Brown Hill - A Big Day Out

I found this route on another Trampers Website and was keen to have a look, it isn't mentioned in any of the other guide books we have.

We left Christchurch in the pouring rain but the sun was coming out on the other side of Porter's Pass and the weather improved all weekend.

It was a pretty lazy Saturday all in all. We started at the Andrew's Shelter and wandered up to Casey Saddle, - very easy walking with hardly any climbing. What we should have done was then get the big 1000m or so climb out of the way... but it was just too nice at the Andrew's Biv site so we camped there and enjoyed the fine weather.

This left us a big day on the Sunday, - some 1700m of climbing and a 10 hour hill day in total. Luckily we started walking at 7:00. We climbed up to Brown Hill through mainly open bush and headed south along the range. The view from here is extensive - with the whole of the Poulter River on display.

There is some more beautiful old bush around the 1282m saddle which was a delight.

The reascent up to 1709 was a long climb and we had started to slow down as we traversed the last of the tops. The descent to Binser Saddle had some thick bush at the end and from there it still seemed a long way back to the car.

As we headed back over Porters we drove back in to the rain, which apparently hadn't stopped in Christchurch all weekend. This is probably the last time we get to go tramping before Christmas, so it felt good to have a bigger day out.