Today Lauren woke me up with a sock on her hand singing “Try a little tenderness”. I can tell you that someone found this extremely hilarious and may have at one point required a paper bag to control her breathing. I wouldn’t mind, only the sock in question was in such a condition that it could’ve sang the whole Otis Redding back catalogue of its own accord.
Walking along the river we were keeping an eye out for a derelict hut as a distance marker, but it was never to be seen. Navigating through boggy wetland we came to a spot that someone had set up a place for a campfire beside a stream, the perfect place for lunch.
Approaching our large river crossing we had a large pine plantation to our left, while underfoot was littered with rabbit holes. They were everywhere, but strangely no rabbits to be seen, a flopsy ghost town.
At the end of ghostly rabbit land was an eroded cliff face from which we had to navigate down to the Ahuriri river bed. The river was flowing strong and fast, but we had to get across. Initially we thought we could get across easily where the river split briefly into two, but closer inspection proved otherwise. Further upstream seemed shallower so we aimed to cross there. It was about two thirds across the river where I realised that perhaps the clarity of New Zealand’s water had played a trick on us, I was now in full flowing water half way up my thighs, leaning in to the rush of the water. I had to aim for the dark parts of the river with my feet to guarantee grip, as placing my weight on the brighter slippery rocks was not an option. The closer I got to the far side the stronger the current got, but the final step took me right out of danger, I was standing on algae covered rocks, but the water was almost still. I turned round to see that Lauren was coming into the more difficult section, understandably nervous I told her to do exactly what I had done and she would be fine. After reassuring her that even if she did fall in, she wouldn’t go too far, Lauren made it across into what we would discover as new rabbit land.
This was where all of the rabbits had gone, across the river. I don’t know how they did it but there was rabbits absolutely everywhere, bounding around the place like kids after a packet of skittles. The tussock is greener on the other side I guess.
We found a 4wd track around the cliff face which took us up to the trail head for our next section. It was late enough to be looking for a campsite, so once we found somewhere suitable we dropped our packs, and set up camp. We were beside a stream but it didn’t look great, I took our magic bucket and battled through some Matagouri to the larger river 500m away. After dinner we feel asleep to the familiar sound of running water and the less familiar sound of the occasional gunshot.
Trek3000 