Week 4 summary

7 days walked, ignoring the long hiatus back home for Jakob's birthday and dodging the weather.

I started the week at Lake Hawea and end at Lake Tekapo about to climb out of thing Mackenzie Country, having covered 172km.

A lot of gravel walking has left me with very sore feet and I still have a few niggles in my legs, but generally I'm in pretty good nick physically. A 4 day break helps in that regard!

The back still does well with minimal voltaren required.

Onward away from the alpine lakes and further into Canterbury!

Day 28 - Lake Pukaki to Lake Tekapo, 35.1km, 7 hours 30 minutes

With a cold morning and me being cosy/lazy in my sleeping bag, it was a latish start to the day, albeit I was on the trail by just after 8.

Having walked to where the trail left Lake Pukaki yesterday, at the Pukaki Power Station.  There was an immediate easy climb away from the lake, following the hydro tunnels that were dropping water down from the Tekapo Canal.


I really enjoyed the first 10km walking. With gravel road to walk, no attention to where my feet were stepping was required, leaving me free to admire the various mountain ranges arrayed in front of me. Having spent a lot of time around Aoraki in recent years I knew the peaks well. I particularly enjoyed the view I had of Mt Tasman (not visible from the environs of Mount Cook Village - it hides in behind Aoraki from that vantage point) and the full extent of (perhaps my favourite mountain) Mount Sefton, with its enormous, glaciated east face.

The recent snows were still apparent, even the Sealy range, home to my favourite climb (but not Jakob's, long story) still had a dusting.

My peaceful reverie was broken somewhat by the horrible whine of a hydrofoil making its way up the lake below me. I guess you can't have everything.

The trail was following an old road along the Tekapo Canal that until comparatively recently was publicly accessible, and in fact back in the day was Karen's and my route of choice between Tekapo and Pukaki, being incomparably more scenic than the state highway.
Having a salmon farm along the canal, the road used to be crammed with fishermen, seeking the enormous trout that always surround salmon farms. The salmon farm is much larger than I remember it used to be, it now stretches for perhaps a couple of kilometres along the canal. Enormous salmon jumping inside the pens, and enormous trout still jump outside of them.


Close to the salmon farm I was pleased to add to my group of curio from this trip, the world's most over engineered gate.



Most of the rest of the day wasn't so interesting, consisting largely of this:

The mountain scape opened up again close to Tekapo, providing distant views of my coming route into the Two Thumb Range.

... and I passed 600km, now within sniffing distance of half way!  By the by I wonder what the sniffing distance is to me?


Lake Tekapo is full to the brim, a result of the recent cyclone no doubt, so water was being spilled into the Tekapo River, a rather rare occurrence.

Arriving in Tekapo, after a lot of walking around town; to the pools, back into town for dinner (where I had a happy meeting and catch up with Neil over a beer) I have collapsed into a dorm at the camping ground. I was pleased to get it, accommodation seems bordering on unobtainable in this town.
I haven't met my room mates yet, but looking at the room I venture to suggest they are young.

Day 27 - Twizel to Lake Pukaki, 23.7km, 5 hours

I started the day with breakfast in Twizel. I've got 10 days food on board, enough to get me to the Rakaia River, but with little provision for emergency food in that calculation, so I figured I may as well eat in town while I could. All that food does have the added penalty of a heavy pack, but with no climbing to be done for a few days, it could be worse!

There is a fair bit of snow on the mountains not yet melted from the weather I dodged coming home a week ago. For it to be still there now this time of year meant it was a fair old dumping. While it's there it could mean some cold winds, so I've packed an extra base layer for the next section.


I started by making my way towards Lake Pukaki. The Twizel River looked to be in high flow and good for swimming, but I wasn't stopping only 20 minutes into my walk.

Most TAers skip or bike this section. But with a cool and pleasant day I was really enjoying the distant mountain vistas early on.  However I hadn't been walking long when the weather closed over the far alps and a strong headwind sprang up. Enjoyment factor somewhat diminished, I soldiered on.

The Mackenzie Country has a massive Wilding pine issue, and it didn't take long for me to encounter them. They're literally from here to Christmas, becoming worse on approach to a pine plantation.


