This Saturday we head for Blackstone Hills on the Becks side of the hills. The bus will leave corner Walton & Thompson streets at 12 midday with the A-Ls duty pack this week.
Last Saturday saw a big group of 19 Walkers leave Alex at 9:30am , for a walk down the Knobby Range for 21km.
This walk seemed to bring out a few faces we have not seen much of this year ( if at all ) . And although they went down the range towards Roxburgh , it was made clear it was not down hill all the away. Definitely some uphill work as well. All made it back to the bus ahead of schedule.
The committee has decided to rename the walking groups , the W1s stay the same, The W2As become the W2s , the W2Bs become the W3 group, , and the W3 group become W4 walkers. Those W2s have become a problem , maybe this will sort them out.
So the W2-W4 walkers boarded the bus at 12:30pm in warm springlike conditions . By the time they got up the Knobby Range , the wind had come up and temperature had dropped.
The W2s & W3s set off together ,heading down a gully , before starting to climb out again. By the time they got to the point of separating the groups , many were starting to wonder if map maker Joe knew what contour lines were. Jojo advised he loved contour lines , but a number of walkers were not feeling the same love of them , as the hills got steeper ,and the walkers got slower. Climbing mountains, cliff faces !
The W2 walkers had carried on , we could see the track heading away to the north for them. So the W3s were surprised to see them just one small ridge further on and heading back towards the W3s , before rejoining them. Seems not all in the W2s were so keen for the mountains (i mean Hills ) either. Another climb up and we found the Knobby Range road and it was pretty much down hill back to the bus. Couldn’t see those W1 walkers coming down the track ,because we were looking the wrong way , they were already ahead of us.
The W4 walkers chose some lower contour lines for their walk , looping back to the bus. Another big turn out , 19 W1s, W2s & 3s varied from 13-15 in each group and 5 in the W4s ,giving a total of about 52 walkers out and about.
This Saturday we head to Blackstone Hills on the Becks Wedderburn road on the DOC track. This will be an in and out walk as DOC only provide the one track ,not a loop. So we shouldn’t need any maps , and we do not need to know about contour lines , as we can see it will go up the hill.
I will not be joining you this Saturday being back on call for work (phew) and i suspect we may not get the same numbers to Blackstone hill. It is getting to that time of year where we will have to get off the farms onto public or DOC tracks due to lambing. Also a reminder that if you open a gate, you are responsible for closing it.
Forecast is for showers Saturday , so may pay to bring a jacket.
Have a good walk
Gary