Mt. St. Bathans
Sat 16th/Sun 17th February 2013
Six of us set out in two vehicles at 9am on a sunny Saturday morning. Uwe, who was supposed to co-lead with Brent opted to stay home after coming down with a cold on Thursday.
We made our way to St. Bathan’s, where we had a coffee (most important) at the historic Vulcan Hotel and Jac a play with the black lab who enjoyed a game of soccer. We then walked around the well laid out track along the “Blue Lake” or formerly known “Glory Hole”, where at its high time gold was sluiced.
We carried on towards the Manuherikia River and after about 5km of challenging (for me as I haven’t done much of it) 4 Wheel driving with several river crossings we arrived at our destination of Boundary Creek Hut near the East Branch of the Manuherikia. The DOC hut is a tidy 8 bunk hut with a fire place and a very small creek behind. We organised our sleeping arrangements, some of us put up a tent, 3 slept in the hut. Then we set off on foot to explore Mutton Creek track, a 4 wheel drive track over a saddle just across the river. We enjoyed pleasant views as we also tried to figure out a way up the ridge to Mt. St. Bathans, our object for the next day.
After dinner and with an early rise in mind we headed to bed with the chooks (not that there were any).
The alarm went off at 5.30am, all packed up and ready to go we started out just before 7 in low cloud. We followed a 4 wheel track up the ridge for about two hours, and at a height of about 1600m the cloud opened up and the views just got better and better. It was like diving into the other direction, another world up there! In bright sunshine and a bit of a breeze we carried on upwards. As it turned out a boundary fence on the ridgeline had been taken out by big machines, evidence being holes all along the upper track, fence posts and loose wire and ongoing 4 wheel drive track nearly up to the top. With rocks and some interesting rock formations this part looked like the surface of the moon! We arrived at the top after 4.5hrs of walking, just right for lunch!
The 360 deg view was amazing: the coast to the east, Mt. Aspiring to the south west, Mt. Cook to the north west. and the Kakanui Ranges to the north east. Time flew, we spent a whole hour on the summit of Mt. St. Bathan’s at 2086m, taking in the views. Also the cloud had pretty much disappeared in the valleys. The only flaw being piles of rubble including seven black car batteries and wood leftover from a triangle trig.
The way down the same track took only about 2.5hrs, a distance of about 9.5km, and descending roughly 1,300 meters, so we arrived back at the hut mid afternoon. Not long after that we drove back – more 4WD road – via Falls Dam and the settlement of small cribs. The drive took a lot longer than was thought and by the time we got to Palmerston it was 7pm and everyone was hungry. Fish’n Chips filled the gap and there was enough time for Graham to catch the bus to Dunedin for work the next morning.
The rest of us carried on back home, tired, but pleased to have had a great time.
Sylvia for Brent , Jac, Matt, Graham and Jane.
