Lake Coleridge Lodge

Shoutout to the cool young bucks Caleb & Richard who saved us the 30 km road walk. They stuffed us in their already overflowing backseat where we competed for precious inches with copious amounts of fishing gear. I waved goodbye to Toby when we dropped him off at the intersection where cars would occasionally head for Methven. Dang, that place really was the middle of nowhere. Toby looked rather small and doubtful as we sped away in a cloud of dust. The hitch into Methven from that wilderness junction was described in the trail notes as “notoriously difficult”, and we could only guess how he’d get past the Rakaia River from there… Let’s put it this way: you aint been to the middle of nowhere until you’ve seen the remote places in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is deserted. Miles upon miles of tussock blowing in the wind, a few stray sheep, and mountains. Always mountains.

I arrived for my blissful zero day at Lake Coleridge Lodge. Waving goodbye to Caleb and Richard, I stood for a moment in the baking morning sun. A faint breeze tickled the tall grass against my legs. I felt like a grub. Sweaty, dirty, heavy, squashed after a month beneath my pack. My feet were visibly bigger, they practically oozed outwards. Not surprisingly perhaps, as carrying that pack around was kinda like sporting a 15 month pregnancy… The host greeted me warmly and showed me to my room. It felt oddly clean against my grubbiness, several notches above the chillout hostels and DOC huts I’d stayed in for the past 30 days. No matter how long I showered for, there was always a faint whiff of… tramper about me. The dirt was embedded in my pores and my soul now, it would take weeks of luxury salon shampoo to erase.

Now, I know Lake Coleridge Lodge has closed, so my advice to stay away is outdated. But I was absolutely shocked at the laundry prices, limited Wifi, and cereal & toast breakfast at the 180 NZD price tag (+120 NZD for the river shuttle…). They didn’t even serve lunch, I had to cook up a noodle & tuna packet in the guest kitchen! Sure, the rooms were comfy and clean. But the dinner portions – although decently sized by normal standards – were completely inadequate to feed hikers who have walked hundreds of miles. I thought back to places like Vermillion Valley Resort on the JMT, where the menu was tailored to hungry hikers. Think breakfast burritos the size of bunnies. That was the stuff. At Lake Coleridge Lodge, I walked around like a restless animal looking at the snacks available for purchase. My resupply box was full of goodies I didn’t need for the next stretch, and I wolfed down gummy bears and honeycomb clusters in minutes. Toby texted tantalisingly about Methven grocery stores and bakeries. Get thee to Methven!