Catlin River Walk et al

It was a freezing night, literally, at the Tawanui DOC camp although we had been cosy in bed. When I looked at the temperature gauge at 7.20 am it was 1.3° outside and 6.5° inside so it must have been well below zero in the night. The top of the bus was coated in a thick layer of ice which was defrosting rapidly down the windscreen in the early morning sun. The camp by the river covers a large area in different sections and there were no other campers visible to us but the one man that we had seen setting up his tent, over the way, the night before was gone by the time we were up - it must have been freezing in a tent!
The Catlin River walk is great with the constant sound of rushing water which was often cascading over tiered layers of rocks making the trail along and above the river, through beech trees and native bush, and over 4 swing bridges very picturesque.

Trish, the swinger (of bridges, that is!)

The walk from the DOC camp up to The Wisp is signed as 5 hours each way and we had planned to do no more than 6 hours in total but we covered the first half in much quicker time than indicated and decided that we could probably do the whole walk in 6 hours so kept going. We were WRONG! The 2nd half took much longer than the first but we had committed in our heads to finding out what The Wisp was (we still don't know!) and kept plugging on until we arrived at the end which was a small open field.

Power nap before the walk back to the campsite!

Leftover chilli @ the Wisp

After a quick lunch by the river it was turn around time and I have to say that we were feeling pretty knackered by the time we were half way back with lots of ups and downs and steps. We had to keep doing lots of quadriceps stretches to stop our thighs totally stiffening up! We dragged our weary hot bodies up the steps of the bus exactly 8 hours after we had left it - a good time if we were in a race but rather a few more kms than we had planned!

After some more stretches we laid back and were entertained by the family with 2 young children + 2 dogs from Balclutha who were already setting up camp near us. One of the dogs took a fancy to me and as soon as I sat down outside it leapt into my lap to make friends. The family were there for just 2 nights and had a caravan which was laden full of stuff as was their covered-in ute. I know when you camp you need all sorts of stuff and it takes a while to set up but it seemed that for a stay of just 2 nights this was extraordinary. 5 hours-of -constant -action later they had the awning up and the usual barbecue, tables, cupboard, 2 big chillybins, kids bikes etc but also 2 vertical tents - one for the toilet and one for the shower in which he placed a moulded white shower tray with a short horizontal drainpipe on it that he dug a little trench for before going to the river for several buckets of water which he poured into a big tub. The first highlight for us was when he put up his infinity gas water heater on a frame beside the shower and brought out another gas bottle to service it. We thought they were at last all done but when we looked over just before going to bed we saw little fairy lights twinkling all around the top edge of the awning as well as solar powered lights beside all the tent pegs. It felt like Christmas! I hope they are all enjoying it today as they will be spending all tomorrow taking it down. We rather appreciate the fact that we can be ready to leave in 5 minutes!