Chalk & streams

It's time to resurrect this route which was cancelled earlier in the year. The weather forecast looks good for Thursday — hopefully we get some good views of the winter starry sky. Meeting at the Whakaehu/Silverstream car park (see location) at the intersection of Silverstream Valley and Flagstaff-Whare Flat roads, we’ll retrace our tyre marks a short distance to the bottom of Chalkies track. It’s a good hands-on-knees grunt up here as we head for the top of Powder Hill. After the climb, we'll head for the trig (to make it count), before the nice descent back to Silversteam with a brief detour to the limestone formation. Once down, we'll turn left for a loop of Racemans and the Powder Creek track, before the short jog back to the start. All up, we're looking at around 12.5 km and about 600 metres of climbing. Headlamps are essential, and it's likely to be a bit muddy and definitely cold. See you there….