We woke up to a nice morning, no rain, but a bit cloudy, so we packed our packs put the rest of our belongings in a locker at the motor camp and drove to the control gates, the start of our great walk. The first hour was flat along side the lake, then we hit a shelter and toilets so we took a break, and chatted with two guys from Australia, they were just starting so we would see them at the Luxmore hut in the evening. Right after the break our climb started, it was a very steady climb for two hours before we broke bush line. Our friends did really well, especially Ben and Justin since this was there first backpacking trip, we had our first of four lunch's of peanut butter and jelly and took in the views. Two young German boys joined us, they were just hiking to the submit of Mt. Luxmore then back down, they did the full Routgburn track and decided like Paul and I that it is two expensive to do all of the walks. They also showed us take a soccer ball with them to every hike and take a picture of them with it. Durring our chat Paul randomly asked if their van was a Nissan Serena and yes it was, and they loved it! They told us they wrote Spaceship on there van so they would look like the tourist vans, these guys were great to chat with because they were stoked on every part of their trip so far and the activities they had coming up. Once on the trail again a sign told us we had 45min until we hit Luxmore hut, but we were there in about 35min, the walk took us over delicate tundra marsh, so we walked on a wooden platform and looked at small pools of water.
The hut was the largest Paul and I have stayed in, it slept 55 in two bunk houses and had a great deck with views of the mountains and lake 1000 meters below. This being a popular hut we quickly set our packs on bunks to claim our spots. While Kasey and I put on our dry clothes the guys started some water for our tea time. Over tea the guys were discussing if they should hike another 1.5 hr. to submit Mt. Luxmore while the weahter is good. Kasey and I were fine staying in the hut, we were tired and already changed and I was not going to put back on my sweaty clothes! After talking to the German boys about the hike to summit the guys finally decided that we will walk the right by the short summit trail on our tramp tomorrow and the summit is 10min off that trail.
There was a 10min walk to the Luxmore cave, so we all grabbed our headlamps and went exploring. This cave was really big going deep into the mountain and we took a stair case to get down into it. This cave was impressive and had crazy mineral formations and colors, we went for a good distance before we came to a spot we had to crawl under, but it opened up again into a big area, of course at this point some of us thought we had explored far enough so we made our way back out. I think we all got a little nervous about the Decedents (that horror movie Kasey told us all about). On the was back to the hut we found a few more caves (ones that were not accessible or at least they did not want people going into them) this of course distracted the guys and they were talking about how they should go into one and it should pop back out the other side, mean while we did not notice that Justin disappeared into the cave and walked to the other side. He made it but could not get up so Paul had to anchor is foot in a hold and hook Justins arm to hoist him up. It was all very silly but made them feel adventerous!
Dinner was yummy roman noodles and a bag of wine! We chatted with the Aussies for a good while. Craig the son of Roy is the dad, Craig is a pilot for Quantas, flying domestically, and Roy is originally from the UK but moved to Queensland Australia some 25yr ago and has a candle making business with his wife, he also builds custom kitchens on the side with his neighbor. The hut warden came in to give us her speech and collect tickets, she told us a slip happened on the trail right before the Iris burn hut, and the geologist recommended that one person cross at a time since a crew had not been out to properly fix the slip yet. Freaken Kiwi's and there slips!
Exhaused we all went to bed, Paul and I thought we could share a bunk since we sleep in close quarters in our van, however this was a bad idea! Paul fell asleep first flat on his back, this gave me only my sides to lay on and I had to be perfectly straight, so every time my arm went numb I had to switch sides, which was hard since i could not just roll over but had to sort of sit up and fall back in my sliver! After a few rotations I was close to tears since I was so tired, so I got out of the sleeping bag put on my down coat i was using as a pillow and found more space at the foot of the bed. This is the first and last time Paul and I sleep head to toe, I had more room for my back but my legs were a little smashed, I rested a little but would not call it sleep by any means.
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