Halival

The Remains Of The Original Mausoleum

Day 3.  Another crack of dawn wakening! the Parkinson's drugs really mess with your brain!!  For the past three months or so I've been waking up around half past four, wide awake and can't get back to sleep, at least in my tent I'm not disturbing anyone, I read until nearly six, make my porridge and a brew and crawl out of the tent into the start of another bright sunny day.  Signs of movement from Norm's tent, another early riser.  I slipped my boots on and wandered off past the Doric temple and up to the remains of the original Mausoleum, only a tiny part is still exposed, it would be good to have seen the whole thing even if it was reminiscent of a public toilet!!  Back at the camp site it was 7:45 and the troops were stirring.  Time for a second brew and get my day sack sorted, muesli bars, giant bag of glacier fruits, 1st aid stuff etc.
Our goal was Halival and our route took us up along Atlantic Corrie, a long hoof over some horrible tussocky ground before gaining some height and finding a faint track making the going a bit easier.  The track gained height steadily and then went up with a vengeance!  At last the ground levelled off giving a chance for a breather before the last scrambly few hundred feet to the summit.

Ian on the rocks

Thijs breakfasting

It's the only pic I've got with Zaphod Beeblebrox in it!!

The views were tremendous but a few clouds were now in evidence and a cold east wind was blowing so a few photos later and we were off again, scrambling down the rocks and soon heading for the corrie floor, after a long grassy descent we were able to get back onto the fairly indistinct path and eventually down to the awful tussocky ground in the bed of the corrie.  It was in this ground that my left foot skited off a wet greasy rock hyper-extending my knee, pain shot through the joint and a few choice words were uttered. Five minutes of massage, flexing and extending my knee and it was bearable to walk, I'd seriously damaged that knee about ten years previously and spent a few weeks in hospital getting it put back in working order, I knew it wasn't that bad because I could stand and move!!  A slowish hobble got me back to my tent at 18:20.  Soup, a meal, a large brew, two Ibuprofen and two Paracetamol and bed, I just knew it was going to be another early wakeup though!