So last night I went to see the new Bond movie I have not really liked any of the Bond’s since the original Sean Connery and really the movie was awful…..how can a man that wears too tight clothes fight helicopters, monsters of men train disasters and not even get a little cut….no stars for this movie from me!
Breakfast this morning was wonderful fresh fruits, cereal and home made bread and tea and juice and I also got a pack up lunch for my hike.
The weather was not great but I needed to get out and do a good hike and I picked a hard hike to a mountain hut…the book said 7 hours return very steep and muddy…never has a book been so right.
the drive there was pretty
That is a lot of cows!!!
This is the summit I was going for
I was well equipped but the first two minutes was through waist high grasses and my boots and legs were soaked immediately
the track was well signed
after the grass the track was rugged with rocks, leaves broken branches and it went up and I mean up!!!!
After about an hour all I had seen were trees I was well in the bush and I was drenched but happy…came to this stream and managed to get over without getting too wet and continued upwards. This was a really hard climb and I stopped often to catch my breath….I was going through mud holes and waterlogged tracks and was still in the forest…I was thinking soon I have to get out of the forest and just as I got to a clearing…. up into more forests. I must say this was the most boring hike I have ever done…when I was not looking down at my feet for good footholds to get over it was all trees.
I do not know how long I had been going but I started to have doubts about continuing…the Pearson “don’t give up” is in me but also common sense too. What I did know is that going down was going to be twice as hard and twice as long…so I made a decision to stop and turn around……my shirt was soaked so I put a dry one on and then my raincoat, had a sandwich and a banana and a drink and extended my trekking pole and started the decent and as I thought it was much harder..everything was so slippy and I slipped at least a dozen times but managed to catch myself with out too much fuss except when I got to the small river..the level was much higher than a few hours before and as I was crossing it I slipped backwards landed on my back snapped my pole in half and got thoroughly soaked….all I could think of was James Bond all he went through last night without even a sore finger and here is me on a trek getting thrown this way and that bruised and bloody and wet!!!
Well I was really happy to see TP waiting for me tried to take shots to prove I was wet!!!
Not my best George Clooney shot……I stripped off all my clothes towelled myself put on dry stuff and another sandwich and a drink and realized I was gone just over 6 hours!!!!
I stopped off at the pub where I stayed two nights ago and bought another roast lamb dinner to bring back here.
Got home and the kind hosts offered to do a load of laundry for me which I accepted I had a cup of tea and jumped into a wonderful hot Epsom salt bath……
Had my delicious dinner and now doing some more planning on the computer.
I leave tomorrow and go north again about 150 km the forecast is for rain and I have a cabin booked close to the ocean for two nights.
So ends a day in which I am thankful I was able to hike for that length of time get back with out injury and this will go down in the history books as the James Bond hike which was just as nasty and hard as the movie!!!!!
Yashi Kochi!!!
2 comments:
Oh Les, what a nightmare hike. Good thing you started back down when you did or the river could have been impossible to cross.
Peter has it out for Jack Bauer, he gets shot in the leg and hours later can run a marathon, knifed in the stomach, no problem, he can climb the mountain peak!!!! Lol.
Wish I could do that..thanks have a great day les
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