Overnight Tramp - Pathways

P5               Overnight Tramp

On the 17 March after school Dad, Adele and I drove to Greymouth. We stayed a night at the Top 10 Holiday Park. The next morning we got up early and got ready to drive to Blackball. Soon we were at the the bottom of the Croesus track. The Croesus track was an old mining track dating back to the 1880s. Because of this the track isn’t to steep. We started walking. At the start there was a lot of down hill. But soon it was all uphill. Not long after we started walking we realised the there were stoat traps every hundred metres.

After walking for a few minutes we came to a swing bridge. We crossed it one at a time, and kept walking, soon after there was another 2 swing bridges. After the 3rd swing bridge we came to a historic hotel site. At the hotel site there were lots of old rusty pieces of metal. We even found part of an old beer bottle. At the hotel site there was a picnic table so we stopped for a snack. Then we kept on walking.

After another ½ an hour we came to the second hotel site. At this one I found what I think was an old path that I wanted to follow but it was overgrown with a centuries worth of bush. The second hotel site was smaller than the first but it was still pretty cool. There was another picnic table so we stopped there as well. A sign at the hotel site said Garden Gully 1 hour.

We kept walking. We had snack breaks every now and again. Soon we reached the Garden Gully turn off. We decided not to go to Garden Gully on the way to the hut because we might not get a bed.  After we passed Garden Gully it wasn’t far to the hut. After around 20 minutes of walking we reached the hut.

We got inside and had a look around. Just as we were cooking 2 minute noodles in the billy more people arrived. First 4 men who had come from Barrytown stopped for a break at the hut but soon they walked down to Blackball. Then a husband and wife came up but they ended up walking 5 minutes down the track to test out a tent for the night.

After everyone had left we ate our noodles. Then we decided to walk up to the summit because some of the men who stopped told us it was only a half an hour walk there. The walk up was steep. It wasn’t  a proper track and sometimes it was hard to see where to go. There was some old mining equipment up near the top so Dad, being a geologist, had look. We reached the top but we were disappointed because the it was cloudy and we couldn’t get a decent view.

We waited 10 minutes before deciding  that it was pointless to wait because it had been cloudy all day. So we just walked down. Once we were halfway down the weather cleared but we couldn’t be bothered walking back up. Soon we got back to the hut. We had a quick look in an old hut that was from 1937. There was lots of graffiti from 50 years ago.No one else arrived. By dinner time we thought we thought we might have got lucky and no one else was coming. Just as we were starting to get dinner ready, two girls walked into the hut. One of the girls was from germany and the other was from christchurch. We didn’t learn their names but Adele and I talked to them while Dad cooked dinner.

For dinner we had creamy bacon pasta. We ate our pasta while the girls we were talking to ate spaghetti. Then we had another hour with just us and the girls. Then from half past 7-8 heaps more people came. Soon all 16 bunks were filled. At around 8 Dad decided it would be best to leave the hut early so we went to bed. That was a mistake. Most of the people who had arrived were all in a group and had brought wine and beer and other things up to the hut. They stayed up talking until 11:30 pm. Luckily I remembered earplugs but the earplugs didn’t block out all the noise. I think I fell asleep around 10:30 pm. I still had a pretty bad sleep though. I woke up numerous times over the night.

The next morning I woke up around 6-7 am. Dad and Adele were both up so we got up. We were the second people to get out of bed. Adele didn’t want to wake up anyone but I just said that they kept us awake all night so why can’t we wake them up. We made breakfast. We had weetbix but I think the milk powder we had was expired because the milk was really lumpy.

As soon as we had packed up we left. We were the first people to start walking down. We walked a kilometre or 2 and then we came to the turn off for garden gully. We walked for 5 minutes and we reached another old hut. This one was smaller than the last one and there was still lots of graffiti but it was still cool.

We kept walking to the old battery. We had to cross over a few streams, but when we got there it was worth it. The battery was really cool and since dad is a geologist he knew how it used to work.

We headed out of Garden Gully and kept walking to the 2nd historic hotel site. We stopped for a snack and a weka came out of the bushes. The weka came right up to us and we gave him little bits of muesli bar. We named the weka Peka the weka because he pecked our food. We got on our way again and for a while Peka followed us. He followed us for about 10 minutes and then we crossed a little stream and Peka stayed on the other side.

We kept walking and after about an hour we got to the carpark. I would recommend walking the croesus track because it is really cool to see all the historic things and because the track used to be an old mining road the track isn’t to steep. Overall I had a really good time and can’t wait to go tramping again.