Our journey to Holdsworth road end was more eventful than usual, with a few van issues to contend with. Let’s just say that Mark had a very warm bum from a 
and there may have been a tiny bit of 
!
Anyway, we arrived safely and set off to Atiwhakatu hut in the rain, arriving about 1hr 40mins later, and heading straight to bed trying not to disturb the MF group already in one of the other bunk rooms.
On Saturday morning we walked up the 
track to Jumbo hut, where we had lunch in the sunshine. It was pretty 
as we walked along the 
but the clouds stayed away so at least we could see where we were going!
Here we are making our way along the ridge.
The group made a great team, helping each other out over some of the trickier sections, and Euan even carried two packs for some of the route.
We stopped for some jet planes at the sign near the summit of Mount Holdsworth, and everyone who hadn’t been here before shuttled up and back to bag the peak.
From here it was less than an hour of mostly downhill to Powell hut.
We reached Powell hut about 3:30pm and spent the rest of the afternoon playing bananagrams and making up words to include in this trip report….oh and we played some silly balance games courtesy of Ari. Have you ever tried knocking a matchbox over with your nose when you’re kneeling on the floor just a forearm’s length away from it? It’s a lot of fun finding out how hard it is. Check out Mark having a go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6UUixlV0o&feature=youtu.be
Next morning the cloud surrounded the hut, and we had a wet descent back to the road end. Luckily, Mountain House Shelter provided us with the perfect marshmallow rest stop on the way down.
