Leader: Kate Krawczyk
Participants: Debbie Hogan, John Whibley, Leah Parker, Catherine Doherty, Troy Dixon, Clare Quested, Sue Henley
Eight happy trampers set off from Nelson at 7:30 am on Saturday morning.
A coffee stop at Rivers cafe in Murchison was a must of course but it ended up turning into a full breakfast stop after Sue raved to us about the wonderful breakfast she'd had there recently on a trip back from Hanmer.
We reached the track car park just before noon, which was a bit later than I'd hoped but we had plenty of daylight on our side. An hour long road bash saw us at the bottom of the long spur that we would climb for the next four hours. The track was steep in places but it is a lovely ridge with some nice flattish spots and great views out over Westport and the West coast. A bucket with a hole in the lid acted as a water supply with the label 'halfway point'. We didn't know if it meant halfway up the ridge or halfway from the car park. Turns out it's halfway from the carpark as there was still a long climb ahead of us. It was a bit drizzly as forecasted which cooled us down as we ground ever upwards.
We reached the hut around 5 and Catherine and Clare opted to set up their tents on the tiny flat spot out in front of the hut. It is a beautiful and spacious 6 bunk hut but there is very little flat ground for tenting around it.
We settled in to our meals and a quiet evening of monopoly deal when Sue said she saw another two people descending into the basin where the hut is situated. Yikes... we were taking up the whole place with 8 people and two tents!
It was a lovely couple from Westport who had come up to celebrate their sixth anniversary. They had no tent or air mattresses with them so we gladly shared our gear and blew up two mattresses for them. We had all brought tents and mattresses just in case. These days you can never be sure that there will be a bunk available.
The next morning we were up and heading up the tops at 8am. It was a beautiful sunny and calm morning - perfect for exploring the tops. It took about an hour to gain the flat topped group of bumps that are called Buckland Peaks. There are some lovely tarns and good campsites up there. The views are 360 degrees and you can even see Mt.Cook in the distance!
We descended to the hut and were heading back down by 11:00. It only took 4 hours to get back down to the vehicles from there and the views were amazing the whole way.
