Flirting with the Clutha 👀

Dragonfly Peak and some

East Matukituki redux

Got my mojo, and my paddle back

“Trail Run” Sentinel Peak

Solo day testing my nav and my nerves 😅 Seems a little more intimidating when you’re making decisions in serious country by yourself. 

Stroll down the Kitchener Stream from the Biv while eating breaky from the pot, marched up to Albert Burn Saddle, lunch while debating whether to take my gear up Dragonfly and attempt the traverse to Eostre, decided not to and summited Dragonfly Peak, returned to find coworker Ross at the saddle, talked myself back into the traverse with the help of Ross, climbed Dragonfly again this time with my gear, descended a quite scary snowfield on the SW face that turned out to be entirely unnecessary, spicy traverse and scramble through a small cliff band to attain the ridge, thoroughly welcomed to the ridge by a squadron of Kea (see video) which went on for about 15 minutes off and on along the ridge, could see rain in the next valley over and being as Eostre is basically one giant exposed tussock pyramid I had to make a decision - were the Kea warning me off the ridge? Omens, steep exposed tussock slopes and rain on the horizon made for a long hard decision especially because I hadn’t really researched Mill Creek, luckily I atleast had the good sense to take a bunch of photos of the guide book anyway and it looked feasible from the description so I bailed off the ridge down into Mill creek at my only opportunity, some straightforward but interesting nav negotiating the two branches of Mill Creek with some help from old stock tracks that were used to run cattle in the area, filthy scrub now covering some of that stock track, “open beach forest” that is full of windfall bush bash, finishing with some spicy sedimentary quick sand in the Matukituki and a semi spicy river crossing to boot. 

There was also a strange amount of sea gulls hanging around which was giving me weird weather vibes. 

30km ish of off track travel and nav almost all done off paper map, good to get through it, might go for something easy like a kayak or mountain bike now 😅😮‍💨

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Cullen Browne

Dragonfly Peak and some

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Flirting with the Clutha 👀

Dragonfly Peak and some

East Matukituki redux

Got my mojo, and my paddle back

“Trail Run” Sentinel Peak

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