Ahuriri River East Branch - Avonburn Easement

I do realise that these entries fall in between categories of “hiker stories for non-hikers” and the trail research content that prospective thru-hikers crave. But it is impossible to document these days in topographic detail when the reason for me being here was so existential and has a nine-year backstory.

I watched The Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was 13. I was mesermised by the story, and dreamt of seeing the real Middle Earth (and Narnia, as it happens) during most waking hours. At 15 I came here for the first time, and every place we visited – mostly film locations – did indeed feel like something out of a fantasy world. A lifelong obsession with New Zealand took hold. I dreamt of coming back constantly, I would see the turquoise waters of Lake Pukaki instead of the blackboard at school. At the same time, I was also terrified that my memory exaggerated New Zealand’s splendour, or that the intense feeling of wonder and belonging world be gone when I returned. Everyone who knows me knows that I am utterly hung up on memory and full-circle moments. Nothing is more satisfying to me than when an event occurs exactly the same way twice. Which is why, when I returned to New Zealand at 19, I was anxious that I wouldn’t see the locations and costumes in the same light. But I hadn’t needed to fear. I was slightly more adult and responsible for myself, and I felt the panic and longing of my teen years loosen its grip. I like to say that I landed back in my time, and knew that no matter how I much I changed, New Zealand would remain the same.

What is a greater display of devotion that walking across the entire country, mile by mile? Today, right from the morning we woke up in condensation-soaked tents, I was flying on a tide of that same wild, crazed happiness. We packed up camp dutifully and set sail across the hills. There seemed to be no end to the beauty of this section, and it was as hot and sunny as anyone could expect on a midsummer day in Otago. We all walked separately through tussock and scree, crisscrossing the little river, picking our way over flats in between the low mountain walls. Aside from odd patches of green moss, the land was scorched. The trail was but a line of downtrodden sand, marker poles were few and far between, and it truly felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. At lunch we laid our tents out to dry as we feasted on tortillas, raw food energy balls, and our last boiled eggs.

The landscape opened up into a gigantic flat. The brown plains stretched ahead in every direction until it disappeared into a grey wall of enormous Gondorian mountains. The vastness of the landscape swelled within me until I felt like I was flying on the enormity of it all. This walk was my love letter to New Zealand, and this particular stretch felt like a natural anthem. It was so astonishing and magnificent that I nearly cried with happiness. For those reading these blogs for trail information, I am sorry but the spiritual cascades of this place are imperative for me to communicate.

My land’s only borders lie around my heart.

The flats came to an abrupt end on the shores of the wide Ahuriri river, which ran extremely low this dry summer. I took off everything but my panties and lay completely submerged in the cool water, which was barely deep enough to flow over my back. The opposite bank was so steep that we barely made it up and over it, but once done we perched our tents in the mid-afternoon in a lush spot where bushes and flowers competed for riverbank space. Patrick cooked himself two dinners and we lay flat out halfway inside our tents in the golden sunset. 41 days in the wild, still loving every minute.