2-4 December 2016 

Friday and Saturday (from the poetic writings of Sweet Pea):

Four keen trampers ready to rumble;

Everyone is happy and no need to mumble

Bushline hut was the goal for the night;

The wind chill was up, had a bit of a bite

Our hut became full of international folk;

Including two Irish lads who were cracking a joke

Saturday’s mission was to Angelus Lake;

With beautiful scenery and photos to take

Rock hopping and snow did not make it easy;

And when one of us fell down and felt a bit queasy,

We all stuck together and plodded the track;

Arriving at the finish there were pats on the back

Moroccan lamb’s on the menu and the fire’s just been lit;

So to sum up the day, it’s been a tremendous hit

 

Sunday:

The weather forecast was dubious although the day started out beautifully as you can see in the ‘Reflections of Angelus’ photo. I thought I was erring on the side of caution by choosing to return to the Mt Robert carpark by the Speargrass route. Perhaps I was. This picturesque route is steep in places with a rocky, fast-flowing stream which had a remarkable amount of water in it. I guess it was snow-melt. We needed to cross the stream about ten times. If I’d known it was going to be so many, I’d have officially counted the crossings. Lesley and I were so glad to have Andrew and David with us. They were great at hunting out the best crossing spots and then at helping us across each one. Thanks guys, we so appreciated you. Four hours after leaving Lake Angelus hut we arrived at the Speargrass hut for a well-earned lunch break spent with the couple who had the night before cooked a communal chocolate cake on a modern version of a camp oven which fitted on their primus. Pity they live in Christchurch as they’d be a great asset to the club.

From Speargrass hut it was another three hours out to Mt Robert carpark. Once again the journey was trickier than expected with Andrew saying that in his opinion the word ‘track’ was a misnomer for it and ‘route’ would be a more apt description.

 

The trip earned its moderate to hard rating. Each of us was proud to have accomplished it. For Andrew and me it was our first time to Lake Angelus (why did we wait so long?) and for Lesley and David it was a re-visit after 20+ years. The party consisted of Alison, leader and Sunday scribe, Andrew, David and Lesley G.