Te Araroa Day 84, Harper Village campsite to A-Frame Hut

Stating km: 2251
Finishing km: 2289
km covered today: 38

I'd set my alarm for before sunrise. I had a big day ahead of me. Not so much the walking. There was plenty of that, but I'd also need to find my way to the other side of the uncrossable (on foot) Rakaia River.

Most of the morning walk was on road, meandering past the bases of big grey (rock) and gold (grass) peaks and pretty little lakes.

Someone in the area really doesn't seem to like TA passing through, as evidenced by the exceptional pains the trail notes go through to prevent walkers from camping in the area or straying onto private property and the big, hand lettered "No Camping" signs at each of the little lakes.

I actually barely got to see the big lake, Coleridge, but the glimpses I did get of it were beautiful (though sadly most of these were from a trail sandwiched between lake and hillside and overgrown with a wide selection of all of NZ's most prickly plants.)

I arrived at Lake Coleridge Village around 12:30. This was the end of the road. The trail restarted again on the other side of the river, a long way around.

Before starting that journey I had a lovely cool lunch in the park by the hydroelectric power station, and a long, warm-but-breezy read by the road out of town while I waited for the very limited traffic to pass by in hopes of hitching a lift.

Eventually someone did stop, and it turned out to be a mother and daughter from Etobicoke on holiday. They gave me a ride out to the first bridge over the Rakaia at the gorge some 20km down the road (as well as some apricots and a banana!)

At the gorge I got a closer look at the Rakaia and confirmed that there was not a chance in a million that I could've crossed it on foot.

From the bridge I walked up to the road on the far side and waited. And waited. And got a lift for a few km. And walked. And got a lift for a few km. And walked.  The problem was that the trailhead was about 36km up a dead end road, with only six families living past about 10km.

Finally, just as I was starting to  worry about where I could camp, a guy in a jeep (who runs commercial hunting trips in NZ) picked me up and  brought me the final 20km or so.

I still wasn't quite out of the woods though. It was 19:30 and it was 9.5km to the first hut on the trail. Uphill. Not hard uphill, true, but it was going to be tough to get there before dark.

The valley I walked up was almost bare, with golden grass and darker blobs of spiky matagouri. Its lower reaches were private farmland, bug still very pretty. Its upper reaches in a conservation area were even moreso.

I got to the top of the saddle I'd been climbing up at 21:15 and stopped for a short rest and to say a final goodbye to the beautiful Rakaia Valley.  Heading down the valley on the far side, twilight turned to dusk turned to pretty much dark.

I arrived at the A-frame hut at 22:00, about 10 minutes before I would have needed to turn my headlamp on. There was just me and a Kiwi hunter in the neat little 3-bunker. I was too tired and it was too dark to cook, so dinner consisted of chocolate biscuits (thanks Olwyn!)

Whew! That really was milking every last lumen out of the day!