As you may have noticed, I've been bloody slack on the blog front. This isn't due to lack of adventures, so I'll do my best to recap the last few months (wow, it really HAS been that long). Here's the highlights reel:
In May Pondy, Becky and I went for a typical FishSoc style outing to the Waimakariri river mouth; beautiful conditions and a nice view, but no fish!
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| Looking over towards Banks Peninsula (south) |
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| The local sailing club |
I often have to remind myself that there's a good reason they call it fishing rather than catching. Though it's hard to be upset after spending a day chilling on the riverbank on a sunny autumn day.
Early June Scott and I cruised out to Akaroa. I'm still surprised that I hadn't been out there before then! The township itself is fairly touristy, but quite nice none the less. We wasted little time before heading up the hills for a better view. It was a ripper of a day, with a stiff breeze keeping us on our toes at the ridgeline.
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| Looking over the township |
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| 'Stiff Breeze' |
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| Looking over the harbor. We climbed to the edge of the hill on the left |
July brought the snow - in a big way. This inevitably clashes hard with uni work, but it would be rude not to take advantage of a fresh 1.5m base at your doorstep! Needless to say we were up there shredding the gnar before you could say "C's get degrees". Jack, Ryan, Clarence (Courtney) and I cruised up to Porters a couple of days in a row for a good session. Bluebird skies and improving conditions over the two days made for excellent times, despite being a tad gusty on the first day.
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| The drive through Arthurs Pass |
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| Jack and Ryan at the top of the T-bar lifts (second day) |
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| This is a 360 panorama of the view from the top. View in full resolution if possible! |
Drama ensued when Jack's car's front tyre was punctured one a rock on the first day up. Being a front wheel drive car, two tyres needed to be changed. Normally this wouldn't have been a big deal, but the 130km/h (81mph for you American folk :P ) gusting winds in the carpark made things tricky. Gloves and teatowels were amongst the casualties, being blown off a bluff into the snow-making reservoir. The second day was much more mild and we managed to make it up to the top for some stunner views! Bloody beautiful mate.
Later in the month came a uni break. I took full advantage and hooked up with the Canterbury Uni Tramping Club for a four day foray in the Lewis Pass area. Below is the link to all of the photos I have access to from the trip (beware the partial nudity!):
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2UZ2FzyLdrXOFE3OFc5N0hmMGcAnd here's a link to the DOC website with track and hut descriptions, for those interested:
http://www.doc.govt.nz/stjameswalkway
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| Me, Stephanie, Michelle, Susanne, Zeynab, Mitchell and Matt at the start of the track |
Despite the relatively flat terrain, the days were often long hard slogs - from memory I think the shortest day we had was six hours long.
The first day was mainly through beech forest valleys with mossy-rocked streams. On the second day the terrain opened up a bit into sparse beech and tussock land. Snow on the second night / third day kept us on our toes- luckily it was only 30cm deep over the pass, so progress wasn't slowed too badly. Making our way through the Anne pass, I was amazed at how quickly the novelty of snow-laden beech trees wore off. Plugging foot holes and bashing beech branches takes its toll; safe to say we were all pretty happy to get to the hut that night.
With the drama out of the way it was a relatively easy walk out to the carpark on the fourth day. It was a sad goodbye back in Christchurch - it's amazing how well you get to know people after spending four challenging days out in the backcountry with them! No doubt we'll tee up another adventure in future.
A couple of days later Pondy and I made the annual pilgrimage out to lake Coleridge for a fish. Coleridge is a big spawning spot for trout and salmon in the winter months, so it's a fairly regular haunt for a keen few. Last visit here none of us had waders - which doesn't sound like to much of a biggie - but when the lake has been topped up with snow-melt for the last few weeks, it's less than tropical on the old legs. This time we were fully prepared; waders, spinner rods, fly rods, nymphs, streamers, you name it we had it.
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| Geoffrey in his natural habitat |
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| Back-cast snags for days! |
Unfortunately this didn't translate into catching fish! (can you see a common thread emerging from our fishing excursions?) The conditions were a bit gusty initially but things calmed down as the day progressed and we traveled further around the lake, which made for a nice day in any case.
Towards the end of July Scott, Jack and I cruised down to Wanaka for a couple of days up Cardrona ski field. The fields down south are easily my favourites in New Zealand from what I've boarded. Cardrona has mean wide open bowls, with easy transfer points across the faces into other bowls. It gives you a lot of variety in your runs - heaps of fun! Unfortunately I wasn't very onto it with the photography on this trip, so one cloudy view from the top is all I can show! This is looking out the back of the field, with the main faces behind me.
We had a wicked time. A big thanks to Pearl and her flatties for putting us up for a couple of nights!
That's all of the adventures I have pictures for! Recently - last Wednesday - Scott and I did a local walk up to the summit of Mt Oxford (1360m, ish) which was cool - plenty of snow up near the summit.
I'm currently back home in Hamilton catching up with friends and family, which is well overdue. You can take the boy out of the Waikato, but you can't take the Waikato out of the boy!
Thank you for reading, sorry it was so long!
- Russell.
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