Thanks, Shania!

January 27th

Arrowtown to Rose Hut

Distance: 23km

Elevation: NOT flat - total 1380m ascent, 1060 descent, two major hills 

Steps: 42,000

Time: 7:45am-6:30pm

Lots of pictures for you today! Not shown, although I did get a short video and hopefully will share the youTube link to it:

river crossings. Like, 50 or more.

Part of that is the trail: at one point it goes along a 4WD track that crosses the Arrow river back and forth. Later, though, the track gives you two options. One is to keep going up and over the hills and spurs as you slowly gain altitude. The other option is to basically walk up the Arrow River (it's a stream at this point), crossing from bank to bank to get some good walking time, although there are sections that you cannot avoid just walking straight up the river at times. Although Eliza found the river rocks to be very friendly and not slippery at all, Vaughan managed to find the one slippery rock in the river, and took a dip up to his waist. Luckily, nothing except his shorts got really wet.

The day started pretty much straight up Big Hill (not our name for it, although we are not disagreeing with the moniker), from which we got good views back over Arrowtown

There was just a little bit of our favourite beech forest that we got to walk through, and if you can zoom in, you might see a titipounamou (rifleman, NZ's smallest bird). Pretty sure this is a juvenile, to boot, so even smaller!

The good thing about hills? Gorgeous views! At this point, Vaughan and I were feeling good, despite the long day yesterday and this being our 7th day on the trot. So we were very much enjoying the sights.

Much of the ground here is a shale (we think, neither of us being geologists. Feel free to correct us in the comments!). Some of the ground has obviously been tilted a full 90 degrees, witht he layers straight up and down (as seen now)

A selfie, for proof that we are actually doing this!

Some more of the shale, in very interesting patterns. Eliza thought it loked like dragon scale. Vaughan is keeping his thoughts to himself. 

Remember from above, we talked about walking up the Arrow river for hours? Well, as soon as you leave it, you climb straight up this hill, several hundred meters in vertical elevation. We looked back (and down) and could barey see the river! If you squint, you may be able to see the Arrow River, too. 

Also, proof that we made it up to the saddle. Wow that was a hard slog to get up to the top...

And a few meters further along the trail from that sign, we could see down the other side of this hill. And what delight - we can see the hut! Nearly 90 minutes later, we finally got there. A 12-bunk hut, nearly full - 11 people here tonight! 7 south-bound on the TA, 3 of us going north-bound on the TA, and 1 person going north just doing the section between Queenstown and Wanaka. Also of note, Rose Hut and the Walkway we're on now were built by the Soho Station, which is Shania Twain's property in New Zealand. The hut book was full of Shania lyrics, so I have several earworms competing for my attention as I go to sleep.

Just a quick panorama from the top of the hill

Tomorrow is more hills - 2 big hills up and down to the next hut. Some of the southbound travellers say that is actually a very short trip, just a couple of hours, so we may attack even more hills and aim for the further hut. We'll see.

Finally, some collages of the beautiful, tiny plants and flowers up at the top of the hills today: