Te Araroa Day 90, Twizel to East Ahuriri River Valley

Starting km: 2477
Finishing km: 2531
km covered today: 54

Same number of kilometres as the previous one, but a rather different day of walking. Incidentally, I seem to have a thing about 54km days. I've had four of them now and they've come in two sets of two.

I got up early, but the rowers had me beat, finishing their breakfast as I started mine.

As with the previous day, much of the morning was spent walking on the Alps to Ocean cycleway. Unlike the previous day, most of it was actual trail rather than actively used or disused road, so it was easier on the feet.

The A2O (as they call it) was getting a lot of use, and I enjoyed the quick chats with the cyclists as they rode by.

I also enjoyed the rain! It drizzled and as I approached Lake Ohau Village briefly got a bit harder. But it never really poured, and it was warm out, so it was far preferable to yesterday's heat and fierce sun. It didn't do much for the scenery, but still...

The kilometres that had somehow vanished from the Tekapo to Twizel segment seemed to have reappeared in the Twizel to Ohau section. But between the nice track and the good walking weather, the first 33km went by very quickly. So the morning (by which I apparently mean the period of the day between 06:30 and 14:00) was good.

The afternoon was even better. It consisted of a walk up a beech forest valley (how times change. Ten days before I would have groaned at the prospect of more beech forest, but after the morning rain the sun came out, so it was both different and shady) followed by a climb up to an unnamed saddle through the tussock with minor but pretty peaks nearby.  And through all of this I just enjoyed myself. My schedule for the segment meant I needed a longish day, but exactly how long didn't matter, and I wasn't in a rush to be anywhere (unlike yesterday when I needed to get to town before the 4 Square [supermarket] closed).  So I could just walk until I felt like I'd had enough or until it got dark, whichever came first.

They came pretty close to coinciding. The walk down from the saddle into the East Ahuriri Valley was pleasant and easy. A gentle downhill, with the few crossings of the river being easily rock-hoppable.  So I just kept going until I found a (really) nice campsite some 6km from the end of the trail.

From Ohau Village to now, parked up in my tent I didn't see a soul. The closest I came to people was a few rabbits.  Ahh, solitude.

Before closing, I'll relate a little conversation Karsten (fellow TA walker) and I had last night. He was amazed by how far I'd walked from Tekapo (he'd done the same distance, but had rented a bike for it). I told him that I just seem to be made for this. And it's kind of true. I've played a few sports (rugby, middle distance track) but have never been any better than average at any of them (my goal in track was always to not finish last.) But long distance hiking does seem to be something I'm particularly good at. Not that it's (meant to be) competitive, but I've always enjoyed really pushing myself and having long days while tramping, hearing surprise in hut-mates voices when I tell them where I've come from that day, etc. and Te Araroa seems to be the ultimate expression of this.

One final thing to mention that I forgot to a couple of days ago: on one of my off trail adventures between Camp Stream and Tekapo, I saw a wallaby! I still wasn't absolutely, 100% sure that my friend who told me they live down here wasn't joking, but now I can confirm that yes, there are wallabies in NZ.