Exploring the local hoods with our new mobile house - an overnight mission from home

We have recently bought a new light weight tent; a MSR hubba hubba HP. No, it is not a bubble gum, although it sounds like it. The purchase was made since our last adventure in Charlie's old tent ended up with a snapped tent pole and a large puddle of water at the end of my sleeping bag. After finally getting the new tent sent to us from the US, we figured out that we could do an overnight mission from home without getting into any car/bus first. It would be a good opportunity to try out the new home.

When you start packing a tent, sleeping bags and mats...it is hard to keep a backpack lightweight. Although this tent is about 2 kg and we split the weight, it certainly feels heavy on the back. Our 'running' turns more into some shuffling.

First we conquered Mt Pleasant (our closest hill)...
..before dropping into Lyttelton at the north shore of Lyttelton Harbour. We caught the ferry over to Diamond Harbour where we continued the journey...
..and followed a track up through many paddocks, past many cows, to Mt Herbert, where we had some great views.

With some rain in the air, we manage to capture the rainbow (and the cow).

Views to the north - Christchurch hiding behind the Port Hills and with Pegasus Bay stretching up north towards Kaikoura.

From Mt Herbert shelter (about 900 m high) we sidled below Mt Bradley through some thick patches of prickly gorse, proudly brought in to NZ by the Brits. My legs got some good peeling in preparation for the wedding. We reached the charming Packhorse Hut after 5-6 hrs of shuffling. The hut is built in 1914 from locally volcanic rock and it provides a great spot for an easy tramp. It is very popular amongst families. We shared the hut with a bunch of 17-year olds anting to get pissed and a couple with their 2.5 year old daughter. Talking to the 17-yr olds it really brought me back to how I was at that age (it was quite painful). Whilst they were almost setting the hut on fire after playing with matches (good thing it is mostly a stone house), and the 2.5 yr old had a few crying sessions..it felt great to have the Hubba Hubba to get into (away from all the noise).
The tent is great - very large for its weight and sturdy. It passed the test!

The next day, we continued the journey to Gebbies Pass, over to Sign of the Bellbird, Sign of the Kiwi, where we stuffed our faces at the very average cafe before continuing over Sugarloaf and back to Mt Pleasant again.

On the way we saw this bush that had grown through this coiled up rusty wire. Nature is taking over.

We deserved a big dinner when we got home. The evening was warm enough to enjoy the deck at home. Hubba hubba was good, but the real home is best.