Looking back through past blogs, it seems we have developed a habit of long tramps around the solstices. Last year we tramped the Black Hills in June, then the Orongorongo in December (both summer); then earlier this year we climbed Holdsworth around Matariki. This summer, barring the end of the world as foretold by the Myan calendar, I decided to do a solo hike in the Aorangi Range, a compact (but daunting, it turns out) set of hills tucked in the remote Cape Palliser.
Before heading up, I first decided to greet some stinky friends at the seal colony on the rocks near the lighthouse. Here I found lots of pups wailing for mum, and some of those mums howling at me when I got too close. The little ones like to climb higher up than the adults for their naps, and you practically step on them before they announce themselves.
The remnants of cyclone Evan, which had battered Samoa and Fiji, were passing through, but the menacing squalls produced little in the way of rain, and by the following morning the sky was dense with mist, but utterly still and warm.
I had not tramped in the Aorangi Ranges before, and aside from a rather die-hard cohort of pig hunters, it seems neither has anyone else. From the Pinnacles, the first 4k is an old 4WD track that passes through beech, then scrub bush--and a lot of gorse! Thereafter, it's little more than a pig track (and plenty rooted up by the buggers) through very dense--and on this day, wet--bush.
In the end, these "afterthought" hills turned out to be a formidable day hike. I covered the 20k and 1600m total altitude gain/loss in just over 9 hours, and in the process became intimately familiar with the tree nettle (I still have paresthisias in my hands and shins a day later). Needless to say, I'll be going back to bag Mt Ross (982m) some other day. Merry Christmas!
