By Chris Russell, 06 May 2023
So Nathan and I had wanted to do a carkeek picnic for the whole summer but just never got around to it. Now it was autumn and I was still keen but there wasn't enough daylight. But we noticed that the full moon landed on a Saturday in May... Full moon carkeek picnic? We considered but it was a little ambitious since we hadn't even done a daytime one, and no one else was keen to do this with us, which is quite reasonable to be fair. But another idea rose, what about a full moon southern crossing without stopping? This would be like a 15 hour day rather than a 20. We managed to convice Dugal to join us as well! And so it was decided.
So the plan was to start on the Saturday morning at Kaitoke but rather than going up marchant ridge (all my homies hate marchant ridge) we were going to go up Quoin ridge starting on the norbet creek track, go up to Alpha hut and have a little dinner break in which at that point it should be dark so that we can see the full moon for all of the tops travel. Then after that continue to Kime hut, Field hut and then either stay at Parawai lodge at the end or get my Dad to just pick us up at like 2am (which he didn't mind doing at all!).
Dad dropped us off at norbet creek and we were full of enthusiasm!
The norbet creek track took us up to 600m unnessesarily because we had to then desend to the hutt forks anyway.
I was excited to see what Quoin ridge was like because I had only been up a little bit of it. It turned out to be pleasant and interesting but you would inevitably lose the track a hundred times, but as long as you followed the ridge you would just end up on the track at some point later on. What I found quite funny is that there were these signs that said something along the lines of "fragile plant life, please stay on the marked track" in which the track would proceed to be unmarked and impossible to follow. We finally got onto the tops, which should mean views but we were in clouds and it was also pretty windy which was concerning.
Found this solar panel on top of Quoin peak (1206m) which I think is for a weather station or something.
This is about the best view we got along Quoin ridge, Alpha is in the clouds there somewhere. We continued to the 1308m peak before Alpha and found a sign.
At this point the wind was so bad it was hard to walk in a straight line. You may also start to notice a theme in some of these photos. This one is just after Alpha (1361m) where we found a pole which was exciting because it meant we were on a proper track now.
We then turned off the Alpha hut where we had dinner, hot drinks and a fire. But we had to decide whether to continue or not. Nathan was feeling sick, possibly due to the dodgy tarn water he drank. I was quite worried about the wind since the wind is often worse at the beehives/hector than at alpha. On top of that there was going to be no visibility in the cloud which would have been fine navigation wise because the southern crossing is so well defined and I know it well but it just kind of defeats the purpose of a full moon crossing. So we opted to stay the night at Alpha hut. Only issue is Nathan and Dugal were going lightweight and did not bring a sleeping bag, surely enough clothes will do the trick though right? Nope, they slept by the fire, it kept going out and eventually they ran out of wood and they got very cold which meant they couldn't sleep. The only way they managed to warm up was by getting up and boiling some water for tea. But overall they got barely any sleep.
It was morning and we looked outside and there was sun and no wind! So we thought we might as well complete the crossing!
We passed Alpha again and then Aston and Atkinson.
This part of the southern crossing is annoying because it is muddy as well as the tussock covers the track so that you can't see where you are walking. This caused Dugal to roll his ankle and tried to walk another 5m and rolled his other ankle, in which now he looked like this (we may have made him be more dramatic for the photo).
But after a small break he was fine to carry on walking. We found plenty of snowberries
and this flower.
And finally made it to Mt Hector (1529m), the highest point.
Had lunch at Kime.
And then below the bush line to Field hut.
At which point my left knee just started to really hurt, even though I don't remember doing anything to do in particular. Nathan's knees also started to hurt so the last part went really slowly. But we made it to the end.
Well actually there was still the last 30min of road walking because of the Otaki forks slip. And there my Dad was to pick us up.
Although we didn't managed to do the whole crossing under the full moon without sleep it was still a good achievement doing the southern crossing as an overnighter doing 7-8hr days. And we we so sore afterwards. Infact my left knee still hasn't recovered fully months later, I really did fuck it.