- Days 91-96
- This section: 194 km
- Total: 2583 km
From Lake Tekapo the Te Araroa follows the Alps2Ocean mountain bike trail for 90 kilometres. Ideal conditions for getting into the saddle ourselves – at least for the next 56 km. The first 30 kilometres ran monotonously along the Tekapo canal – how glad we were to leave those behind us effortlessly!
We made just one mistake: we decided against luggage transport and rode with our packs on our backs. They may be relatively light, but evidently heavy enough that after only a few kilometres our backsides hurt so much…
Luckily we could hand the mountain bikes back after a good 50 km in the village of Twizel, and walked the final third of the Alps2Ocean mountain bike track on foot the next day.
In the evening we camped in a meadow next to a ski club’s lodge; according to our trail notes we would be welcome guests there and could use the toilet and water supply. Somehow that message did not seem to have reached the members of the ski club. They were not at all pleased that we were “disturbing” their cosy lodge weekend. Well, who can blame them: by the end of the day there were 12 tents in the meadow…
By now it is not only us sobos (southbounders) out on the Te Araroa, but increasingly also the nobos (northbounders, who started at the southern tip and walk north).
The next morning Jan and I managed, one of the few times on the trail, to set off at sunrise. After 24 km of trail we had to cross the Ahuriri river – the largest river on the Te Araroa that is also officially part of it (unlike the rivers Rakaia and Rangitata on the previous section – or to take the bridge and walk 12 km around it. In that case it would be a long day…
Through wide tussock landscape we made easy progress for a change.
Arriving at the river, it sadly did not look at all easy to cross. The picture does not really convey it – but you also cannot see that it was raining upstream and blowing hard at the same time.
We did not want to leave the crossing untried, though! An extra 12 kilometres does not sound tempting to us either.
We walked up and down the river and first tried to cross at a point with a sandbank in the middle. On our side the river was easy to wade, but on the other side the current was extremely strong. So back again.
Perhaps it would be better to cross at the widest point? We had already come more than halfway when the current grew stronger and stronger and the river deeper with every step. It really is astonishing what force a river like that has!
Ah well, what are 12 kilometres more or less!? So we waded ruefully back and walked above the river towards the bridge… happily the 12-kilometre detour turned into only a 6-kilometre one, since on the other side of the river an elderly couple picked us up who were driving up the dead-end road “just because”.
On the other side we met Felix, who had managed to cross the river. Easy, he reckoned?
Since it had turned really windy by now and started to rain, together we pushed on for another two hours to the ‘Tin Hut’, a private hut we are allowed to use. Would you let complete strangers use your cosy alpine hut day after day? Exactly: no.
The hut was run-down accordingly.
It did hold one surprise, though: Brandon, whom we last saw in Russell Forest at kilometre 275 ! Back then he had decided not to carry on following the Te Araroa but to travel straight to the South Island to see New Zealand’s highlights. At the time I thought, how on earth can he judge the entire Te Araroa after two weeks…
It seems, though, that he had a really good time and saw genuine scenic beauty. Was he smarter than us in the end?
The next day was loooong: crossing the Martha Saddle, hours of skirting the Timaru river (up through forest, along the hillside, back down through forest, cross the river and the whole game again from the start), a 2 km steep climb to the mouse-infested Stodys Hut, only to decide on the spot that we could manage the remaining 11 kilometres to Pakituhi Hut as well. Phew, were we glad when we arrived there at 8 pm after 38 kilometres and there were even mattresses free for us!
And how much more delighted we were the next morning! Overnight the temperature dropped below zero while we could “sleep in” indoors.
Very relaxed, we walked first along Lake Hawea, later along the river of the same name, to just short of Wanaka, where we found ourselves a snug little camping spot so that we would only have a few kilometres to walk the next day and could effectively enjoy a rest day in the hipster town of Wanaka.
