A Frame Hut – Methven
As soon as I woke up and looked out the tiny window above my bunk, I knew the section was lost. Not only was it raining hard - a thick white fog had descended, obscuring everything past a few metres distance. There was nothing for it, we were headed to Methven. We were all in a gloomy mood, it was no fun to admit defeat when we were so committed. But being a group allowed us to deliberate pros and cons, and we were confident in our decision. Not so much because we couldn’t take a bit of rain (after all, we had been extremely fortunate up until that point, with no majorly bad weather except over Mt Rintoul and the morning of Waiau Pass). But being in the most logistically awkward section of the TA, we had no way of getting out in case the rivers ahead flooded – and in this weather they were bound to. So it was with heavy hearts that we put on our rain jackets, all crumpled from lack of use, and set out into the mist.
A Frame Hut at night in the rain
As we walked, Patrick recounted his horrific experience on the Deception-Mingha Track up to Goats Pass Hut, the day Toby and I had skipped before Arthur’s Pass after being driven insane by the eternal riverbed hiking. Patrick was half a day ahead of us at this point, and he had been caught in the middle of the storm that we escaped on our day in Greymouth. He had fallen into the waist-deep Otira river, soaking himself and all his belongings. It got dark and cold as he climbed up the exposed alpine track towards the hut, and he had been absolutely miserable. It sounded perfectly horrendous, and Toby and I expressed our muffled sympathies from behind the collar of our raincoats.
The trek back down the mountains from A Frame Hut was grim. Rain poured down, soaking us through once again. Streams we’d passed on our way south as glittery trickles were now gushing torrents, grey with mud and debris. And out of nowhere, I suddenly felt my legs giving a jolt and twist into painful cramps. My calves felt like they were bunched up into knots. Toby and Patrick could only watch in sympathy as I awkwardly hopped along – I couldn’t even walk upwards and had to jump with every step. It was exhausting. I felt like this post-Boyle section was cursed. Something seemed to go wrong for us at every stretch now. Maybe Etienne, despite being perpetually unlucky himself, had been our group’s lucky charm? We slipped and slid in determined silence down the long grassy slopes to Glenrock Station. Once there…
We didn’t have a plan so much as an idea for a plan. The chances of getting a hitch from this godforsaken outpost of civilisation were astronomical even on a fine-weather day. Our only hope was to open the gate with a large “PRIVATE PROPERTY” sign and sniff around for any staff. I went first, we figured a farmer might be marginally less inclined to set the dogs on a woman. Sure enough, I heard him before I saw him – he came around the corner driving an ATV and not looking the least bit suspicious when he saw us. Ah, the wonderful Al. Not only did he arrange for Methven Transports to pick us up as soon as their 4WD minibus could get there, he made hot chocolate and treated us to trail stories and a warm fireplace. I love kiwis.
Looking left out of the bus window into the Rakaia basin on the way to town, my stomach dropped, and I was incredibly grateful for our decision to turn back around. Half the braids of the river were gone, the water had flooded into a handful of giant arms flowing eastwards. When we arrived in Methven, we were told not to drink from any taps as all the water sources were exposed to unclean water in the flood. The drive into town took about an hour, and after a prompt raid of the local 4 Square supermarket, we were installed at Snow Denn Lodge in a 3-person room.
Patrick’s double trouble
Our wet gear hanging in the drying room, we spread out our remaining things and did a thorough shakedown of the crap we’d accumulated thus far. Patrick found out he’d been carrying two full ziplock bags of milk powder for almost 200 km and almost ditched oatmeal altogether in revenge. I took a criminally long shower in the tiny bathroom, lathering up almost a handful of pomegranate-scented shampoo. Yes yes yes! Engulfed in a fruity haze, I floated back to our room. I opened the door and immediately felt like slamming it shut again. Our gear couldn’t have been in there for more than an hour tops, but the room already smelled like feet and dead body. My god. We were officially moving out of the realm of “outdoorsy” and into the realm of “disgusting”. We couldn’t smell ourselves when we were outside (which was 90% of the time), but the enclosed space brought out over a month’s worth of marinated sweat and detergent-virginal clothing.
Our forced zero in Methven was relatively uneventful. We cooked spaghetti Bolognese in the lodge kitchen, hung out at the grocery store, ate a hamburger the size of an average cast-iron pan. When we asked the restaurant owner about its phenomenal size, he dreamily explained how he preferred food presentations to be “dramatic”. I’ll say.
At last, the forecast looked fantastic. We could now attack the Two Thumb Range from south of the flooded Rangitata River with a fresh resupply, dry gear, and renewed gusto. I fervently hoped we would get back into a better flow. Ever since our first skip at Arthur’s Pass, I felt like we were cheating the trail by doing these half days everywhere, and I wanted to settle back into the rhythm of foot transport only now that the pain-in-the-ass logistics of the two major rivers were behind us. After all, we still had more than halfway to go.