Day 39 - Lake Selfe to Hamilton Hut, 21.8km, 4 hours 45 minutes

In the morning we had bellbirds literally surrounding our camp site on all sides. For someone who has planted their garden to encourage them but never seen one at home, it's a rather magical experience. I took some video but can't post that to my blog, so you'll have to put up with the rather enthralled selfie I accidentally took while filming.
You'll see I'm rather well rugged up - there was another light frost last night and I'm now consistently feeling cool in the hours before dawn. Definitely time to switch to my 4 season sleeping bag next time I'm home. The 3 season I bought for this trip might be 3 season in Auckland, but not down here!

We had a little more road walking first thing this morning to the Harper river.  This took little more than an hour, then with a quick shortcut to the river bed at shaved off a needless few kilometers by fording the river early, the first of several fords of the Harper we were to do, before starting to follow it upstream along the Birdwood Range.

Until we got further into the mountains later in the day the walking wasn't particularly interesting, although Mount Olympus grew progressively more spectacular as we approached it. Despite the relative mundanity I quite enjoyed the walk, invoking as it did very pleasant memories of tramping this valley and the valleys around it as a kid. This is very much my tramping home patch.

After lunch and a couple of (very cold) swims at the Avoca River confluence, where there is a quite spectacular t-intersection of valleys, we continued on past a local landmark, the pinnacles.


I enjoyed the valley more and more as we got further up river and towards the Hamilton Creek confluence.

Just past the confluence, at the point where there used to be a 3 wire bridge - never really required (it was always easier to just ford the river; if the river is too high to ford here you should probably be staying put anyway), but who can resist the fun of a 3 wire bridge; I've never not used it - in any case I digress, the 3 wire bridge has been replaced with a boring footbridge. RIP. To get back from my digression and then my subsequent sub-digression to my original point, this ex-3 wire bridge, now boring suspension bridge, marks 800 km of trail!

That's 500 miles, more or less. So yes, I WOULD walk 500 miles, but unhappily I wouldn't walk 500 more, there's only about 300 left until the end.

So that brings us to the Hilton, the affectionate nickname used by Canterbury trampers for the Hamilton Hut. Built in the early 1980's, it was the first modern style hut built in Canterbury. This means I'd have started using it when it was pretty much brand new. With its wide deck, awesome fireplace (since converted to a very effective pot black stove), convenient drying rack, running water!!!, and extensive views towards both the Cass and Lagoon Saddles, it made quite the contrast to the 4 and 6 bunk, draughty forestry huts we were used to. It still stacks up as among the best huts on the TA, a match for the Greenstone Hut - pretty much a great walks standard hut, and only bettered by the brand new huts on the Motutapu. Needless to say, it's great to be back!


There are 3 SOBOs in - all French (there are lots of French in trail - and like seemingly many Frenchmen they're a bit weird. They have said essentially nothing to us - I get the distinct vibe that they see us as not meriting their time. In any case a hearty hello on arrival was greeted by a "humph" , and a warning at dinner that a pot was boiling over with nothing at all, just a sullen saunter to the pot. After that I gave it up with the conclusion that THEY weren't worth MY time.
To the tune of the Fawlty Towers German episode, "Don't mention the Rainbow Warrior. Don't mention the Rainbow Warrior". I don't want to write off a whole country - I've met some wonderful French people - and I will admit to being a little pre-disposed given the whole "we'll blow up a ship in your harbour in a blatant act of war within a generation of thousands of your young men dying to help free our country (twice)" thing, but generally I find I dislike the French. Sorry for any of those of you with connections. If it's any consolation I'm half Dutch and I really don't like many of them much either. Off point again. SOBOs. There is a definite trend for less of them, I think I'm through the hump which is good news for hut space. The 3 today is the most I've seen in some time. I think the most I saw in one day was 12 on the south side of the Rangitata River.

Enough blabbering for the day...