Now this one… This one, I chickened out of. I’d been up for it on the way up, but, well, it was that slippy, polished, shiny wet cable sliding underfoot, and my general lack of faith in the strength of my grip should I end up dangling by the side wires, that put me off. Yeh. No thanks! I snuck back and did a wade through instead. Cold and wet, but all bones accounted for. And I’m happy with that.Tight Rope Walking
Now this one… This one, I chickened out of. I’d been up for it on the way up, but, well, it was that slippy, polished, shiny wet cable sliding underfoot, and my general lack of faith in the strength of my grip should I end up dangling by the side wires, that put me off. Yeh. No thanks! I snuck back and did a wade through instead. Cold and wet, but all bones accounted for. And I’m happy with that.Axe-in’
So after the terrible news of our ‘camping adventure’ had sunk in, we again busied ourselves with the evenings work of firewood gathering, ‘axe-ing’ ( ahem ), and kindle-er-izing. I’m hoping to get a look-in on this axe-in’ business soon, test the water so to speak, but I fear it may be a long time before the novelty wears off for Cookie!Creepy Old Shack!
“Waaaa! Spiders!!!!” I didn’t sleep a wink. The side effects of being zipped up to the max in my 750 weight goose down sleeping bag, to hamper the impending invasion, meant me sweating out what seemed like 10 liters of fairly essential fluids.. But I didn’t care. As long as those hobbley, peggy leggy, big kneed, big toothed, bog eyed, hairy tickley evil bastard spiders did get up my nightie! Even if it meant that all that was left of me when Cookie unzipped me in the morning were the shriveled, wrinkly, remnants of an accidental self-mummification. All essential organs pre-pickled in rum.
“Let’s get the **** out of here I mumbled. Waking up before Cookie for the very first time, ever. Bag packed and shoes on, just after sunrise, we escaped up into the hills. And I prayed that the next hut might be of a better vintage! Or have a floor and walls at least ;)
Misty on Top of Harpers Pass
Here is a special place Cookie tells me. Essentially this is a magic point. If I wee one side of the sign, in hundreds of year’s time my wee will eventually make it’s way down through the mountain rocks to the Pacific Ocean. The other side of the sign, and wee wee will head for the Tasman Sea. Cool eh?
I did one either side just to be sure.
The track got rougher and the clouds lower, the closer we got to the pass. Not much of a view from the top, but we were keen to head down out of the wet mist as soon as possible anyhow.Down to the Meadow
You feel like you’re on the way out when you start to see meadow again. Your brain starts to ponder town things, and chat turns once again to steaks and beer, and the many delights a soft bed can offer.
After popping into Locke Stream Hut so Nicky could keep the hut books up to date with our progress and intentions, we forded the Taramakau River and found some easy-going, fast-progress terrain. Only 3 hours down to Kiwi Hut for the night.Mixed Grill Platter, much to Cookie & Ollie’s Delight
Me and Ollie decided to go for quantity over quality and the flame mixed grill didn’t disappoint. Although the ribs, chops and boerewors sausage were no match for the sirloin steak and I found myself jealously looking over at Nico much larger hunk of meat (and dribbling slightly). Good job they provided us with bibs to wear!
Just in case our rabbit snaring skills were a bit rusty when we made it fully into the wilds, we decided to topup in Queenstown on 1.4kg or so of ribs and rib eyes all bbq’d into a mouth-watering melt-in-your-mouth-mountain of carniverous delight to make Fred Flinstone proud. And maybe even full! Oh, and not to forget the lashings of local dairy ice cream covered in a flowing choco-river for afters of course. Gotta familiarise ourselves with the NZ rivers out here before setting-off, right? ;-)My Verdict - Makarora River is Un-Crossable Today!
It wasn’t looking good! Deep grey rushing water. If you can’t see the bottom it’s not a great idea to stride out into the middle of the river. Cookie had a little ‘tester’ to assess the strength. “No go!”
It was a road walk around for us.
We couldn’t cross, it was clear to see, but since we were here I went in anyhow just make an amusing clip for the video!