| Group | Leader | Mentor | Understudy | Tailender |
| Stds | Chris | Alan H | Sally | Shirley |
| Alternates | Bruce | Leonie | Ali | Marie-Therese |
Stats: distance 10.1km, ascent 298m, time 4hrs
With 47 trampers on board the bus we headed west with driver Viktor. Christchurch forecast, rain and southerly late morning.
Jan welcomed visitor Madeleine and said she had great confidence in the Weather Team who promised the rain would clear at Castle Hill late morning plus reminded us of an early 8am start for new tramp, Mt Barossa next Wednesday.
Approaching Castle Hill, the rain was more persistent necessitating a decision to
have morning tea at the Community Centre under the shelter of the verandah. After 30 minutes feeling a decision needed to be made Chris stated he would be happy to tramp in the conditions but as Leader felt responsible for trampers if they got cold and wet and announced we would head to the Darfield Bakery.
After travelling only a short distance to our normal starting point miraculously
the skies began clearing and the rain almost ceased. Jan was not afraid to reverse the decision and announce the hike was back on. After perhaps looking like the occupants of a residential home on a bus outing we transformed into a keen agile group of trampers keen to get moving a little late at 11am.
The Standards (22) set off briskly down the farm road followed closely by the Alternatives (25). A new temporary bridge across the Porter River allowed us all to keep our feet dry. Velvet black steers looked striking against the landscape and with more patches of blue sky appearing it wasn’t long before jackets were being removed. We left the road, crossed grassy paddocks, followed a fenceline and re-joined the road towards the base of Prebble Hill. A final steep grassy trudge to the summit, which we reached for lunch at 1pm. This is a truly magical place with all its limestone rocks of such incredible shapes, ideal perches for lunch to take in the awesome views of the Broken River area.
Reluctant to move we made our descent through the monoliths and giant boulders, some having “Lion King” moments and others could feel the adrenalin pumping as they looked at the anchors left on those vertical rock faces by the abseilers.
We had been warned about the matagouri as we made our way steeply uphill once we reached the Porter River, back across the bridge before the final hill to the bus which we reached at 3.10pm. approx. 15mins after the others. The Alternates who had followed the same route had found an ideal lunch spot about 10 mins after leaving the road towards the base of the hill.
The two Weathermen were the Superheroes of the day as without their persistence we may have only got as far as the bakery. Txt by Kate
