Halfway to halfway

February 18, 2022

February 17

Royal Hut to unnamed campsite

off trail, near bypass KM 126; after trail KM 2335

Distance: 20km

Elevation: 370m ascent, 1040m descent

Steps: 34,000

Time: 7:40am - 4:40pm

Today, we (as in all 10 people in the hut last night) decided to go off trail (gasp shock horror - or not...) since we had been advised that the normal route, which goes down Bush Stream, was not exactly safe at the moment. The recommendation was to instead go down the Forest Stream track which, you may have guessed (correctly), goes down Forest Stream.

So we don't have precise km markers to give you, but we do have pictures!

Also, regardless of KM markers, wither today or yesterday we hit the halfway point on the South Island! (The North Island part of the trail is longer, so we're not quite at 25% done, but we are halfway through one of two islands so... close enough?)

Well, we didn't get a photo of the hut as we left it this morning, because it was completely fogged in. We were all a little tentative about even going to the bathroom (about 200m away from the hut and up a hill), let alone continuing along the trail, but figured that the fog would dissipate as soon as the sun came out. Which it did, thankfully.

To start the day, we crossed Bullock Bow Saddle. This was a gentle-ish but challenging climb up to 1692m, and great views.

Looking back the way we came:

Looking down the valley where Forest Stream has its headwaters.

Just after we started the descent, we stopped at the stream head to get some very fresh, delicious water. Vaughan looked up and saw a tahr, about 40m away, casually making its way away from us.

Part of the descent to the river valley floor was along a 4WD track; and then we moved into some difficult sidling along a tussock-covered hill, where the track didn't exist so much as just assuming you were going in the right direction.

A final quick, brutal descent (200m descent in less than 1km, meaning at least a 1:5 gradient for this bit) through a tiny bit of beech forest got us to the river, which is. Gorgeous.

(We love braided rivers.)

Most of the rest of the day was along the riverbed, crossing the flow whenever we needed to (like if the flow was hard up against a cliff wall, or it just looked like the walking was easier on the other side of the water). So probably about 8-10 river crossings today?

We're getting quite good at river crossings, and a large part of that is getting much better at judging a good place to cross, that isn't too dangerous. Granted, this river was never very dangerous to cross (at least at all of the places we chose to cross), never getting above Eliza's knees.

One thing - or rather, many things - that did get above Eliza's knees are grasshoppers. There are so many of these in this part of the country, and they can HOP! They regularly hit Eliza in the face, sometimes with such force that she has to take her sunglasses off to check they haven't cracked a lens!

We're getting picked up on the Rangitata Gorge Road at the end of this track tomorrow at 10am, since we cannot cross the Rangitata River on foot. We will then spend the night in Geraldine to resupply before continuing onward. Since it's a reasonably early pickup, we are camped with four other people about 4km short of the road, in quite a beautiful valley, on a grassy terrace about 2m above and 30m away from the actual river itself. This also led to one of those really magical evenings on the trail, with the 6 of us sitting around on a river terrace, just chatting in the evening light. The breeze was strong enough to keep the sandflies at bay (we didn't even know there were any until the next morning!) but light enough to still be pleasant.