I set the two plastic mouse traps last night with a little bit of fresh peanut butter on them and thought I would see what I would catch. It was near 10pm when I ceased reading and no more then 5 minutes later I could hear some movement and off went the trap. I got up and cleared that one and went off to sleep. In the middle of the night I went to the toilet and found another victim, so I cleared that one as well. In the morning I found that I had a third which was pretty impressive as they were all caught on the same trap.
I lingered in bed a little longer this morning as it was pretty cool and I got away from the hut at 8:20am. The track didn’t leave me cool for very long though as it wandered through the forest and had a few small ups and downs before taking on a 450 odd metre climb. I was pretty toasty and sweating a fair bit by the time I reached the top which was tree covered. Luckily only a few more metres on I popped out of the forest onto the Telford Tops which was rocky and covered in short vegetation and grass. The views along this ridge are pretty spectacular and I could could also see the ocean to the south for the first time. The track descended along the ridge for a fair while before spearing off to the right and down to the Telford Campsite. There is just a toilet here, grassy area and access to the Telford Burn for water. It’s just outside the boundary of Mt Linton Station where no camping is allowed for the next section. Carl, Luke and Ray camped here last night.
The track across Mt Linton started out nice and then crossed the Burn shortly thereafter and became a gravel grind for all but a few kilometres to the far property boundary. It was easy walking, pretty boring but interspersed with some good views at times.
Once on the Straun Flat Road I kept going towards the Twinlaw Mast and Woodlaw forest with the changed plans to grab food tomorrow in Otautau instead of Nightcaps. I was low on water though due to not filling up on the go as I normally would due to the cow and sheep poo infested streams. I figured I could grab water high on the slopes towards the peak at Twinlaw Mast. Unfortunately they were poo infested as well so my plans started to come a little unstuck as I was running out of water and couldn’t camp for the night like this. The TA app shows plenty of campsites across the high grounds of Woodlaw Forest, but no water supplies for about 10km past the summit. I was hesitant to push on through the Woodlaw Forest Conservation Area at this hour without water though so kept an eye out for sources. I found a dam soon enough and set about filtering some water for dinner and breakfast tomorrow. I went to one of the potential campsites indicated on the app hard up against the conservation area; it’s nothing special but it’ll do for the night. I’m very happy that there are only a few sandflies here for a change!
Nigel Christmas - Hiking Blog 