By Chris Russell, 14 August 2024
In the art of spontaneity I stood up at the end of a Tuesday club meeting and announced I was keen to run a medium-hard day trip the following day to “Test out my knee”, and that the next day was the only good weather day for that whole week. This was because I had injured my knee on a midwinter trip a month earlier and was forced to take some time off tramping but I was really keen for another 4 day tramp going the following week. So my idea was that if I could do a reasonably hard day trip without knee pain afterwards then I would be able to go on that. I hadn’t figured out where I wanted to go yet though. Unsurprisingly most people were uninterested and/or unavailable. Except for Jack who came up to me after the meeting who was keen and suggested the idea of doing the Camelbacks which was just what I was looking for! A nice mix of peaks, bush bashing and a long day tramping. That tacos we also managed to convince Tommy to pull a sickie and come along. These are our findings from the trip:
Top 5 Camelbacks
Number 5: Marquee (866m) - We did not have enough time on that day to pass Marquee unfortunately but I yearn to explore you someday.
Number 4: Scrub Dome (845m) - This high point is deceiving in multiple ways. It is straight up not scrub, it is just native bush and it’s not even very dense, especially considering every other camelback has more scrub than this one. It will also try to deceive you into taking a spur down to Johnston Creek, you need to pay attention to your map and compass for this one.
Number 3: Camelhead (943m) - Camelhead was not even in our planned route, in fact I don’t know why it would be in anyone’s route as where do you even go from here? It also appears to be the scrubbiest of the camelbacks. However it is the tallest by a decent margin so it gets some points for that.
Number 2: Camelback (851m) - This is like the title track of an album, it may not be the best one from it, but you have to give it credit for defining the style for all the rest. We only attempted this one as the scrub got too dense to realistically finish the rest of our original route.
Honourable mention: Tawirikohukohu (1049m) - This one is an actual peak and actually has 360 degree views and has a proper track. It is way better than all the rest except that it isn’t technically one of the camelbacks, it is just very close by and worth the detour. And the name itself is so majestic that Tommy shouted it out across the mountain tops.
Number 1: Pyramid Knob (836m) - This one has the most human interaction as there is actually a reasonable track over this one. This is most likely because of a permanent tent site someone has set up halfway between Pyramid Knob and Scrub Dome, which is also apparently the home of two possums which gave Tommy a fright before darting off out of sight. In the other direction the track goes down a spur to the nearest road which was useful for us since we ran out of time and needed a quick way out. And this led us to come across a very nice horse that let us pat it.
Top 4 Potato Chip Flavours (Verified by Chris and Tommy’s opinion and not Jack’s who is a dirty chicken flavour lover)
Number 4: Chicken
Number 3: Salted
Number 2: Sour cream and chives
Number 1: Salt and vinegar
All in all this was an awesome spontaneous day trip which ended with a long road walk after dark with great yarns and even greater amounts of cheese eaten by Tommy and I. And my knee was fine! I ended up doing that 4 day tramp the following week.