1 Dec. Te Araroa 61
Levin to the second hut,(Te Matawai hut)
Great weather for the next three days, that’s what the weather man said, very unusual and a welcome relief from the overcast days and drizzle we have had on a regular base since starting this challenge 60 days ago.
Anna-Marie was great and dropped us off at the starting point which saved us the two hour walk from town. After signing the intention book to let others know were we are to hike to. We starting the track again, as far as I know, there isn’t any river crossing for the next couple of days, however, we didn’t know about yesterdays crossings of Blackwood stream nothing in the notes warning us, but to be Fair it was a “stream” and high rain full during the night changed all that.
Eunhwa wasn’t happy and it made thing hard, she wanted to only walk to the first hut which was 4 hours and stay there. Doing the Te Araroa isn’t a day walk where you just walk half a day and relax, sure we can do that some times but generally its walking all day otherwise it will take for ever to get to the south island. Finally we both had a moment, as couples do. She stormed off back downhill, the way we came and I continued up hill until I charmed down and ran down hill to catch up with her. We talked, I guess it didn’t help by me saying before that if she didn’t want to do the walk, then jump on the bus and head to christchurch and I’ll meet you in two months, that got her mad.
I lighted her backpack by removing some food, but this also got her mad as my back was heavy enough she said. Time for a break I thought so I headed off with the plan to reach the first hut and wait for her there and let things cool down.
There were four others on the track and in fact three were the ones we meet two days ago just before the stream crossing. As it turned out, they crossed the Blackwood stream about an hour before us, it took them 30 minutes to decide to cross.
The one female of the group (Emar) had problems crossing a river a couple of weeks back at the 42 Travous track, a river crossing we had difficulty with and considered turning back, she had lost her footing and was sweaped downstream losing her walking poles and other items from her backpack and cuts and large buses to he body.
At the time, she was traveling a lone and received a warning to turn back by her friends that were a day ahead of her, but she attempted the crossing anyway and was shaken up by the ordeal. So as you can imagine, she was very nervous while considering crossing the Blackwood stream, the one we ended up not crossing.
The three of then linked up and crossed, halfway she lost her footing, in fact both feet, but as she was in the middle they made it through.
Eunhwa made it to the first hut and we had lunch together and finally i was getting back into her good books but this took the rest of the day until we made it to the second hut at 17:00 hours.
Stopping for lunch at the first hut