Distance: 13 km
Time: 4.5 hours
Start: Glentui picnic area, end of Glentui Bush Road, Glentui
Finish: Same place (it's a loop)
Date: Friday 7th February 2020
Our two cars met at School Road in Woodend and drove from there in convoy: slightly skirting Rangiora; across the Ashley River bridge; through Loburn; onto Glen Tui road and then finally we were parked at the picnic area.
We were greeted by a group of kitted out canyoners who looked like they were up to something adventurous and so we set off on the Richardson track. It's an up up type of track and after about 20 minutes we said goodbye to Edel and Linda who were doing a shorter walk and the remaining three of us continued on up the steep steep hill. Pretty quickly the beech forest bush thinned into something sub-alpine and after about 1.5 hours we were sweating and standing at the trig on top of Mt Richardson. A bit of mist was blowing about but we could see some beaut views off to the south west. Possibly Mt Oxford and definitely the mysterious Lees Valley.
After a snack we continued along the Blowhard track - a (slightly misnamed) gently undulating path along the ridge (my favourite). The mist cleared and we were looking at the patchwork of the Canterbury plains. It was a 50 minute amble along the ridge before we turned onto the Bypass Track and descended for about an hour to the river where the canyoning group were happily disappearing down-river in the direction of the waterfall. We headed to the waterfall lookout, hoping they would appear and wondering how anyone could actually abseil through all that rushing water. Its a pretty impressive drop with a nice pool at the top. Completely inaccessible without all the gear. After a couple of sandfly attacks and no sign of the abseilers we returned to the car. The grand finale was following in the footsteps of Edel and Linda: coffee and cake at Cafe 51 in Oxford. Very nice!
