Picking up tramping as a hobby lifestyle means you also become much more intimate with other things of life that you can ignore under, what used to be, normal circumstances.
Things such as weather forecasting, seasonal weather patterns and the numbers of hours of daylight in a given day.
Winter Solstice Dates and Times -- Wikipedia
It’s the latter interest that caused me to note that the Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest day and longest night, isn’t too far away already. The Winter Solstice for the Southern Hemisphere in 2010 is on the 21st this month, at 11:28 UTC.
In other words, on the 21st of June 2010, 23:28 NZST, as in New Zealand we are UTC + 12 while daylight savings isn’t ‘on’.
That doesn’t mean it is the middle of winter, mind you. It generally marks the start of the 6 or 8 coldest weeks however. After those, the amount of tilt towards the sun changes sufficiently for days to become longer, and more warmth is enjoyed from our lovely sun.
Near the top of the south of the South Island, the sun currently only stays with us from about 8 am until 5 pm. Allowing for dawn and dusk on a clear day, that gives you about 10 hours of usable Tramping Light.
During the summer you might entertain walking into a hut for 5 hours, have a break, and walk back out, for an 11 or 12 hour trip. But doing so now means walking in the dark or considering an overnighter.
So, our general range is shortly going to be the least it will be for the year, and after few cold weeks, we can start looking forward to longer and, eventually, warmer days again.
Yeah!
2010 21 11:28
Nut In a Hut 
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