Saturday 21st March
We used a transport service to take us to the beginning of our big 6 day walk , a van from ” Glenorchy Journeys” arrived on schedule at about 9 am with four Aussy guys also embarked on the same expedition and as chance would have it they had planned exactly the same route with the same hut bookings – thrust together in the breech of another adventure.

Greenstone valley pics

Boaz the coffee King with a commanding voice , Sinclair the lighting designer who likes “demarchy” , Big John -alpha male and the de facto leader and Dan the ” special door ” man. They proved interesting companions – their point of connection is their shared interest in Steiner Schooling all having some direct involvement in supporting this system not to mention kids being educated there.
Called them the “A team “- they demonstrated quite startling conversational stamina – the sort of stamina that you often find in groups of woman out for coffee😉 were in almost continuous fairly loud animated discussion and debate. Boaz would play the devils advocate with his big voice , the talk was interesting sometimes intellectual and often amusing. Barb became camp mother to her Aussy Bros , dishing out blister bandages and other motherly advice from time to time. They also had chocolate – lots of chocolate – claimed they packed 15 x 300 GM blocks. We shared

Pics near Lake McKellar and Lake Howden

Key Summit – from the Howden hut we did a side trip back up to the ” divide ” and up the Key Summit. A climb with stunning views that I did way back about 1960 when I was a kid . Memories of that walk over 50 years ago flooded back.

McKenzie Hut area – was a cloudy and windy day as we climbed steadily from Howden Hut – up and finally above the tree line at about 1000 metres before dropping down to lake McKenzie.

The forecast for the our walk over the Harris Saddle was poor – and indeed we did have cloud that obscured the other side of the Hollyford valley. We put the raincoats on due to some light misty rain but we did not get the heavy rain we had expected. The views from the top of the Harris saddle looking down into Lake Harris were still pretty cool.

Had our food cache waiting for us on the final night as Routeburn Falls hut which made for a wonderful dinner. Still walked out with our big block of Cadbury Hazelnut Chocolate – didn’t need it with the A team dishing out a plentiful ration including a massive Toblerone .
A nice little 3 hour amble out to the road where this lovely young lady from DOC gave us a lift back to the 5 th wheel. Hot water on – showers away –

Stats – approx 68 Kms – both of us feeling fit and well and ready and rearing for the next adventure .