Arthurs Pass - Tekapo

I suppose I should explain my lack of blogging over the past few weeks. I was actually fairly diligent with note keeping for the section from Arthurs Pass to Rakaia but it was the events that took place on the following section from the Rakaia to the Rangiatata that interfered with my keeping you up to date.

See, after hitching to the start of the Harper Valley track from Arthurs Pass, we followed a really nice track to Hamilton Hut where we were spoiled with supplies of deodorant and the game 'Cards Against Humanity' which kept spirits high until Luke and I went to cook and discovered our silicone cooking pot had been eaten through by mice. Luckily we were in a hut that also spoiled us for pans and cooking utensils so for the time being the pot, now rendered totally useless, was but another thing for us to carry.

Nonetheless, we continued to have a lovely evening in a busy hut with lots of other TA-ers and made the most of the sunshine the day after. As usual, we started day two with many river crossings - the river we followed was almost Cheddar Gorge esque but with its usual trumping factors of turquoise blue waters and towering snow capped mountains - the norm here in New Zealand as I'm sure you've gathered from my prior posts.

We continued to follow the river which soon flowed gently beside fields and rocky flats all the way into Harper Village where we struck luck. The walk from here goes along gravel road for 20km where, at the Rakaia River, hikers are forced to hitch to avoid the crossing by foot - we weren't looking forward to either of these two parts. We stepped out of the gate from the river track, into Harpers Village and there he was - our lift! A Search and Rescue Volunteer stuck his head out of his truck and asked us where we were going, and funnily enough, he was going there too!

It was an hours drive all the way to Methven where we were wanting to resupply for the next section and arrange transport to the start of the trailhead on the opposite side of the Rakaia. On the way to Methven, we found out that the Rakaia is usually crossable at about 250 Cumecs (tons of water moving per second) but after the recent rainfall, it was flowing at 3500 Cumecs! We were glad to arrive in Methven and book ourselves onto the school bus the morning after for our lift to the trailhead.

Who would have thought it possible? We actually caught a primary school bus from Methvan to our trail! Allbeit, the children weren't on the bus yet since it was only 6am but I'm still sure it wouldn't happen in the UK - Health (and Safety gone mad and all that. And not only was it a school bus carrying four stinky hikers (Jan and Jasmin from Germany were with us), it was also a school bus that had to ford streams and avoid wondering cows on its journey!

When we arrived at the trailhead, the sun had just come up. We had the whole day ahead of us to be leisurely about the section ahead.

It started with a gradual, but steepening, climb up to a saddle. The weather was pretty much perfect and the views were ace. We dropped down to a river where our trail notes describe a 'vague track' where hikers must 'pick their way up the river.' We literally ended up walking up the river in knee-thigh deep water because any land that was passable was either covered in those god forsaken spikey bushes or only remained for 200 meters.

This, my lovely readers, is where we come to my reasons for not blogging for the past four weeks.

We all stopped once we were sure the river wading had come to an end to empty our shoes of sand and gravel. Luke sat down beside the river and washed his trainers in the river since they were wet anyway while Jan and Jasmin pushed on to climb the second saddle we had to climb that day.

Luke and I basked in the sun and ate lunch, filled water bottles etc etc. and then Luke turned to me and said 'Hey Dais, you've got your phone haven't you?' As you might have already guessed, I didn't. He rushed to the river where he had been washing his shoes out and there, sitting at the bottom of a baby plunge pool, was my beloved phone with all of my notes, our photos, telephone numbers and addresses for contacts.

I thought I'd done a pretty good job at staying calm... until we'd climbed maybe half way up to the saddle and I broke out with some kind of stress incurred nose bleed. I was walking in front of Luke at the time and had turned to ask for his help when the wind shooting up into the valley caught the blood dripping from my nose and splashed Luke in the face and coated his bag before I could even really say anything. He stared at me in horror for a bit but sat me down on the side of the river and helped me wash up anyway.

When we reached the hut, we had walked a fair distance but both felt more tired from the days disasters than the walking itself. We cooked as best we could in our new budget cooking pot and hit the hay hoping tomorrow would bring fewer problems.

The day after was much less harrowing. Mostly flat, we managed to walk all the way to the road where we had to hitch a ride around the second of the two uncrossable rivers, the Rangiatata.

We got a lift with a DOC guy who stopped on the way so we could grab an ice cream and then dropped us off to resupply in Geraldine.

We did out bit of shopping and then found a little burger place to have coffee while we decided what to do - stay in Geraldine a night or try and hitch to the trailhead?

What we ended up doing was stupid and to put it bluntly, this whole part of the trail was starting to drive me crazy. I didn't want to hitchhike or pay $200 for a lift, I wanted to walk like we had been for the past three months! A guy in the burger shop who was familiar with the TA offered to take us to Peel Forest where there is a camp ground on the way to the trailhead. We thought we'd hit the jack pot but actually just ended up spending an entire day in Peel Forest not being able to get a lift to the trailhead, not having enough food just to walk there ourselves, and having to turn back around to get to Geraldine again. It was the first time on trail that Luke and I just decided 'forget it.'

We got into Geraldine and decided that we'd hitch around to Lake Tekapo (about a three hour drive) and walk the trail backwards instead. We got a hitch within five minutes and were in Tekapo just in time to find a free (and slightly illegal) camping spot underneath some pine trees before sundown.

The day after, we caught a lift in the front of a big transporter lorry and started the Two Thumb Track backwards. It just meant we just had to walk it twice in order to get back to Tekapo and carry on with the trail!

We were so glad we didn't skip this section all together because it was the one of the most fun and beautiful section of the whole trail. We hiked along the ridgeline up to Stag Saddle which is the highest part of the trail at 1925m and then scrambled up a scree slope to the closest peek at 2075m. On the climb up, I did stop a few times to decide if it was wise since every step shifted piles and piles of loose scree down towards whoever might have been climbing up behind. (We hadn't realized there was a nice path up to the peak from the other side until we reached the top.) From the peak, we could see all the mountains surrounding us including Mt Cook - the highest mountain in NZ. It was amazing! The skies were blue, the mountains were covered in snow and the lakes reflected everything in its perfectly still water even though it wasn't quite so wind free up on the peak.