A Monday afternoon in the rain at Rasberry Flat.  Quentin, Emma and I met Eric and Graham and sorted our gear.  Emma was a late addition to the team so we threw in a bivy bag and tents for 4. The Matukituki was a usual slog up a cow valley, and at Pearl flat we headed up to Liverpool biv which was a nice quick climb with heavy ...

How to Get Lost on your Way to the Olivines and End up on Mt. Aspiring Jan 2008   One hot sunny January day six of us (Kieran, Sophie, Guy, Alyn, Jeremy and I), with 10 days of food and gear each exploded out of Pearl. Then with heavy packs, that could barely be lifted and ambitious plans of getting to and from the Olivine Ice Plateau we ...

Six of us headed up the Matukituki Valley about 2pm one fine day at the start of January (me, Jeremy, Guy, Terra, Alyn, Sophie), made our way up to Aspiring Hut with ridiculously heavy 10 day packs and decided to keep going up to Cascade Saddle. Oddly enough the steep slopes were kinder on the feet and back than the flats (me and Jeremy had rigid ...

On that note my rough plans are as follows: Take my car down on 27th December (up to 5 people), head over to Takaka for a few days rock climbing/lying in sun/short tramps/drinking and spend new years in Golden Bay somewhere. Then start of January (2nd or 3rd) head south for possible Stewart Island trip. This would probably not be the north west ...