tramping new zealand

What a day!

It started with a frost despite a strong wind, and I packed up my tent with ice still on it.

A family that arrived after I was in my sleeping bag and shared the hut with the other guy last night, packed up quickly and departed in their four-wheel-drive. The guy stayed around a little longer, but in the end, I had the place to myself for an hour.

After all, I just had to walk down the hill to the car.

It started wonderfully on a delightful grassed four-wheel-drive track until I got to the Snow Farm. Suddenly, there were a lot of 2 m high fences around, where I had to circumnavigate the perimeter. The fence is to keep people out, as this is where they secretly test European cars for winter conditions.

While the fenced area was flat, I was climbing up and down, and it wasn’t until an hour and a half had passed that I reached the road down the hill. It was now after 12 pm.

I missed a possible ride down the hill by a few minutes just before I hit the road. Shortly after, I spotted a 12.5 km sign. It seemed it was a very long way down to the Cadrona Road.

I still had more than 1,000 m of descent, but the day had warmed, with no clouds; all was well with the world.

Fortunately, after an hour of plodding with my toes rubbing against the front of my hiking shoes, another car appeared and I caught a ride. She had just dropped off her keen mountain biking husband as far up the hill as possible, and kindly took me down almost to my car.

It was considerably warmer in the valley and didn’t have the big wind blowing that had meant I kept my vest and raincoat on.

Talk about overclad.

Before long, I was resupplying at the 5 Mile shopping centre and enjoying some fresh food.

It was now 6 pm, and I was heading up the Coronet Peak Road, where you turn off for the Skippers Road.

I noted all the signage warning against driving rental vehicles down there, as they would be uninsured, but I had no problem driving down in my two-wheel drive vehicle.

I soon realised my folly. There was no place to turn back, and I came to the conclusion that I had made a huge mistake. No chance of getting to the camping site at the old Skippers township, where I anticipated going.

It would still be reasonably light at 10 pm.

Making the most of it, Atley Terrace Hut seemed like a good place to spend the night. After all, you just sidle around, along the contour more or less.

As it turned out, it was mostly more, due to some slips to climb over, but the views into Skipper Gorge were great.

Goats around, and I probably saw 30. At the hut, a hut book entry stated that contract hunters had recently eliminated more than 1,200 goats.

The hut turned out to be near derelict, so I whacked up my faithful tent. Still damp after the melting of the frost.

A good hut to camp outside, I thought.

I’d worry about whether the car had sufficient zip to get back up the hill tomorrow.

That might need to wait till the cool of the evening, when hopefully there would be no incoming vehicles on the mostly narrow one-way road. If I had to stop to let someone pass, I might not be able to get the car up the steep dirt single-lane road.