Several men from the Twisted Mavericks men's group in Nelson recently spent 3 days, 2 nights in beautiful Cobb Valley, Kahurangi National Park. Enjoy some photos and further description of the trip below.
Men's ages, fitness and ability levels varied, with this being the first overnight hut stay for one of the men. Without this type of trip planned, two of them men would likely not have had the opportunity to experience this type of multi-day tramping trip. Everyone made it safely and enjoyed lots of warm weather, swimming and further mountain exploration once we got up to Fenella hut.
The sand flies were pretty terrible, but the weather could not have been better. In fact it was a bit too hot!
We had two nights at the hut, for a an off-day or extra day of exploring on the second day for those were keen for more adventure. One man recovered from a hard first day relaxing by the swimming hole. Others took a day trip over to Cobb Lake and back down to Cobb hut. One man hiked up to the summit of Mount Gibbs and was rewarded with some additional swimming in higher alpine tarns.
Swimming was a focus of the trip, Fenella having one of the best swimming tarns anywhere in the region. The water was surprising warm, even so early in the summer season. Not every man was originally keen on cold water swimming, but in the end, everyone swam (most of us, multiple times). The water was fantastic!
The four of us even had the hut to ourselves on Saturday night. We were shocked that no one else showed up on such a nice early summer weekend.
One man brought along a camera, keen to start doing more photography, hence all of the nice images to share here.
It was a joy to share a challenging physical experience (and a long weekend away from our normal lives back at home) with other men, and we definitely plan to do other similar tramping trips in the future. I encourage all other groups to plan similar outings, or to find other activities that your group can enjoy together. This one will be remembered 🙂