Getting close to Lake Pukaki there were quite a few rabbits living amongst the pines, but then I got the shock of my life when what I initially took to be a large fox darted from the path ahead of me into the trees. It must have been a wild dog, of course, living off the rabbits. I can't say I've seen a wild dog on my tramps before, so this was a first for me.

After morning tea at the Lake Pukaki salmon store (Pepsi and chocolate chip biscuit) I continued on around the end of the lake, then up the northern side, to my campsite just south of the Pukaki power station.

As with seemingly all the other alpine lakes I've passed by, the wind had been in and there is quite the chop on the lake. This hasn't stopped me swimming and it was the same today, with a couple of late afternoon dips.  My campsite is tucked well into a dell.  I'm hoping this will provide some protection as the wind here can be ferocious.

My legs and feet are both quite sore given the rest I've had and the easy day's walk today. I've got 40 odd kilometres to clock off tomorrow, past Tekapo, so it'll be interesting to see how I hold together.

Hiatus 4 - Home! for 4 days

I'd hatched a plan to come home for Jakob's birthday and take the kids by surprise. It just so happened that this coincided with Cyclone Gita coming through, so I managed to dodge some seriously bad weather too.

To give an indication, Neil (who was a few days behind) sent me a snap of what the last saddle coming down towards Lake Ohau looked like post cyclone.

A fair bit different than when I was there only a couple of
days earlier!

Colleen and I rescued a fellow TA walker, Frank, from the weather and we've been putting him up for the last few days. A night in the hot tub is better than one in the snow!


Back to the track today to start walking again tomorrow, Twizel to Te kapo.  It feels weird to be leaving home again so soon.  Hopefully I'll be back in 7-10 days when I get to the larger rivers, Rangitata and Rakaia. 

Day 26 - Lake Middleton to Twizel, 31km, 6 hours 30 minutes

Lake Ohau

Having stayed the night in comfort in Twizel, Colleen dropped me off mid morning back at Lake Middleton, to walk back through to Twizel that day.

The day was marked by flat walking with a progressively spectacular cloudscape. Having a day pack it was easy enough that I ended up running parts of it.


The early going was around the shore of Lake Ohau. This provided interesting views across the lake, to the saddle I had been over yesterday. In the photo below, up the left hand valley.


Eventually the outfrom from the lake, the source of the Ohau River, was reached. Like all the lake outflows in the Mackenzie this is controlled for power generation purposes, part of the think big project of more than a generation ago.


Swims were enjoyed in both the river, and in Lake Ruataniwha, that the river leads to. I particularly enjoyed the swim in the lake, not having waves to deal with for once in this much smaller, man made lake, and having a fine gravel beach to use.

Close to Twizel I was getting some amazing skies, perhaps marking the approach of an ex tropical cyclone over the Alps. Certainly I was pleased to be tucked up in town and not in my tent!

This marks the start of several flat, if not particularly interesting, days as I cross the Mackenzie Country.

Day 25 - East Ahuriri Valley to Lake Middleton, 25km, 7 hours 15 minutes

About to begin the drop down towards Lake Ohau

I can tell I've been out in the bush for awhile. As I started walking this morning I could smell myself for the first time. It's either the wind fleece or the shorts I think. Both are in chronic need of a wash!

I started the day over a mogul landscape that I would imagine is fantastic for cross country skiing in winter. Although I am most definitely in ex-glacier territory, I'm pretty confident these are landslide detritus rather than moraine.

I had another saddle to climb over, not so high this time, only 500 meters, but this a route, with often not even a partial track to follow. It was heavy going to say the least, not too steep a climb, but tussock ackwardly mixed with spaniards, requiring a high lifted gait to make progress. It's difficult to explain how tiring it was, but think of doing a Monty Python style Ministry of Silly Walks for 2 hours whilst wearing a heavy pack and you'll be in the ballpark.

I sat and took in that it was indeed well
with my soul at this spot

I put some music on that I could mentally escape into, and one of the first songs on was very timely, "It is well with my soul". I sat in place, listened to the song, and remembered what a blessing it was for me to be in that place.

Afterwards I still had the same exhausting terrain to negotiate, but at least felt a lot better about being there!
Seeking to dodge more exhaustion I resorted to climbing a scree slope, an exhausting thing to do in itself, only to find the same terrain higher up.














