Mum invited us out to dinner for Friday night at her place… hmm, I have a better idea I suggested - why not dinner at a DOC hut?!
Mum agreed, brother & mum in law wanted to come too, and so a plan was hatched to head out to Pinchgut Hut after lunch on Friday. That would give us enough time to get there before baby's dinner time!
Thursday evening we packed, as we had work Friday morning, and the moment Bethany came round the corner, and saw we had pulled the tramping carrier out, her eyes lit up! She squealed with excitement, and clapped her hands! Then proceeded to try climb into the carrier on her own, saying “up up walkies yes pwease!!”. So instead we had to carry Bethany around in the carrier to the neighbours house & back a few times! Needless to say, we got NO packing done till she was in bed - and she was WAY too excited to sleep after seeing the carrier!
So Friday morning, we eventually managed to leave the house. Trying to organise 5 adults & a baby always takes longer than expected! But we were on the road within an hour of the planned departure time - so I suppose that’s a win!
As we were driving to the start of the trail, there was a ford… noone mentioned this was a 4WD road… but suddenly there was a ford… with some pretty large rocks… and we have a Mazda Premacy… great… so jumped out, tried to find the best way to get through… well… threw some rocks out of the way - and then hubby went for it… some thuds, but we were on the other side - phew!!
Then came another ford… this one not as bad - and super bumpy gravel road! Argh!!
We did eventually make it to the track start - ignoring the fact that we would have to return along the same road…