Lake Ohau - Ahuriri River East Branch

I can’t exactly give wholehearted praise of the hitchhiking culture on the South Island as we have around a 50% success rate. After nearly two hours by the roadside with enormous smiles plastered on our faces, it became clear that an organic hitch was not going to happen. We called the iSite in Twizel for advice, and one of the employees ended up calling her sister, who drove us all the way to the trailhead by Lake Ohau. The sun – ever present in the Mackenzie region – disappeared the moment we set foot on the trail.

I wasn’t feeling particularly talkative or energetic, so I plugged in the Savage Lovecast for some seriously raunchy entertainment. The well-formed trail climbed through the beech forest, up above the treeline, and into familiar tussock-coated terrain. There the sun re-emerged, and we were treated to splendid vistas of mountains, streams, and faraway hills. Lunch was the perfect hiker meal, I didn’t think I would ever cease to love peanut butter and Nutella tortillas (spoiler alert: wrong) in a great location.

We decided to hike the Ahuriri Track in two days instead of one, as we had enough food but not enough oomph. Today’s 15 km felt ridiculously short, as we pitched camp in a grassy flat spot near the river just 3 km down from the hilltop where we’d eaten lunch. Being over halfway on the Te Araroa felt so odd, I felt like it had taken no time at all to get here. We had the loveliest, laziest afternoon. Against our better judgement, we tanned in the afternoon sun (always dangerous in New Zealand where the ozone layer has a big hole over it and the radiation is several times higher than Europe). I read 100 pages of my newly resupplied book; Toby, ever the generous, massaged my feet; Patrick had a dip in the nearby river, and we munched cookies until dinnertime.

It’s always a good day when spaghetti Bolognese is on the menu – the only tolerable pack of Backcountry Cuisine freeze-dried meals. We talked of trails we wanted to do and sports we’d done. I recalled with considerable resentment, days in secondary school when I’d literally hid in the school locker rooms to escape PE gymnastics. In reference to previous blog entries, I gotta say that overcoming my aversion towards big miles, hard days, and general exhaustion, had been a big personal victory for me, a create of comfort.

Thru-hikes change our perceptions of so many preferences and challenges, they are truly the ultimate catalyst of desire to improve oneself. Some things don’t even require conscious effort, they are simply overcome over time as you adapt to this lifestyle. Also, by hiking in the way that we do; not rushing, but having long lunches and wild swims, and plenty of rest days, leaves us motivated to pursue hiking passionately even when we finish the TA. Going hard until you get injured and sick of walking is not the way to go. After having lived so many years feeling terribly out of place, it was pure heaven to live each day out here where everything felt so right. I was right out here. Hiking is the epitome of active mindfulness, you can zone out and ponder your thoughts, enjoy some Savage Love, and daydream about all the comforts you will enjoy once the hike is over.

Just living these days was all I wanted. Life out here felt so complete, and I was in no hurry to get back to the world. This land of dreams was more than enough.

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.

 Avonburn Easement - Top Timaru Hut via Martha’s Saddle

A wretched start to a day. Gale force winds had pummelled our camp throughout the night. I hadn’t a wink of sleep over the violent flapping of my tent, and my trekking poles keeping the structure up were pulled right out of the ground. Even my mattress had deflated and was in need of mending. The beautiful sunrise and now still air could not outcompete the fact that I’d slept terribly two nights in a row.

I was in a foul mood as I dragged my drained body out of camp and up the long 4WD track towards Martha’s Saddle. My pelvis and lower back ached dully, and I was so tired that I felt like laying down and having a cry. Hiker readers take note: sleep deprivation can hamper your performance worse than bad food, heavy weight, or bad weather. Invest in good sleep with whatever means necessary.

After about two hours of sleepwalking and feeling utterly miserable, I caught up with the boys outside a small, closed hut. I made a cup of instant coffee in desperation (oh, those pre-Master’s degree days), and it gave me the necessary kick to keep going, but also left me quivering and slightly nauseous.

We struggled up the steep climb towards the iron-grey crag wall of Martha’s Saddle. A humongous double decker dragonfly landed on my thigh, probably thinking that my screaming pink shorts were a giant flower. For four hours we climbed up steep scree. My lower back suddenly clenched up so badly that I thought I’d broken it. I felt like throwing up and desperately gushed down two Ibuprofen. We were over 850 km in, and my body was finally starting to give in.

The views at Martha’s Saddle were splendid (as was the telephone signal), but I lay in a mangled heap ready to saw off my back and pelvis. The vast green valley down on the other side was a sight to behold. Once the painkillers took effect, we made quick business of the 7 km down the scree slopes and pristine valley to Top Timaru Hut. A lovely newbuild with a doorless toilet – not ideal – and a perfect swimming hole in the river.

We were hot as steamed vegetables and sunk our stinking bodies and all our clothes into the river. I lay down to nap topless on the stony riverbank, too tired to care about either Patrick, Toby, or the middle-aged kiwi couple sharing the hut with us. A dinner of tuna and taco spiced couscous rejuvenated my spirits enough to enjoy the waning evening light over the green mountains. We enjoyed our evening ritual of raw fruit bars and fruit tea, mentally preparing for tomorrow’s whopper day: two day stretches over Breast Hill in one go. I warned my middle-aged bunk mate that I would throw my socks on whoever snored that night, I needed sleep more than I ever had. He nodded gravely and curled up like a shrimp before the sun had even set.