The previous couple days did not work out quite as planned and the weather forecast was limiting and so we opted for a quick outing close to Charleston. Hole In The Hill is another one of the impressive karst tunnels on the West Coast accessible by a short, steep, but direct trail down to Makarikiri Stream and I had a map of some of the caves nearby which seemed to be a good way to kill a few hours. The trail down the hillside was actually a roaring torrent and so it was with little surprise that we found the stream at the bottom swollen and the arch difficult to access. We abandoned an attempt to traverse a cliff edge with rope and backtracked to where we could shimmy across a log to gain the other side. Avoiding nettles we worked our way down to the arch. I crossed again on another log but was out of options at the start of the arch, unable to progress further at the current stream level. We would not be able to access the caves we hoped but we did carefully avoid nettles, scramble, and climb our way up into a high alcove where we could at least sit and enjoy the view of Hole In the Hill with the sound of the raging stream.
After about 15 minutes we worked our way back down, crossed the stream, and headed back up the hill. In little time we were back at the cave base and Lara packed up to begin her long drive back down to Invercargill. Thanks especially to Lara for making the effort to drive up to spend some days with me and to work through things after our Plan A imploded. I appreciated it even more afterward as I struggled to find adventure partners between everyone's busy pre-holiday lives.
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