Mt Herbert

On Sunday, I joined Christchurch Tramping Club for a walk up Mt Bradley on the Banks Peninsula.  Graded an "easy" walk, we set off in 26 degrees and blazing sunshine and made it to Packhorse Hut in just over an hour where it clouded over!.

We then decided to walk to the top of Mt Bradley via the "round the mountain" track.  However, we missed the turn off to the top of the mountain so we decided to press on and go to the top of neighbouring Mt Herbert instead - which is actually higher than Mt Bradley and the highest peak on the Banks Peninsula.

We then descended to meet up with two members of the party who had stayed behind and who had agreed to meet us at the hut.  They weren't there so we carried on down to the cars expecting to see them there.  They weren't......With no mobile signal and no other way they could have gone, we decided the best option was to leave the walk leader (and wife of one of the missing people) to wait until they appeared and for the rest of us to drive to a mobile signal area and phone their home... which we did and discovered the two of them had taken a lift out of the valley and back to Christchurch with two people they had met on the track.  They had left a note at the hut but none of us saw it!!  Glad that all was well, we drove back to the track start to tell the leader she could go home after all!!  We agreed that it was a classic case of how things can go wrong if the party splits up.

The tramping club is very active in its training and offers training on river crossings, first aid, winter skills and map skills.  It seems they have been called upon a few times to help others in difficulty while they have been out on club tramps.