Boyle Village - Hope Halfway Hut

After so many highs I suppose it is only fair that some lows came along too. There was tangibly less adrenaline now that Etienne had left, the stunning Nelson Lakes was past, and my body was starting to feel the wear. Every day now would be farther than I’d ever hiked before. We were off to a bad start: on our way out from Hanmer, I realised that my expensive Katadyn Be Free water filter was gone. Lost. Maybe in Quinn’s car on the hitch there, I don’t know. But I cursed myself for losing such an essential gear item. Now I was completely dependent on Toby and his Sawyer filter, and I could no longer collect water on the go whenever I needed. Fuck.

Hanmer was pretty dead in the grey morning on New Year’s Day. We got a hitch with an adventurous river kayaker named Hillary, who dropped us off back at Boyle at 10 AM.

New section, new possibilities. The trail winded through tall grass between thorny thickets, always dipping into boggy pits. After the wet feet shitshow into Boyle I was adamant that I’d do everything in my power to keep my precioussssss toesies dry. It was overcast and humid, and I could seemingly feel my old blisters slumbering beneath the surface ready to sabotage me at any moment. We crossed a rapidly flower 20m wide river, I whimpered in pain on the hard rocks – boots in hand in a last effort to salvage them. To no avail, as I slipped majestically into a stream right on the other side and soaked them through. *Insert roar of frustration*. Suddenly I hated this insidious wet and thorny trail! My stupid feet were painfully swollen, my backpack was record heavy, and panting onwards to reach Arthur’s Pass by January 6th seemed meaningless.

Patrick came up behind us as we sat down to have a superb lunch overlooking a braided river valley. A dead possum nearby stank to high heaven, and he walked on and disappeared in the bushes. We wouldn’t see him again for a long time. Alas, not even a great lunch could lift my spirits, the trail just didn’t seem familiar and inviting the way it had before. We called it a day at Hope Halfway Hut, 7 km short of the original target (to future hikers: please keep going). A grim-looking and mute hunter sat inside the spide-den hut, we quickly decided to give him a wide berth.

And then there were two. We sat frying in the afternoon sun outside our tents, eating cookies and drinking tea. Toby is just one of those people who gives more than he takes. I never needed to ask for help before he offered. On one hand I craved some privacy after weeks of being attached at the hip to him & the Swiss boys, but now that I was struggling… Toby would always wait, help, soothe, inspect, hug and guide through every rough patch of my moods. My plan had always been to do this trek alone – and I was still going solo by many accounts – but having Toby to share everything from thoughts to cherry tomatoes with made everything easier.

I wrote this journal entry in the dim sunset light until it got too dark to go on. Our tents were perched under a massive fir in the meadow by the hut. I thought about why I was there. To improve myself, ultimately. The last section had been such a wild ride that I guess it’s only natural for an anti-climax to follow. This stretch would bring much easier terrain and fewer mountains, flattening out the emotional highs too.

 Hope Halfway Hut - Hurunui Hut

Today has been a very important lesson in thru-hiking life for me. Despite a golden sunrise coming over the hills and into my tent, I woke up feeling half-dead. You see, at about 01.30, I woke up and stared into a pair of big yellow eyes. The eyes were attached to a face, attached to a mouth that was busy gnawing through my $600 tent. POSSUM! I shrieked, sending the culprit fleeing and waking up Toby and probably the hunter inside the hut. Fuck! Possums may look fluffy and squishy, but darn if the little monster didn’t come back at least 10 times until it was almost 03. I oppose guns on principle, but I would gladly have blasted a rocket-propelled grenade across the meadow to get in some precious sleep.

Tent was of course soaked through with condensation. Also, it became very clear after leaving Hope Halfway Hut that we were in for another soggy day. What looked like a fine field of green grass just disappeared once we stepped onto it. Water gushed into our shoes. Was there no end to this? We trudged between bushes, oblivious to the pretty green mountains around us. I wistfully thought back to the bone-dry trails of California with each slurping step. We reached Hope Kiwi Lodge (not a lodge), a beautiful log hut encircled by daisies and a paved footpath to the front door. Inside was a cool American NOBO hiker taking a zero and reading Harari’s Homo Deus. Good guy. He saw the green Backcountry Cuisine pouches in our food bags, snorted and asked us if we’d crapped our pants yet. I regret to inform you that this is a horrendously common thru-hiker experience. Freeze-dried will only take you so far. But as of yet, no such baptism for me! *crosses herself*

Leaving Hope Kiwi, we embarked on the 18 km stretch to Hurunui Hut. I walked in silence and raked through my mind. Why was I feeling like this? My gear was wet, my knees hurt, I felt incredibly tired even after two zero days, and even the sunny weather couldn’t lift my spirits. But then… perhaps that was a part of the point of this journey? Accepting what is far from perfect, persisting despite drudgery. I had become such a quitter during my undergraduate years. Quit assignments, quit friendships, quit hobbies, quit anything that required more than minimal effort. Part of the rationale for doing the TA was turning that around. So I walked a bit faster. Breathed a bit deeper. Stroked the familiar beech trees as I drifted by them.

