Baton River  14th March

Only four people signed up for this trip so that meant we could all get into the track start in Rod’s 4WD van. It was a fine day with no clouds to be seen and after a 90 minute drive from Nelson we approached the Ellis River ford with some trepidation but we were soon across with just a couple of Clunks from rocks hitting the vans undercarriage. However a short distance on the cavernous ruts in the road reduced us to slower than walking pace so we parked up booted up and set off on the farm road for about 2.5 km to the picnic area adjacent to the Baton River swing bridge. Once on the true left we made steady progress but once the track dropped down to River level then up again David found the terrain too demanding and he settled for a wait on the river bank while the other 3 went on a distance until they got confused by the map and the track being in the wrong places and after losing their way a couple of times they stopped for lunch before turning round.

at baton swingbridge 2

Meanwhile David was diverted by a young kid that appeared on the opposite bank and browsed for about 10 minutes unconcerned, Kerry led the others on the return leg and we regrouped at the picnic table at the picnic area where two group photos were required to get everyone in.

We noticed that a collecting of bullet casings had been arranged on the picnic table presumably by an industrious child. The drive back was broken by a stop for ice creams at the Upper Moutere store.

Participants: Rod (Leader) and Carole Lewis, Kerry Jones and David Cook (Scribe).