Scotsburn Stream, Mt Peel

A little bird had told me that Aoraki Polytech visited the Scottsburn and Woolshed Ck as part of their outdoor programmes, so I was quite interested to check it out.

Grant and I dropped a mountain bike at the take out, before driving round to Mt Peel. We'd asked the farmer and enjoyed the use of his farm track to reach the ridge overlooking Scottsburn without much bother. The descent down the ridge to the stream was pretty easy, with some deer trails that reached super highway status in places.

Once in the stream, we strolled down in the bright sun and waited for the fun to begin. Though there were several sections where the stream walls turned to canyon, this trip was more of a stream walk than a canyoning trip. We did rappel a 7m drop (for the fun of it) and enjoyed a couple of very small slides and downclimbs. The trip was definitely a look and worth repeating with little kids as a mellow taster for canyoning. It was a super hot day, so we only put on our wetsuit shirts and were plenty warm.

About an hour to access, about 2.5hrs through the river to the cars.

Entering the stream

Grant makes the 'big' slide

Near the end

Final slide

Cross Ck 6, Haast pass

After equal measures of being dessicated by the sun and by wine at the Rippon Music festival, it was pure hydration in Cross Creek on Sunday.

Pip had a couple of colleagues who wanted to join us for a canyon, so we spent a very enjoyable day cruising through the canyon. Marty and Shiva joined us from Timaru, with Maiko and Maryanne from Pip's work.

Great fun was had by all, especially Maryanne who didn't stop grinning the whole day…

Maiko havin fun

Maiko, Pip, Mary-anne, Shiva and Marty in the arch pool

Mary-anne enjoying her day

Slide time

The 'mermaids'