Queens Birthday Weekend Tramping

Dougal decided some weeks back he'd do the Duke of Edinburgh Award, so amongst all the activities tramping had to be done. Something about having to achieve 25 Km, which to me is a bit meaningless as tramping in NZ is all about time, but we did it anyway. And how fitting to do the Duke's Award on the Queens Birthday Weekend!

The tramp was very full-on. Winter tramping at it's best perhaps - no sandflies and trails that were creeks. Physically it really pushed me as did the uncanny responsibility of finding the trail to the Upper Caples hut in the dark on Sat. night. Another of life's rabbits pulled out of a hat!

There is little safety margin in winter with a large group - only discretion and a bloody minded respect for short daylight hours. On Sunday we were only 30 mins. from McKellar Saddle up in the beautiful alpine shrubbery, but the group simply said "we have to go back - we don't want to be navigating in the bush again at night" . I was keen to push on, but it's as well we did go back as we had some slowness on the return.

Last night I built a web site for the boys: >> more