Exploring water caves and great looking rocks was on the bucket list today! Also, we were looking forward to reach Pinnacles Hut and to spent a peaceful night there until a group of snoring people arrived ?
Leaving the Woolshed Creek Hut, we took the Mt. Summer track to Pinnacles Hut. According to the Doc sign it only takes about 3.5h to reach the Pinnacles Hut. So we were looking forward to a relaxed day and just to spent a peaceful night there as we still had enough food left.
A little bit off the trail were some water caves. A lot of big boulders were fallen in the creek at this spot and we did some climbing on them and some crawling underneath them which was both really fun ?
Continuing tramping towards Pinnacles Hut we encounted some great rock faces that looked as they are perfect for climbing. We both wished we had our climbing gear with us!
When we reached the saddle between Woolshed Creek and Pinnacles Hut, we had an amazing view. In one direction we could see snow topped mountains and in the other one we could see very flat land, maybe all the way to Christchurch.
From now on the trail continued downhill to the Pinnacles Hut. When we reached the hut we were looking forward to have a quite night in this great area. We had a fun chat with the hut warden, a girl from Belgium who volunteed there for a few weeks. She said that it is supposed to rain the next day which confirmed our decision to stay in the hut instead of going to the parking lot.
Later in the afternoon we really didn’t expect anyone to come to the hut anymore. But all of a sudden two guys appeared. They seemed to be quite out of breath. And say said they are still a few more people to come! It turned out that they are a group of 11. They are still a few on their way, some apparently quite unfit and at least one that weighs 150kg. They said he has a hard time coming up here and he will probably still need a while ?
One of the women in the group told us that most of them snore so bad that she brought a big camping mat to sleep on outside on the porch. Ok we decided that is the point where we better carry on. Goodbye peaceful night ?
We passed the missing group members on our way down. They didn’t even have enough breath to say Hi and we hoped they would make it to the hut soon.
When we got to the parking lot it was almost dark. We pitched our tent close to a picnic bench and enjoyed to have a table for dinner.