By the time we reached the shores of the vast Lake Sunmer, the sun was shining splendidly. I let my hair out of my braid, fished out my book and broke into this stretch’s Whittaker slab – hokey pokey. Toby and I leaned against each other’s back and felt peace settle. When you are facing a bad day, you have about two constructive choices. Either plough through as we had on Mt Rintoul where lingering would have been dangerous. Or stop, take a break and allow yourself to feel tired and demotivated whilst still appreciating the beauty around you. A long trail is hard on your body and your mind. But rushing to get to a hut because it feels instinctively good to be inside isn’t always the way to go. When I look at the photos from this day now (2,5 years later), I would give anything to be back.

Standing at the edge of the forest facing a huge grassy valley, I knew we were lucky to be there. Lucky to have tea and hot chocolate for dessert. Lucky to swim in the wide river under a swingbridge before Hurunui Hut. Lucky to have met the spunky gal there, Rosie Rose. Just gotta zen. Your motivation deserves some devotion too, don’t save it all for your feet.

Clouds settled over the faraway mountains as I wrote this at the table by the light of my headlamp. It felt lovely to spread out my now dry sleeping bag on a big mattress next to Toby and Rosie. We are right where we are supposed to be.

 Hurunui Hut - Locke Stream Hut

Today I finally came to a realisation that would shape the way I hike in the future. Coming out of Hurunui Hut, I felt a desperate need to be by myself. Any noise at all rang in my ears, I felt completely listless despite having had breakfast and a snack, I’d been gaining weight instead of losing it since St Arnaud, my body felt so heavy instead of fit. Objectively speaking, the sunrise was lovely, golden valleys and the lot. But I just wanted to cry. After an hour of walking in a dark beech forest, air so humid you could cut it out in squares, brushing off a dozen spiderwebs (downside to being the first hiker of the day), I stopped in the middle of the path and cried. I’m normally an extremely wet crier, after the first sob the floodgates just open. But now I cried like a whiny baby, hardly pressing out a single tear but dry sobbing in frustration.

I wasn’t hungry or unfit. I was tired. Every night I was constantly kept awake by noises or discomforts. I was a parent of this newborn trail, and it was messing me up bigtime. I had been overeating to compensate for my low energy when I should just have been sleeping more. Now I sat quietly pondering this new realisation while Toby took a dip in the hot springs (I was too freaked out by the amoeba warning sign, my brain was fried enough already without microorganisms invading it). What could I do? Sleep longer in the mornings, I guess. Nap during lunch. But other than that… there was nothing to do but get on with it. But precious sleep! Never before had I realised what a precrious commodity sleep was, neither the body nor the mined can repair themselves without it. Every hill now felt like an insurmountable Everest, my feet felt like lead and my head was filled with cotton. We’d been on the trail now for almost a month. My clothes stank no matter what, energy bars were slowly losing their appeal, and my feet were slowly growing wider under the packweight.

Around lunchtime (even though we’d technically had our lunch already in the spacious Hurunui No 3 Hut), after crossing an iconic slackline bridge, the trail crept upwards through golden beech forest alongside Hurunui River. We took off our packs and sank into the shallow pools in silence. I washed all my clothes and laid them out to dry in the sun. Ate the remaining chunks of Whittaker chocolate. Sat on a white stone in the pale sunlight, hugging my chunky legs and looked north towards where we’d come from. Today my legs had carried me 500 km from Ship Cove. 504 to be exact. I thought back to the Richmond Ranges and Nelson Lakes, spectacular vistas and cozy evenings with Team Swiss and freeze dried Coq au vin. For an hour we sat pondering, Toby offering massaged to lift my spirits. This stretch just wasn’t for me. To this day I don’t quite know what it was about this week, but the colour just seemed drained from the landscape somehow. Nature that should have been beautiful seemed lacklustre. Adventurous scrambles were just annoying. Even the sun seemed to shine with less gusto.

We crawled up an overgrown trail towards Harper Pass, the only real point of altitude on the whole stretch. White rocks lay strewn in the river, you could easily forego an ankle here - thank goodness for trekking poles. Harper Pass itself was underwhelming, covered in scrub below the treeline. I peed in the bushes and we marched on. The way down was a hot mess of trickling water and mud, loose rocks and an incredibly steep path. It was so humid inside the forest that we were dripping.

