Te Araroa - Walking the South Island: Day 51 - Blue Lake Hut to West Sabine Hut, 6.9km, 2 hours 20 minutes

Both the shortest and the most adrenaline packed day of the walk.

After hard yakka over the pass yesterday, I had been planning a zero day today. After a good sleep I woke to rain, but was feeling good. Normally you might see a day of rain as a chance to hunker down in a hut. However I'd been looking forward to enjoying the lake and the upper Sabine River (Blue Lake is the source for the Sabine). With a day of rain that was now off the cards, and with the hut quickly filling up with easter trampers in early afternoon I decided to head down valley a tad to make tomorrow's walk (another climbing day) shorter.
Heading out you could see why I wasn't keen on toodling around in the Sabine River.

Further down valley there were a number of avalanche zones. Obviously there's no trouble with snow this time of year, but an avalanche zone is also a natural fall line for rocks. With the rain getting heavier, with a consummate risk of rock fall, I was keen to get across these areas pretty quickly, especially when I came across a boulder field with trees snapped off like metaphorical matchsticks.

Not more than a minute later there was a peel somewhat like thunder from high on Mt Franklin. I knew immediately what it was - a boulder had dislodged high on the mountain, anything up to a thousand meters above me - and was heading my way. As the noise grew I backed off watchfully in the probably futile hope that I might be able to dodge it if it came close. With an explosion of noise and water it dropped into the river 50 meters in front of me, sending a plume up to 20 meters into the air. With wide eyes I double timed out of there.

With the rain continuing hard the track was turning into a fairly large stream.

Large side streams were careering into the Sabine with little run-out, requiring a lot of care in their crossing - definitely not the place to lose footing!