Sausages selection on a six
day tramp
My sons and I headed for the
hills and went tramping in Nelson Lakes. This New Zealand National Park is a
fantastic place to enjoy the majestic grandeur of mountains and the beauty
of being in a wilderness environment.
Taking enough provisions for
two hungry boys and myself for six days meant the packs were heavy. The usual tramping
and sausage diet was to the fore (refer to post of 11 Nov 2012). This involved
a ration of four sausages per day per person. The boys selected Island Bay pork
and fennel (reviewed 26 Dec 2012), and Park Avenue kabonosy (reviewed 12 Aug 2012); while I chose the Park Avenue kolbaz (reviewed 11 Nov 2012). Twenty-four
sausages each, a total of seventy-two sausages were packed, which were all cooked
before we left for the tramp.
Our trip took us up the Travers Valley, over the Travers Saddle into the Sabine Valley, up the valley to Blue Lake, down the Sabine Valley to Lake Rotoroa and then out to St Arnaud.
There is magnificent scenery
on this trip and we also saw random sausages – in fact everywhere we went we
seemed to see sausages. Here is an image of a kabonosy sighted at the twenty
metre high Travers Falls.
In the alpine vegetation above
Upper Travers Hut I found these alpine pork and fennel examples.
Sitting on top of the waratah
that marks the top of the Travers Saddle was a kolbaz. The peak of Mt Travers can be seen in the background.
While heading up to the
Travers Saddle the air was so still that if you howled the sound echoed and
resonated in the valley. I was seeking lycanthrope beings. No response was received;
however this does not mean they are not present.
I particularly like the
many cascading waterfalls that come down from the ridges and into the valley. This image comes from the
Sabine Valley below Blue Lake.
At Blue Lake the clearest
water in the planet exists. This due to the water being filtered by moraine
debris that sits above the lake. Lake Constance empties into Blue Lake through
this mass of rock. Scientists have established that visibility in the lake can
be up to 85 metres. Distilled water has a visibility of 82 metres. This area
was going to be left as a wilderness; only the hardy and self-sufficient would make
it up to this area. There would be no tracks or huts, but in the late 1960s it was
opened up against some opposition. One the primary objectors was obviously a
hard man. In 1962 Les Molloy went to Blue Lake in winter when the snow was so
deep that his party had to camp and sleep and in the branches of beech trees. He
did not want to make the wilderness experience too easy. I am obviously less of
an outdoors man than Les, and readily seek and enjoy the comfort of a hut.
Guess what? At Blue Lake a
kolbaz was sighted. After extensive investigation it has been established that
the superhero (or should that be supperhero) Sausage Boy was present. He was
holding the sausage. Thanks to Sausage Boy.
The trip was a great success
fantastic weather, good tramping and glorious sausages.