The pass ended with a view down to Lake Ohau, seemingly close, with Twizel further off across the Mackenzie Basin.

I expected to be having a dip in the lake within the next hour or so, but it actually took quite some time to come down off the saddle and across the lowlands next to the lake. Close to the lake a beautiful, if breezy, day greeted me.



The last drop to the lake was accompanied by that most rare of things, DOC humour, "The Knee Tremble Drop" - not so knee-trembingly bad as some of the terrain I'd been on recently.

So it was packs off and time for a quick dip.  Again the lake was too churned up to be very conducive of a longer swim...

... before a quick road bash down to close by Lake Middleton for a better swim.

A few hours later I was met by my Aunty Colleen who has come down to spend a couple of days with me. A warm bed and wood fired pizza in Twizel tonight! Colleen, you're awesome!!!

Day 24 - Upper Timaru Hut to Ahuriri River East Branch, 28km, 7 hours 30 minutes

Martha Saddle, the entry point into Canterbury

Today I had a very large river to ford. With heavy rain in the forecast I was out the door pretty early, at 7.20. 


After a couple of hundred meters it dawned on me I had someone else's walking sticks. Sticks restored to their proper owner I got started on the day properly.

There has been some rain in the night but the morning dawned with only scattered light showers. These grew heavier as I closed in on the now customary saddle I was to climb this day, this one only about 600 meters of climbing.

The heavier rain had me concerned about the level of the Ahuriri River I was to cross later in the day, and also about the stability of the scree around me. A SOBO had seen a landslide come down close to the trail the day before, a story which reminded me of a close call we had when I was a kid coming down from Cass Saddle, also in heavy rain. On that occasion we had just crossed a scree slope into bush when there was an enormous rumble and a huge cloud of dust went up behind us. In any case I was watching the scree slopes to the side of the trail very carefully!

I was pushing quite hard to try to make the river crossing before it went up too much, and soon had a sight of the low part of the saddle I was to climb. Happy days! It was nicely graded with switchbacks, looking something like a ski field access road.

Following this led into a spectacularly shattered landscape near the top of the saddle.



There were fantastic views from the top, and once over the top I could see Canterbury mountains in the far distance.



With the rain staying constant, and an easy gradient to follow down I pushed on towards the river, ignoring a small hut where I had intended to have a boil up, concerned by the possibility of rapidly rising rivers.

The river I had followed down from the saddle was becoming quite large as I neared the Ahuriri, yet wasn't unduly discoloured, which gave me hope for getting across the larger river shortly.

The Ahuriri runs on a river bed with magnificent views of the Main Divide, which is not so far upstream from where I was crossing. As I approached the weather suddenly cleared to blue skies giving fantastic views of the Alps.





The trail notes warned of a difficult 100 meter drop down off the alluvial plain to the river bed. Indeed the official route looked impossible, with scree cliffs 40 meters high barring access. However I spied a 4 wheel drive track cutting down the slope a few hundred meters up stream so made towards that. I noticed however that the cliffs levelled out to a steep 30 degree slope, so using my poles literally skied a scree slide to the bottom. My boots won't thank me for it, but scree skiing is a lot of fun!



The river crossing was pretty non eventful. It was bum deep and running swiftly with slippery rocks, so care was required, but I found the crossing easy enough.
The north bank marked a triple milestone:
1. I had forded one of the largest rivers on the trail
2. It marked the 500km point on my journey
3. I had entered Canterbury!

The far side's terraced bank, and farmland behind it, was festooned with rabbit holes every couple of meters, such that care with foot placement was required. Every couple of seconds another rabbit would appear from its hole and bolt across the hillside.


On my way up the East Ahuriri Valley, beginning the climb to a saddle that would drop me to Lake Ohau, I spied some curious farmland. I couldn't work out if it was pastoral with closely spaced shelter belts, or partial forestry.














In any case I hadn't gone far up this new valley when I found an idyllic camping spot with shade, tucked next to a freezing water race.
I gave up plans of going further up valley and knocked off mid afternoon for a few hours of lazing about and 1 or 2 (very quick) dips in the water race.