Glenrock trailhead – Comyn’s Hut – A Frame Hut

The long-ish drive from Lake Coleridge Lodge to Glenrock trail head took us through some of the most remote Canterbury wilderness, beyond sheep farms amidst endless mountains. I chatted absent-mindedly with my host/driver, but my mind raced ahead to the trail. Would Toby be there? Had he found a ride? This section was a great dream of mine back in 2016 when I sat in my cold house fantasising about hiking the TA. Pitching my solitary tent underneath a vast blue sky in a world of golden tussock, melted sunsets and freedom all the way. Far from all that hurt me, far from feelings of being a loser and a failure. You can’t feel friendless and unloved when there’s no one there anyway.

I had always remembered the last line of Anne Frank’s diary, where she stated that she could only be the person she wanted to be “if only there were no other people in the world”. Whereas that feeling had dominated my university years (as no one seemed to even like me), I sincerely felt like I was a different person now, someone with plenty of capacity to love and a fierce friend. Maybe the trail would cure me of some of my existential angst, and maybe my character flaws (like the inability to endure discomfort) were here to stay. Anyhow, hiking alone didn’t feel the same as I’d expected it to back then, I craved the company of other people and hoped Toby somehow managed to navigate the way from Methven to the trailhead. The great Rakaia River hazard zone came into view. A great basin where scores of braided rivers twirled eastwards like a cable network. The sky was a heavy grey, and I could see why hikers needed to shuttle around – no way you’d be able to cross those torrents.

What a middle of nowhere place this was. Glenrock Station was a farm smudged onto the hillside above the Rakaia, over 40 min along a bumpy dead-end gravel road. Previous rains had washed out sections, and we bumped along like maracas. When at last we reached the carpark, I was out before we’d come to a stop – Toby sat beaming on his backpack – looking rugged and thru-hikery enough for the both of us. He’d picked up enough Whittaker’s chocolate slabs in Methven to feed an army, and I was already getting a little worried about my silhouette…

We started up a steep 4WD track slicing through tall grasses and into the mountains. I could feel the pull of Edoras (and our halfway point at Tekapo) just beyond this clump of mountainscape. Up and up we went, the Rakaia valley disappeared far below as we stretched our legs on the 4WD into green, hilly mountains. No more Richmond Ranges or heinous riverbed. We passed a spot of foul, putrid stench – probably a dead possum. Toby and I had only been apart for a day and a half, but it was like we’d been separated for weeks. Suddenly we had so much to talk about, relationships and jobs and futures. I had finished my BA in International Relations the summer before, and was thoroughly fed up with school. And all my late teens and adult life I had been somebody’s girlfriend, and I was feeling that claustrophobia too. What did I want? Who did I want to be in non-relation to somebody else?

I pondered these thoughts halfway out loud as we crossed shallow rivers and made our way into the barren mountains beneath a heavy sky. We stopped to have lunch at A Frame Hut, a curious A-shaped hut with three bunks squeezed into an impossibly tiny space. Our starving days were over, we’d feasted on chicken & spinach wraps with eggs Toby had boiled in Methven, and I felt pleasantly stuffed as we flowed along rhythmically. Our destination, Comyn’s Hut, lay a breezy 15 km inland from the river delta. We could see it from way away as we rounded the top of a ridge. Squat, grey, made out of corrugated iron. A shack. Inside it was pitch black, huge swaths of spiderwebs coated the roof and stained windows, rickety metal bedframes squeaked just as we looked at them, a wax-stained table stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. It was the shabbiest hut we’d ever seen. No way, José. Might as well use my 650$ tent since I was already dragging it across an entire country.

We set up camp in the meadow, cooked up a fancy trail dinner, brewed tea and got bored. I really missed our former squad, and other hikers in general. Nothing to do but zip up the mesh and call it a day. Darkness crept over the hills, and rain started to pour down steadily. Fat drops sounded loudly on my tent roof, but I was determined not to ever set a foot inside Comyn’s Hut ever again.

I woke up to the same rain the next morning. As I gathered my breakfast food to eat under the hut roof, I discovered to my horror that the entire right side of my tent had become a small lake. Somehow the bathtub floor hadn’t drained the rain out of the tent, but into it. My sleeping pad and bag were soaked. When I scrambled out onto my hands and knees I understood why. The entire meadow we were camped in was completely waterlogged. The grass slushed underfoot as I walked around barefoot. Toby’s tent was in marginally better condition, but his gear too was wet. Shit. I knew the forecast hadn’t been spectacular, but now we faced a huge issue. The almost weeklong section between the Raiaka and Rangitata rivers is the most isolated on the whole TA, and there was no real way out at either end. There was no access to resupply points until Lake Tekapo, 140 mountainous kilometres away. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere with crap huts, soaked tents and a major river crossing ahead which would only be safe after a period of dry weather. Unless the rain abated, which it didn’t look like it would do, we would be stranded at Edoras – if we didn’t get hypothermia before then.

What to do? The quitter in me had a dozen different reasons for why continuing this stretch was a bad idea. The Rangitata river would 100% be unfordable, and we would be stuck. Backtracking all the way back to Glenorck Station wasn’t very appealing either, there was always the chance that the weather would turn around. I assumed Toby would be more willing to push on in unfavourable conditions than I was, but with no option of drying our gear, we would be in deep shit if the cold rain continued. One thing was certain: we couldn’t stay here. So we did perhaps the most unlikely thing of all – we backtracked 6 km to the tiny A Frame Hut where we’d had lunch the day before. The hut was new and well insulated, much easier to warm up than the drafty sheds we knew lay ahead. A good place to zero.

At A Frame Hut I crawled onto the top bunk and looked out the only window. There was no fireplace, so we tried to hang up our wet gear as best we could. Hours ticked by. It rained and it rained and it rained. If anything, it got more ferocious. Around mid-day, we heard footsteps outside and the clink of trekking poles against the hut wall. The door opened, and will you believe it – Patrick walked in! I don’t know who was most surprised to see whom, we though he would still be ahead of us. Patrick seemed both surprised and relieved to hear of our decision to wait out the weather for a day. He wasn’t too keen on being stranded in the Potts River valley either, and he’d found solo-hiking without Etienne lonelier than expected. And so he moved in. A Frame Hut was designed for three people, but it was a squeeze even for two. Our gear lined every available surface, and we all lay cocooned in our sleeping bags on the bunks. We had enough food for one zero day here. Tomorrow we needed to make a decision.