At the beginning of semester here myself and Rowan (a kiwi OUTC member) had planned a trip to Mavora Lakes. The weather looked pretty bad, but we had a busload of people keen to get out somewhere, even if it was going to be wet and cold so we decided to go anyways. The theme of our trip was “blind optimism in the face of bad weather forecasts” and it worked out quite well for us. We left Friday night after getting some last minute supplies from the grocery store. I bought the spices to make mulled wine, but Rowan bought white wine stating “I thought it would taste better chilled”. So we had to go back in and buy red wine as well. Things were shaping up to be a good trip.
Our 6 person successful pyramid before the failed 10 person one.
After a night spent at Princhester Hut we drove to the Mavora Lakes trailhead. The tramp was down through a beautiful valley, with snow capped mountains all around us. The weather actually co-operated and it cleared up a bit on the Saturday so we had some sun. After a yummy lunch in the first hut, Careys Hut we continued on down the valley to Boundary Hut, where we were to spend the night. Once there we made ourselves some mulled wine and proceeded to do “traverses” on just about anything we could find. We began with hut traverses, where you have to climb around and touch all four corners of the hut not touching the floor or the bunks. Rowan and Nick demonstrated their flexibility (or lack thereof some of the time) in climbing around through the rafters while a few of the punters looked on in fear of the hut collapsing around us. Then we moved on to bench traverses, railing traverses and pyramids (success with the 7 man, not so much with the 10 man). After several bruises and cups of mulled wine we moved back into the hut as it was starting to get quite cold outside. 11 of the group members spent the night in the hut, which was quite warm, but Nick was relegated to his tent outside due to his loud snoring from the night before.
We woke up in the morning to snow!
We woke up the next morning to find the ground covered in snow! We packed up and tramped back along the track to the van, stopping for an epic New Zealand vs. Canada, US and Singapore snowball fight, which the foreigners clearly won. When we reached the van again there was 6 inches of snow on the ground, so we quickly drove out of there, praying we were driving out of, not into, the weather. Once we hit the highway we only had to worry about whether or not we’d make it to the next town for gas. But once again blind optimism got us through and we carried on happily to Gore for a feast of pizza and ice cream because we just weren’t cold enough yet. The moral of the story is: mulled wine + good people + yummy food + snow = tons of weekend fun, even if the weather forecast looks bad.
“Are you TRYING to sterilize yourself!?”
- Rowan, in reference to Nick’s multiple attempts at hut traverses through the rafters
Velociraptors at Mavora Lakes