Through a gap in the trees we could see miles ahead into the lush Harper Valley where we would camp for the night and follow the riverbed tomorrow. Once down at the valley floor, we had a near-death experience trying to slide down the dried-out banks of the now tiny river. Our camp for the day seemed to float just ahead for hours. Locke Stream Hut was pretty much what our navigation app described: in its original state. It was a huge red hut, but built with a corrugated iron roof and the floors were cracking. Sandflies were swarming inside, the heat was stifling, and we quickly escaped to the grassy banks of the river. We couldn’t be bothered to make dinner or set up two tents, so we both squeezed into Toby’s tarptent for what would become a very moist night. Don’t camp next to rivers, duly noted.

Locke Stream Hut – Arthur’s Pass

I didn’t even want to open my eyes. Tiny water droplets clung to my eyelashes as I blinked into a blue sky… and a soaking wet meadow. I lay squeezed in between Toby and the tent mesh, my sleeping bag was wet from top to bottom. This was getting very, very old. With nothing to pack up except Toby’s tent, I sat waiting on a wooden bench propped up against the hut wall. Ahead lay a sunny morning, but a frightful path. Right down from the hut lay the rock-strewn Hurunui riverbanks. The trail notes said to follow the riverbed all day before climbing up to Goat Pass on the Deception-Mingha track.

Off we went. I donned my trail runners despite the ankle-twisting rocks, knowing that my boots were best saved for a day without 30+ river crossings. Hurunui River wasn’t fast or deep, but sometimes wide, and it snaked through the basin in such a twisted fashion that trying to stay dry would have meant miles extra tracing the riverbanks left and right. So we just plodded through. Every time we would cross, my shoes would fill with tiny pebbles, and I had to stop and shake them out continuously. Toby and I both wore La Sportiva runners, he had the Wildcats and I had the Akashas. For some reason, his shoes dried out in an hour and didn’t let in a single rock, while mine stubbornly remained heavy clogs. Someone upstairs has it in for me, I grumbled as a thin film of cloud settled over the sky. We crossed a heavenly patch of grass before the rocks engulfed us once more.

We stopped for brunch by a bone-white piece of driftwood. Sank down on creaky joints, rinsed out pebbly socks, sucked down a pb & Nutella tortilla. What was it about this place that felt so incredibly hostile? We were only tiny specks in the middle of the enormous river basin, tunnelled in by thorny-treed mountains. White rocks as far as the eye could see, white skies without cloud texture. It was like the world was drained of colour. The constant river crossings and the hardness of the rocks slowed our pace down to a crawl. Our GPS app told us the trail was in the forest on our left, but whenever we tried to leave the basin we would be met by thickets with thorns the length of our fingers, and no trail where the app promised one. For the first time, I understood how people go mad in the wild. The still air felt repressive, not a breath of wind caressed us, there was no end in sight to the endless rocks. Every blade of grass beyond the driftwood log was seared dead, it crunched beneath our feet just like the rocks.

Four hours in. Five. Six. I leaned into my trekking poles and buried my face into my fists to rub the salt crusts out. This felt so pointless. The Richmond Ranges had been challenging and hard - but hiking those wild mountains had still felt meaningful and rewarding. This felt like a valley of death, where nothing grew and ankles came to die. We pursued the hunt for the leftward trail with more vigour, we would soon have to turn upwards into the mountains. Huge clumps of silken cocoons clung to the thorny bushes – Toby was sure it was cricket homes, but I scanned the ground wildly for New Zealand’s horrifyingly large nurseyweb spiders. When we at last broke through the wall of thorns and waded through muddy puddles, we looked around the dense forest uncertainly. There was absolutely nothing, no sign of any trail. My felt felt like raisins after 30-40 river crossings.

-          You look go further in, I’ll follow the GPS track.

Toby turned his phone in all possible directions to see if the satellite signal was just lagging. You might think we were overly reliant on this app, but Guthooks is normally so precise that you can tell if you’re standing 1m off the trail. Neither my basic version or his topo download gave us any clue. I crawled beneath mossy branches, stabbed myself on countless dead twigs, waded through oceans of fallen leaves, but after over half an hour, the trail was still nowhere to be found. We were by all accounts right on top of it, but with no orange triangles in sight, we were lost. We had come to the end of the valley, our left turn was now or never. As the trees thinned out on our right and we were once again on the outskirts of the riverbed, we heard a sound so divine our ears practically pricked. Traffic.

