tramping new zealand

What a difference a day makes, yesterday at least until the early afternoon was sunny, loads of blue sky, sunscreen over the nose and cheeks, this morning the rain was, well, rain, not quite teaming in, just standard drizzly rain but the river was up a bit, discoloured, not yet at the ugly stage but I preferred crossing last night.

Days like this there’s not so much enthusiasm to leave the shelter of a hut, I have the belief that it’s not so far to Anne Hut, but then I had a similar idea yesterday with a different destination and there was a fair amount of exercise involved in the end.

And so it turned out today, it wasn’t so far but with my late start and the weather generally inclement, later it became coolish with the wind chill, the ration of exercise seemed to be just long enough.

The day’s major adventure, and it was a serious enough situation, was crossing the flooded Henry River, not looking too promising at the nominated point, the dirty water washing past in one channel of unknown depth. Further upstream it split into three channels, I found a handy branch for a temporary third leg, wrapped my two cameras up in a waterproof bag despite having an aversion to taking a dip.

Fortunately the best route was in my favour, ie, at 45° heading downstream, I spent some time working out exactly my proposed trajectory, basically involving crossing to the top of an island, walking to the bottom to cross to a second island, down to the end of that, actually even knee deep at the end before I started crossing the deepest channel, there were some big ripples just upstream to avoid, surfers would be rewarded if they had waves that big. All good until that last channel, my tripod method worked but I was up over my knees, now lower thigh the river bottom was even, gravelly, it would’ve been much more awkward lumpy, then just as it got mid-thigh, and swift, nervous moments, I was through the worst, only a few feet to clamber out, elated.

You wouldn’t want it much higher and it was a relief to find out that the second crossing 6 km further upstream was on a swingbridge way above the slightly less gnarly river. Not far to the new Anne Hut, quite different from the fire and firebox-less Pool Hut last night, a curiosity with its stucco finish and lino floor, from its Saint James Station days no doubt, Anne in contrast less than two years old and built in the now grand DOC style, double glazed, fully insulated, lounge area with massive windows looking down the valley.

Maybe we should burn down a few more huts in these particularly scenic spots.