We walked uphill BOTH ways!

This past Saturday, I sat on my rump. All. Damn. Day.  What did I accomplish?  A read-through of one research article.  Pitiful! I was determined to make the most of Sunday by hiking to the Mt. Cargill summit.  I figured six hours of hills would be good for me.

Here's a view of Mt. Cargill from the Pineapple Track (it looks like a green pimple on the top of the hill):

I asked a friend if he wanted to come on a walk with me.. I mentioned that the summit was "just up a hill," and I made sure to leave out lots of details about how boring the first few hours would be and how long the uphill part lasted.  My trick worked.  Bryce thought it sounded like a good idea and agreed to join me for a nice outing.

Sunday turned out to be a little warmer than what we've become accustomed to and the hills to the summit seemed a little steeper and longer than what we've become accustomed to as well.  I'm pretty sure that I heard someone say, "This is tedious," no less than a dozen times... in the first hour.

Is that a cloud in the shape of a sheep?

The little blue blob in the middle is Otago Harbour.

We were troopers and eventually reached the summit (it really was two hours uphill to get there).  Once there, we snapped some photos, had some nibbles, and prepared to take the track down to Bethunes Gully.

Mandy gave me this book for my birthday. It's awesome!

Mt. Charles is wearing a cloud scarf.

As I was surveying the area for the start of the track, I noticed two police officers getting out of a patrol car and start walking towards us.  My first thought was Um, I can't think of anything we're doing wrong; I can honestly use the I-didn't-know-because-I'm-a-foreigner excuse for whatever they're about to tell us. (I may or may not have feigned ignorance in a similar situation not too long ago).  Surprisingly, after we exchanged greetings, one of the officers offered to take our picture for us.  Really?!  My jaw dropped in disbelief (because it was such a nice gesture, not because my first picture taken by a cop wasn't a mug shot).

Bryce is saying under his breath, "You promised there'd be one hill and no cops on this hike!"

Unfortunately, the track to Bethunes Gully was closed.  This meant we had to go back the way we came.  Hmph!  We made the most of the situation - at least the track to the Organ Pipes was accessible! 

The Pipes are columns of stone similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.  

Truth be told, it wasn't a very exciting hike.  The view from the summit was pretty neat and scrambling across the Organ Pipes was fun, but driving a car to the carpark at the summit would have been much nicer.  The experience didn't have the bang-for-your-physical-exertion-buck that I hoped for.

Things got a little interesting on the way back to Abbey.  A chicken decided to plunk itself in the middle of the road and was not bothered when a car drove up to it and honked to get the bird to move.  Bryce decided to help by nudging the chicken...she was clearly not impressed and walked a safe distance to give us evil looks.

Well, I guess we know why this chicken crossed the road.

This weekend I hope to hop over to the other side of the harbor for a little jaunt up Mt. Charles.  Fingers are crossed for good weather!