Toby and I looked at each other. The sound of civilisation brought an indescribable sense of yearning. Behind us lay the dry emptiness and a trail we couldn’t find. Ahead, just across the Otira river, we could see shiny flashes of cars through the trees. Toby whispered, barely audible, the word that would end our purism.

-          Cheesecake.

To say we sprinted off wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration. The Otira river was deep and fast flowing, but we paced the banks like hyenas until we found a safe spot to ford. Toby catapulted me up the steep bank with such force that my thighs were bruised for days after. Once on the road, we stuck out thumbs the length of Pinocchio’s nose and got picked up right away by a group of backpackers who merrily squeezed us in the back seat. I smiled forcedly at the dreadlocked girl who basically had me on her lap. We stank SO bad. Everyone casually rolled down their windows, and the relief was palpable once they dropped us off at Arthur’s Pass. We had come in way too early for our reservation, so we picked up our resupply boxes and zoomed in on the scones at the local café. Arthur’s Pass is a tiny not-even-a-village on the border between the Canterbury and West Coast regions. Highway 73 connects Christchurch in the east with Greymouth in the west, and the thickly forested spot of civilisation is unnaturally busy for what it has to offer – two tiny hostels, a gas station, a restaurant, an iSite and zero views.

There was a DOC campground just outside the main cluster of buildings, and the weather forecast promised bucketloads of rain all night and the following day. Well well, looks like we made the right choice for abandoning the deep Deception river and alpine Goats Pass. My thoughts jumped to Patrick. We had no idea where he was – somewhere ahead, but he if he wasn’t here, he would be caught in the storm for sure. A handful of other TA hikers had escaped the trail too, and we all set up a cheerful hiker camp inside the high shelter. Our sleeping pads barely fit the narrow benches, but we felt safe inside as deep thunder rumbled overhead. Resupply was just preposterous at this stage: we had extra days of food from the last stretch, and I had overpacked massively for the tiny hopscotch stretch to Lake Coleridge Lodge where yet another box lay waiting. We set up market-style stands on the tables and let other hikers have their pick of our snacks.

Also, the time had come to say goodbye to my dearest companions, my Lowa Innox boots that had carried me so faithfully on the entire John Muir Trail and TA up until now. I had shipped myself new boots here because I knew these ones would come apart at the seams. They weren’t the slightest bit waterproof anymore with their 6+ holes. I couldn’t bear to throw them in the trash, so I placed them discreetly under my sleeping bench, just in case someone might want them. My new navy Lowas looked ready for the challenge. They fit like a glove right out of the box, and while I still felt smashed from this week’s exertions – I remained hopeful that Canterbury would treat us well.

 Greymouth

I was now one pair of liner socks short. As a matter of necessity, they were bundled up in the night, then thrown across the room into the face of the worst snorer you can possibly imagine. We’re taking inbreath and outbreath, full asthma attack. Never had I sympathised this heavily with new parents. Toby and I sat red-eyed over coffees at the local café, completely at a loss over what to do next. Our energy, hormones, digestion, the entire enchilada was completely shot. I felt like might actually die. Heavy rain was forecasted today and tomorrow, and there were tons of river crossings again. I stared into the chocolaty froth of my mocha, unable to think about anything other than the crippling exhaustion.

A hiker couple we had gotten to know last night, Tim and Roxelane, walked up to our table and saw our drained expressions.

-          Guys, we gotta figure this out. The trail is gonna be miserable, and there’s nothing to do here. There is no way we are spending another night in that shelter. We’re thinking about hitching to Greymouth.

Tim had barely uttered the worlds before I was on my feet, pulling at Toby’s arm. Maybe it was the coffee, but I started hyperventilating with excitement. Heck yes, we were going to Greymouth! Arthur’s Pass lay smack in the alpine crest between the east and west coast, and I was saving the east for my post-trail days. Greymouth it was! Suddenly the world felt bright with hope. Greymouth was a large town, not like the tiny outposts we’d encountered thus far. There would be an abundance of hostels, restaurants, a New World… (I knew this, having enjoyed a good shopping spree at that very same store back in 2015 on my last visit to NZ). We packed our bags in a frenzy, ran to the edge of town, and stuck our thumb out. Dang, getting that hitch was a nightmare! Despite all the tourist traffic running through Arthur’s Pass, we stood in the drizzle for almost two hours before a wonderful woman – a TV director named Caroline – picked us up. She was so bright, warm and entertaining that I could have sat in her car forever.

