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.