Boyle Base

16-17 January 2022

A Friday night start ensured that we were able to attack our Saturday objective early, in the cool of the day. In a first for our club, we stayed at the Forest and Bird bach near Boyle Village. With only three of us going, each had a room of their own. The bach/hut is well equipped but we needed to take a gas burner. It has solar storage to power the lights, though at this time of year we didn’t need room lights. The 12V phone-charging sockets were useful. Dinner was macaroni cheese reinforced with a large supply of runner beans and a marrow that “got away”.

We drove past the entrance to Foleys Track that leads to Travers Peak. I think it’s been moved slightly to start opposite Deer Valley car park, so we parked in this convenient off-road area. The initial track, parallel to the road was a bit boggy and leads you very close to Goings Creek not Foleys. The track is good and took us about 90 minutes to reach the tree-line. Initially, poles get you pointed to the spur leading to 1724m Travers Peak, then a few cairns do the job. We three had lunch with a pleasant couple from Leithfield. On the way down we passed a mixture of people and one dog, who were going up. Some had weekend packs and were headed to tarns near Trovatore. One group was going towards Boucher Saddle.

The day was quite warm for the descent, so we were happy to get back to base for a cuppa at mid-afternoon. The bach was still cool inside but warmed a lot in the late afternoon sun. Saturday night dinner was lentil spaghetti and canned pasta sauce, along with the green beans and marrow. Dessert both nights was coconut custard on crumbled gingernuts.

Sunday morning and we were walking towards Nina Valley by 7:30. Norman chose to do a flatter walk to Nina Hut. Peter and me headed up the forest track towards Mt Norma, passing a number of rat/mustelid trap-boxes along the way. From the bach, Forest and Bird people tend a number of trap-lines in the area. They cover a large territory. Passing points 1532 and 1642 we reached 1722m Norma for an early 11:30 lunch. This climb was also a thousand metre climb but further in distance than Travers so it may have been better to do the easier one on the Sunday.

As for the previous day we were back by mid-afternoon for an easy tidy-up and departure. We’d had two fine and successful days. It was good to know our “hut fees” are supporting Forest and Bird’s work in the area.

We were: Norman Burden, Peter Umbers, Kerry Moore. (KM)