Caroline dropped us off at the New World parking lot, and after a brief splurge we made our way over to our accommodation. Global Village Backpackers hostel was the coolest, most hip place I’d been to in the southern hemisphere. Tons of Polynesian carved figures lined the brightly painted walls, and there was plenty of seating outside to watch the sunset. I installed myself and my gear in the girls dorm room, where a friendly Dutch girl took pity on my trashed appearance and borrowed me some mascara. I felt my femininity increase a thousandfold.

We walked the streets of Greymouth. It sure was quiet for being designated a big town. A sleepy tourist officer helped us book a bus ride to the trailhead tomorrow morning. We loaded up on unnecessary resupplies and a grotesque dinner at the absurdly large Countdown. Jazz apples and caramel dip complimented my meal - pretty much every food group was represented. I couldn’t help myself in the bookstore and purchased an insanely good but harrowing book: I will find you – In search of the man who raped me by Joanna Connors. Toby and I trudged back to the hotel, plastic bags in hand like the nomads we were.

Looking myself in a proper, full-length mirror for the first time in a month was… educational. I was proper chunky now. Instead of becoming leaner and leaner as I had during the first two weeks, I was now getting beefier by the stretch. Walking with trekking poles had given my normally slender arms a rugby-beef look. My calves looked like someone had stuffed tennis balls inside them when I flexed. Surrounded by the fluffy pink interior of the girls’ dorm room, I felt like a tramp. The Dutch girl’s mascara brought a shade of civilisation onto my freckled face, but the rest… I’d also moved into a fresh Icebreaker t-shirt (pink to coral. Daring, I know) to celebrate the 1/3 mile mark. But I looked dirty no matter how much I showered now. Heck, I was technically homeless. My place of residence was 50 cm wide and now about 1000 km long. Tomorrow we would attack the trail with renewed determination.

Cora Lynn Carpark – Hamilton Hut

I felt like we had turned into backpacker tourists overnight. The Greymouth-Christchurch shuttle bus picked us up at our hostel, and I nestled cosily into the plush seat with my new book. For two hours I could enjoy a mode of transport that wasn’t my sandfly-bitten legs and watch lush fern forests flash by. I felt tired but rejuvenated. One zero wasn’t enough to rest us anymore, but this was our life now. A constant flow of forward motion southwards. By the time we reached Cora Lynn carpark – a strange place for a trailhead – the skies were dark and rainy again. We started up through pine forest, the first of its kind we’d seen in New Zealand. Its deep green needles absorbed almost all of what little light was left, and we walked soundlessly in the semi-darkness up, up, up and back into the wild.

Beautiful landscape might have been all around us, but everything beyond the immediate forest was covered in thick fog. Toby’s trail runners were starting to wear down, sending him slipping on all the wet roots - and we had loaded up our packs with wayyyyy too much food for the short hop to Lake Coleridge. All that irresistible goodness in Greymouth… The heavy packs and wet weather could have dampened my spirits, but… I was happy and going strong. My wonderful new boots were dry as can be, and we had both cookies and hummus-wraps for lunch in the creaky old West Harper Hut. Man, this was the most unappealing hut we’d set foot in thus far. It wasn’t even fit for a basic shelter, it was merely a ruin with a roof on top. Just standing inside in the dark to gobble down that wrap and 8 cookies (no shame) was spooky, and we were glad to be back out in the rain.

For once, the trail was perfectly maintained, and despite the days of rain, there were still enough rocks in the river to allow us to cross without getting soaked. It’s funny how little I remember of this day apart from its grey hue. Stony riverbeds, lots of forest, soft grass, and plenty of orange trail markers. Oceans of ferns covered the wet earth. As the day waned, it strangely got lighter. Our destination, Hamilton Hut, lay a couple of km off the trail, and we basically ran through the forest and over the long swing bridge leading to the hut. 

Dang, Hamilton Hut… No sooner had we stepped through the door before Toby declared his favourite hut (which he stuck to until the end). And I’ll hand it to him, Hamilton was l-o-v-e-l-y. It was huge, 20 beds in two separate bedrooms, a large living room with tables and a wood stove, complete with a charming horse wrangler from Montana – Patrick 2. Toby got a roaring fire going, and I dragged by mattress in front of the fireplace and snuggled down in my sleeping bag. Patrick 2 lay down on the floor with his head on my mattress while Toby gingerly observed from one of the tables. It was like… being at a cabin in the woods on a rainy day. Even going to the toilet bivvy across the lawn – and scaring away two possums – felt comfy and homey. The whole afternoon and evening passed in glorious luxury: wine gums, reading (I gifted Patrick 2 the book after I finished it) and good stories.

Tim and Roxelane wandered in unexpectedly at 22.00 when we were fast asleep. Take the bus from Greymouth, folks. That hitch is a bitch.

 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.

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!

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.

 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.

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.

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.