Crucible lake 173KB [NOTE: click any pic to enlarge]

As a change, and because there was a lot of interest, our Siberia Tramp was preceded by a cycle tour along the Central Otago Rail Trail from Clyde to Middlemarch.

Most of us had already enjoyed a tramp up the Wilkin River in 2005 including a diversion to Lake Castalia and were keen to explore the Siberia River, the Crucible and exit via the Gillespie Pass and the Young River. While the Rail Trail was enjoyable, it doesn't provide the same challenge and remoteness of a backcountry or alpine tramp (which I find an excellent diversion from modern "civilised" living).

Siberia Track (DOC) Click map to enlarge

As described in the Rail Trail pages, I was keen to try out my new Nikon D50 digital SLR in alpine and bush conditions, and had opted to use an old "holster" type of camera bag, rather than have the camera safely packed away. The advantage of the non-SLR digitals is their small size but in order to get a better quality picture using the better quality SLR optics, a larger camera remains necessary.

In fact, I never had to resort to my Nikon CoolPix during the tramp and left it packed away safely "just in case".

So the trampers on our Siberia-Gillespie tramp were:

• Ian Bardsley (ex Hawera) [photo ID=IB Camera=Canon Ixus 55 digital],
• John Barrell (New Plymouth),

On to the pictures

and story.

• Jim Callaghan (Wanganui, ex-Hawera) [photo ID=JC Camera=Olympus µ400 digital],
• Alan Rogers (Hawera) [photo ID=AR Camera=Panasonic DMC LC40 digital],
• Graham & Cathy Thompson (Hawera) [photo ID=CT Camera=Sony T5 digital] and
• Keith Blayney [yours truly] (Hawera) [photo ID=KB Camera=Nikon D50 SLR digital; 18-55 f3.5-5.6 Nikkor lens].

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