Day 14: 29 September 2019
We began the morning in fairly heavy rain at Bert Nicholls Hut (Windy Ridge). This meant a very wet tent and all our rain gear on. Only a km or so down the track the rain eased to light intermittent showers which continued the rest of the day. Most other groups were heading for the ferry due at 1.00 pm at Narcissus so had headed off a little earlier than us. We soon caught up with a group of three families from Canberra who had initially welcomed us at Kia Ora. We enjoyed walking with them through to Narcissus.
Oscar (an 11-year-old) chose to walk with us and he talked intelligently and thoughtfully about his travels, reading, and interests as the snow-capped mountain ranges emerged from under the lifting cloud. I was able to reciprocate some storytelling and teach him some of the forest trees and mountain names. I was reminded of my early days walking with Ray Spedding along this same track on return trips into Pine Valley. Ray would deliberately keep me back and teach me to identify the flora and mountains while discussing life and faith, then he would put the foot down and we would catch the group just as we arrived at the hut.
We lunched at Narcissus and said our goodbyes to the group (after arranging a pizza get-together at our place a week later) and headed out across Hamilton Crossing to meet the forest track down the lake. Our plan was to stay at Echo Point. However, we reached the Echo Point hut in good time ( about 3 pm) and thought, “Why not finish today, it’s only another 3-4 hours…” So we did! It made a long 27.7 km stage, a full day of wilderness walking. We celebrated with ‘High 5’s’ at the end and just made it in time for an eye fillet steak and veggies each at the Lake St Clair restaurant. We didn’t particularly feel like unpacking and walking the km or so back to the hikers camp-ground so we jumped in Justin’s car, which had been left for us, and drove home through falling snow over the highland lakes. A great trip which we thoroughly enjoyed,
