Little Mount Peel, South Canterbury

Grade: Easy-Moderate (I walked it with 11-year-old nephew)
Time: 2 hrs, 45 mins up and 1 hr, 15 mins down!
Getting to the start of the walk: We cheated ever so slightly and drove up to a little carpark at the top of Blandswood. It probably saved 30 mins of climbing. Or you can park at the main carpark, on the road to the camping ground.
Transport tips: Nice straightforward tramp, in that you do return to your car at the end of the day.
Would you do it again: Yes.
DOC/other information about walk: There is a very good DOC brochure available at Geraldine and elsewhere, which outlines this walk and the other Peel Forest Walks.
Author: Febbett
Month/year walked: April 2009


A little tramping mantra that I have come to rely upon - sometimes through gritted teeth - is "one mouthful at a time". It stems from the age-old question: How does a mouse eat an elephant? Answer: One mouthful at a time.

Let's face it. That's exactly how some tramps feel.

Little Mount Peel is not one of those tramps. However, 11-year-old Favourite Nephew was a tad anxious. His school class had recently attempted an ascent of the mighty mount - as I recall my own class doing 25 years earlier - and only "the really fit and hyper kids" had made it to the top. So Fav Nef and I made a pact - that we'd walk for two hours and assess how we were going. Deal.

It might be a relatively short walk, but there are some steep sections and that's when I shared my mouse mantra with the next generation. He appreciated exactly what it was about and just plugged along, one mouthful at a time. In his case, this is also a literal tramping term, as he does eat an enormous amount of scroggin...

It was strange walking up the mount for the first time since I'd been 12. I could distinctly remember a section of boardwalk and it was very satisfying, about half way up, to come across it - exactly as I remembered it. Unbelievably, I can't recall if I made it to the top when I was Fav Nef's age but - given I was neither "really fit nor hyper", and that I don't have a top-of-the-mountain recollection - I suspect not.

In no time at all of steadily putting one foot after the other, we found ourselves looking down upon the carpark, the Peel Forest village and the braided Rangitata River.

By the time we hit our two-hour mark, we were so close to the top, we could almost throw a stone at the hut. Of course, it wasn't quite as close as it looked, but we both agreed it was close enough. So we had a good scroggin recharge, assessed the best approach (there is only one) and set off on the final burst to the summit.

And before we knew it, there we were: just like the wizard in Lord of the Rings, looking down upon our South Canterbury subjects.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as standing on the top of a hill - one that you weren't sure you would be standing on top of when you set off that morning.

The trip down the hill was considerably faster - partly driven Fav Nef deciding at the top that he needed a toilet stop... For the record, there is a toilet at the top, but no toilet paper. Of course.

Anyway, we successfully (see previous paragraph) made it down to the car and our cabin at the campground, with plenty of the day to spare.

We must have looked like a couple of old fisherman, parked up on the small deck of our cabin, munching on chippies and drinking fizzy drink from our tin mugs. Well, when you're neither fit nor hyper, you have to fuel these adventures some how...