tramping new zealand

Six months before, I had organised to walk the Heaphy Track with my sister and her husband in February, and I realised with my usual slow travel, it was time to start pointing northwards.

When I was in the Old Man Range around Christmas, I contemplated visiting the two Junction Huts, but I decided to head towards Wānaka and spend those few days before New Year’s Eve.

On my way north, I thought I might as well go via Roxburgh, pick up some more cherries to which I had become addicted, and burn off a bit of excess energy with another day trip to the huts.

I could drive a fair way up the hill, and park at a locked gate. It was high above the Clutha River, within sight of the old dam that I had once visited as a child.

My father‘s grandfather was the postmaster at Roxburgh and he also operated one of the first telephone lines in the country.

I was thinking it was a relatively easy walk, but when I got to the top of the hill not so far from the car, I found that I had misread the contour lines on the map, and there was a heap more climbing to do, and it was much further down to the huts that were way down on the river.

Oh well, I was trying to get plenty of exercise in for the summer.

I think I overachieved today.