part before we got up onto a spur and eventually found a decent path up.

It took me 1.5 hours to climb up that spur.  Phew!  That tuckered me out a fair bit - bush bashing with a day pack and trekking sneakers is a different prospect to the overnight tramping backpack and proper boots.  And the boots were quite wet after the river crossing - so heavy too.  :-)

View point up to Jumbo

The Pinnacle ridge track was stunning.  Goblin forest and not a breath of wind.  Absolutely beautiful.  The two monitoring lines were hard work.  Tree fall and what not.  The top line saw me constantly catching up with Andrew as he finished setting out the pads.  Not sure why I was there really.  :-p

At one point I walked downhill onto a stabby branch and jabbed a decent gouge out of my arm.  That made me grunt a bit more than my usual clumping through the undergrowth grunt, so Andrew called out I should just wait there.

So I sat down and watched the blood dribble down my arm.  Then I realised I should help clotting by holding it up, whereby I watched the blood up my arm.  Made it look quite impressive by the time Andrew got back from the tunnels.

My stabby wound

He patched it up with a decent plaster that managed to stay on until we were almost done and it kept out the dirt I would have otherwise accumulated there.

Top of the spur on Pinnacle ridge

The next line was further down the Pinnacle ridge track and I had switched to my sneakers by then.  But the gully partway through the line was hard work.  Wet, soggy and I lot of scrambling.  So I was basically done in by then.  Trying to climb up banks of dirt with my fingers digging in to find any sort of handhold.  I did slide down the bank a bit at one point, stopped by a handy ponga.  

Andrew helped me back up to the "trail".

We finally popped back onto the track and headed down to the river.  Eric waited with Chloe and Kona on the other side and I put my tramping boots back on for the crossing.  It was easy by then though.

Back for a cuppa and to switch out for clean clothes.  Then away by 2.30pm and into Everest cafe in Featherston for a quick late lunch.

Switched back to the Focus at 5pm at Sally and Andrew's place and home for a bath.  Ahhhh.  Emptied my gear and into bed very early.

Mike got home after 9pm but I was well asleep and didn't catch up with him until Monday morning.  Busy week at work.  

Hope your week is a good one.

Love,

Angela