Day 37 - Comyn's Hut to Rakaia River, 14.5km, 3 hours 30 minutes

The view from Turtons Saddle down to the Rakaia and Wilberforce River beds. It's 5km of riverbed across to the far mountain range.

An easy day in prospect, just need to nip up a saddle then down to the Rakaia River. The day dawned beautifully fine, if somewhat cold with a small frost on the ground. Still a welcome change from yesterday!


Early on we passed a SOBO. A woman in her early to mid twenties. Very small pack, apart from the bow mounted to the side. Turns out she had a possum trap too and was largely living off the land. Very impressive. I'm still not keen to try possum meat though.

We made progress up valley, easy and picturesque walking.


A cricket hitched a ride on my pack for 2-3km, spending its time chirruping right by my ear. I didn't mind it for the novelty - it reminded me of those Bernstein bears stories like Just Me And My Dad, where there is always a cricket involved.
We arrived at A-frame hut for an early lunch. It's a cute hut, but given that it only has 3 bunks and there were 2 people in residence last night I'm glad we didn't push on to it!
Then a small climb up to Turton's Saddle and a fine view both down to the Rakaia River, and back the way we had come from.


I was in very familiar territory now, having hared up to this saddle on a reconnaissance trip shortly before starting the trail.  That time I was meandering back down to the Rakaia to rejoin my family when I was surprised by a sudden thunderclap directly overhead.  I hadn't noticed the coming over the saddle behind me.  It certainly got the adrenaline going!  I ran off down the hill and all the way back to the car which was parked at the river, with the storm reverberating close behind.


Back to the current trip, the river itself is not safely fordable.  I remember trips as a boy crossing the Wilberforce River, and it is possible to go upstream and tackle the two rivers separately before their confluence, but it is a big river and I was not keen to do so.  So Karen and the boys picked us up.  We're staying for the night near Windwhistle at a nice little place, before being dropped to the north bank of the Rakaia tomorrow.  The room Karen and I are using has a Juliet balcony, which I have to say, I could get used to!

Day 36 - Double Hut to Comyn's Hut, 16km, 5 hours 20 minutes

Mirrors are totally unnecessary in huts - nobody cares what they look like. Nevertheless the Double Hut toilet had one I approve of.


Every longdrop should have a rear vision mirror!

It was a cold and windy day. With some climbing to be done, up to a height of 1500 meters, and snow forecast to fall down to 1800 meters, it was definitely a day to rug up.

 The prospect of climbing to high level in tussock and mud with sandals on account of my cut up feet didn't exactly fill me with joy.


Early on in the day we caught up with Teresa, a kiwi who I hadn't seen since Southland, and would shortly be leaving the trail. We grouped up and formed a chilly party.  The snow prediction was bang on - we were at about freezing level.

The saddle we were climbing, Clent Hills Saddle, just kept on giving. It looked like you were climbing to the peak, before it would dip down and send you up again. This happened numerous times, leaving us at chilling at altitude for longer than was ideal.


Eventually we reached the top, me sliding all over the place on the mud and tussock in my sandals. Not wanting to face this downhill I changed into boots at the top, as well as donning an extra base layer for warmth.  Mercifully after applying more tape my feet didn't feel too bad in the boots.


Then it was down to the north branch of the Ashburton River through very wet and cold waist high tussock. The trail description called for a very specific 51 fords of this river in the 7km we had to cover to get to the next hut. We scoffed at this as an obvious apocryphal number; more fool us. On a beautiful day I'd have really enjoyed it. As it was, it was more to be endured as we descended through a gorge. Fortunately the river wasn't too high, each ford coming little over my knees. Still, there was no chance to warm up!



The gorge came out at Comyn's Hut. Ideas of pushing on to A-frame Hut disappeared when we saw the hut had a fire and some scroungable wood. One somewhat smokey hut later I was enjoying the first fire I've had on trail.

Week 5 Summary

6 days walking, 1 zero day, not counting a hiatus home off track. All up 111km covered.

An experiment with new inner soles has left my feet in vulnerable shape, necessitating use of sandals in less then ideal terrain.

However I've come into a section where I'll be getting home a fair bit, and also know the trail very well, so the next couple of weeks should be easy travel.

Day 35 - Paddle Hill Creek to Double Hut, 23.2km, 5 hours 45 minutes

Maori Lakes, close to the Ashburton/Hakatere River.  A beautiful area.

The good news is that walking in sandals was no issue for my badly mangled heels, albeit today was largely easy terrain with just a small ridge to climb over.

