Hamilton Hut - Trustpower Campsite

What a dreamy morning! Last night, I thought screw the alarm, and we awoke rested, bright-eyed and ready to rock it. The grey cloud curtain had pulled back, leaving Hamilton hut, the forest, the river, and the meadows bathed in sunlight. We hadn’t been on the trail for an hour before we were being absolutely fried – in a good way. Today would be a breezy 18 km to the Trustpower Campsite. For once we didn’t have to navigate an overgrown, rocky trail. We sped along on a lovely 4WD track snaking through the seared yellow grass. I plugged in Eddie Vedder’s “Hard Sun” and promptly named the day.

This is Canterbury. Great, golden flats blanketed the earth for miles in between jello-top mountains. Ribbons of braided rivers pierced the gold and reflected the almost-always blue sky. We crossed the Harper River, and the icy water felt good in the searing heat. The Harper and Avoca rivers joined together, splintering off into even more braids. The water flowed fast and deep over my feet, enough to produce a feeling of adventure.

The sun and the sky and the fresh cool rivers felt so good on my skin, everything about this day felt so right, so very mine. This land is where I belong. Like the day between Waiau Hut and Anne Hut, neither Toby nor I could stop marvelling at how insanely beautiful New Zealand is. Breezy tracks like these give such an ultimate feeling of speed and freedom. How was this not the centre of the world? How could cities, subways and dirt-flecked snow exist at the same time as this perfection?

We were in utter rapture as we flew along the Canterbury highcountry. It was today that I discovered Tom & Lukes salted caramel raw balls. *Life transformed*. God, they were divine! Over the next month we would consume scores of them. We walked and talked and munched and fried. No sunscreen could protect us from the merciless rays, and I died of laughter watching Toby trying to navigate with his buff pulled completely up over his head. We were clearly walking just to the east of the Southern Alps crest; we could see higher and more rugged mountains looming in the west. We followed along a ridge beside a cultivated field, absurdly green against the arid landscape. For a heart-stopping moment I though the plants might be strawberries. That would have been the end of no trespassing!

After a final river crossing, we threw down our packs in the first shady spot we could find beneath some trees. I sat down to eat my…

-          YIKES!

I sprang up as if bitten in the butt. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that far from the truth. I’d sat down in what I thought was a soft patch of grass, which in reality was a thicket of burs! Toby roared with laughter as I painstakingly picked the cactus orbs from my now pin-cushion ass. Grrrr. This day had lulled me in only to spit me back out with punctured flesh. Such is the life of a wilderness woman!

A long walk down a gravel road finally led us to Trustpower Campsite. Despite the short mileage, we weren’t keen to continue. We were overheated, and the trail notes were confusing – there was only a 30 km barren stretch of road to Lake Coleridge Lodge tomorrow. I had booked a stay at the lodge while Toby would attempt the notoriously difficult hitch into Methven.

Trustpower was surprisingly populated, and we gobbled down a whole slab of Whittakers Berry&Biscuit chocolate in one satisfying sitting. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just the muscle that was bulking me up anymore… Day hikers and drunk drivers rolled into the baking carpark. We were in the middle of absolute nowhere, I still wonder how that spot became such a hub. Lake Coleridge was apparently great for windsurfing? I lay in my tent as light clouds rolled in, released a couple of tester raindrops, changed their mind and floated off again – leaving nothing but amber alpenglow on the distant mountains.