Double Churned & Semi-Soft
28 February 2017
That's what it says on the butter pack in front of me as we have a wee sundowner and cheese here in Wanaka, basking in the late evening warmth.
The sun has been over the yardarm for a bit. I know, it chased us down the hill as it sank in the west casting long shadows into the valley. The valley we should have been in hours ago.
The hill? It's a peak overlooking Lake Wanaka and it bears the name, "Rob Roy's Peak". Now, for no better reason than Anne's mum was a McGregor, not the nasty old git that chased poor wee Peter Rabbit, but, allegedly, the real McCoy. Or I suppose, the real McGregor.
Anyway, I digress. Given the name had a bit of a ring and, we'd nuthin' else to do anyway we thought we'd go at least part of the way up this towering peak. All the way to the radio mast if we could. Our highest point so far at 1,578m. The tourist advisory board said 16k up and down and 5-6 hours. It also said take warm clothing, food, a map, compass, flashlight (that's a torch to non American readers) and 2 litres of water per person.
We had 3/4 of a litre of old water we'd been carrying for a while and some nuts. But hey, we were old hands at this.
Five hours later, as our legs and indeed the rest of our bodies were feeling "double churned and semi soft" we finally made it back to the car park. Completely disjaskit and thinking that while we did New Zealand tourism a favour by raising the average age of those going up the hill, we may in fact, be over it.