The day started out by dropping into a large basin surrounded by mountains, rather reminiscent of the Hanmer Basin, whereupon the 700km milestone was soon crossed.


Crossing the Ashburton River we then came to a quite lovely section close to Lake Heron called the Maori Lakes, providing stunning views into the large mountains and remnant glaciers of the Arrowsmith range.

We had a few more kilometres of road walking to negotiate, with any luck the last for some time (Rakaia River south bank not withstanding - it's currently blocked from cyclone damage).

This led back into the hills and a late lunch at Manuka Hut, a great spot.

We weren't staying though, we had a lazy 5km to negotiate to Double Hut, which has spectacular views down to Lake Heron.


One final note of interest. I had heard rumours of Ed Hillary's scrawl in Double Hut. I found it, and it is old, but it looks fake to me. Amongst other things, Hillary is usually spelled with 2 l's. I'll let you decide for yourself.


Tomorrow we get into some more difficult terrain. I've decided to attempt it in sandals, and only switch back to boots as a last resort despite Neil finding me some left behind inner soles in the hut here that will do a job quite nicely if required.

Day 34 - Rangitata River to Paddle Hill Creek, 18.5km, 5 hours

Climbing north, away from the Rangitata River.

Starting in Rangiora, we first had a drive back to the trailhead on the north bank of the Rangitata River.

Mt Sunday is close to the trailhead, famous as Edoras in the Lord of the Rings films. I was keen for a look and so was Neil so we diverted for an hour or two to join the thronging masses. I'm fairly sure this must be the most climbed mountain in New Zealand. Actually it's interesting that it's called a mountain, it's only 80 meters above the river plain.

Then it was lunch at the trailhead, bye to mum and dad, who'd very graciously come along to take the car home, and setting off on the actual trail at 1pm.

While in town I'd replace my boot inner soles, which were starting to get into a sorry state. Unfortunately the new ones were a complete disaster. They lifted my heels enough that my boots would wear at the heel on both feet like sandpaper whilst climbing. Within 20 minutes of walking I had an issue, taping didn't help and when I stopped to remove the inner soles after 40 minutes both heels had literally been cut open, creating by far the worst blisters I have had so far on trail. I walked the rest of the day with no inners and double socks. This was better, but the damage had already been done and any climbing was agony. I'll take to my sandals tomorrow, but there is some difficult climbing the day after which will be interesting.


Getting back to the walking, early on we passed Lake Clearwater, the holiday homes there looking somewhat like a squatters camp, which I presume they largely are.


Climbing up onto a high plain we then traversed along for awhile before finding a stream, albeit choked with matagouri and difficult to access, but nevertheless a decent tenting spot for the night.

The section through to the Rakaia River is only 3 days, so I have brought in fresh food and beer, ala a 'normal' tramp.
I haven't had too many spectacular sunsets this trip but was favoured with one this evening.

Hiatus 5 - Home for 3 days

Not getting across the Rangitata had the advantage in providing the opportunity to go home for a bit of much needed R&R&R (rest, relaxation and resupply).
I have a couple of home breaks lined up while I'm in Canterbury. It's great to be back home with my family, and I have to say that I've been really enjoying my comforts, notably food!

Neil has been staying too. No doubt it has been interesting for Neil to put a face to a name since I talk about Karen a fair bit on track, and also vice versa, since I've been mentioning Neil a fair bit in the blog. It's been great having Neil along - while enjoying being home, it's good to be able to chew the fat about the track as well.

I'm determined to finish the track but have been going long enough that I'm really starting to feel the pull of home, so it'll be good to get back on track tomorrow to remind myself about the other part of my life right now - the walking, as opposed to eating, part!

Day 33 - Crooked Spur Hut to Rangitata River, 8km, 3 hours

Today was dominated by the decision whether or not to ford the Rangitata River. After a fair bit of consultation home to see what the river and weather was doing I decided I didn't like the forecast of rain in the mountains, together with the news that the river level had started to rise during the night.  Arrangements were duly put in place for Karen to play taxi and pick us up. One ruined Saturday for her, she's an angel! However it left us with a really easy few kilometres dropping down to Bush Stream, then down to the river.

This meant a fair few crossings of Bush Stream, which was quite high, up to about bum level in places. The first crossing didn't go so well for me; I ended up grovelling around on hands and knees with water up to my chin, but the rest of the crossings were much better.

Within 3 hours we were at the car park, then 45 minutes spent having a dip in the stream and some lunch saw Karen turn up and a trip home to Rangiora for a few days.