Onwards to Lake Hawea

A big feature of the trail has been the numerous river crossings and inherent wet feet. Often the crossings are easy and can be done solo however on occassion a more robust approach is required. Here we work together to cross a river linking arms behind each others backs to be more rigid in  the face of the strong currents. Even using this technique care needs to be taken on very occassions Phil has joined in , but there has been a certain amount of anxiety that he would pull us over in his bull headedness.

This particular section whilst barren in the main, was enhanced by lots and lots of these beautiful berry bushes with their striking red berries.

Private Hut - see note below.

This is the morning after the night before. The previous day we set forth and Phil forged ahead in typical style however at a private hut the route became tricky and without the aid of map or compass he proceeded to climb the wrong mountain and descend the other side before he realised that we were not following him. In the meantime I had also made the same mistake but realised I was off track fairly quickly. I had a strong feeling that Phil had gone the wrong way but also realised that Madelaine was heading in the currect direction but without shelter as by now we had posted Madeleines tent with broken pole on to Queenstown to be repaired. I caught Madeleine explained that I thought Phil had gone the wrong way and then went back. Some time later an exhausted Phil appeared having walked 15 kilometers and two large climbes unnecesarilly - Phil has brought a great deal of humour but also chaos to the team - this has never occured before. We then had a large climb over a beautiful pass in order to reach our hut but because of the chaos we were very short of time and arrived at night using head torches and with last minute river crossings to contend with.