Day 11: Top Hut to Lauder

We were quite comfortable in the hut for the night, with the exception of a few exceptional gusts of wind that woke me (Pam) up sometime around 1 am, but that just gave me an excuse to look out the window and check out the stars. It was cold! But with our gear and sleeping bags, we stayed warm enough. We woke up to the sound of birds crawling around on the metal roof, and we decided it was time to get up and get a move on.

It was even colder in the morning than when we went to bed, about 4C, but we fixed breakfast, packed up, and got on our way around 9. We were wearing many layers of clothes to keep warm. And then…we came to our first river crossing of the day. We hemmed and hawed, and decided the only thing we could do was take off our socks and shoes, roll up our pants, and wade our bikes across. Good gracious, that water was cold! When I climbed out of the stream, my feet felt like they were on fire.

We didn’t know how many more crossings we had, so we put back on our shoes, and continued on. Well, turns out we had a LOT of crossings. After much trial and error we worked out that we could wear our biking shorts, rain paints over top, and flip flops, and just wade right through, then hop on the bikes on the other side. In all, we probably crossed that river 50 times all the while walking/pedaling around in flip flops.

The going was really slow, and we made very slow progress out of the mountains and toward our goal for the day. We had lunch about 8 km down the trail, at the Boundary Hut, which it took us 3 hours to get to. Then it was another 8 km or so to the bottom of the trail. The trail was muddy from the recent rains, with lots of big puddles to wade through or go around. Some 4x4s had been through recently, and created big muddy ruts that made the going slower. Also, there were giant rocks everywhere, and some were pretty tough to avoid, so the going was really rough.

However despite all of these hardships and difficulties the scenery was amazing. In the 24 hours from when we embarked on the trail to leaving it we saw 2 other people, all today, all DOC workers maintaining the trail. It was odd knowing that we were the only people anywhere nearby. By mid-morning the river fording was fun with warmer air temperatures, and the water getting progressively deeper and faster as more streams joined in to make the Manuherikia River.

We finally made it off the trail, and to a gravel road. Unfortunately, it was right at the time of day where both of us get tired, cranky, and hungry. We’d pretty much eaten most of our snacks, and we were saving the last bit for later. It was uphill, into the wind, and I (Pam) was not happy. I threw a temper tantrum for half a second, and then got over it, and we pushed on.

Eventually, the headwind turned into a sidewind, then a tailwind, and we started going downhill, and making great time on the gravel road. We were feeling pretty good, even though not too long before we’d been feeling pretty bad. We even turned down an offer of a ride from one of the DOC workers who remarked how rough we looked.

We came to an intersection and had to make a choice: to the right was a 5 km climb up to St. Bathans, and a campsite with no shower; to the left was 30+ km, mostly downhill, with the wind to our backs to start, and the promise of a shower. We went left. Flying down the road, feeling the km pass, was awesome. However, it was shortlived, because we eventually had to turn right and put the wind at our side again, and the road twisted around until we were battling a vicious headwind. We saw a distance marker, and we still had 17 km to go to our goal. Ugh! Then, a fortuitous sign: White Horse Hotel. It was just ahead, and I got my hopes up that it wouldn’t be too much money. Well, that hotel was full, no vacancies. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was.

But, we had no choice but to go on. We rode to the next little town, Lauder, and lo and behold! They had a little hotel/pub as well! And they had a room! It’s an old hotel (that’s what they kept telling us) so there’s just a communal bathroom, no problems here. Since the shower was hot, that’s all that really matters. Plus, they have a restaurant, so we got dinner-Matt got steak and fries, and I got cottage pie (shepherd’s pie). Delicious! And they talked us into dessert, well really they just mentioned it and we immediately ordered, which we enjoyed very much. Now we’ve retired to our room, and plan on getting lots of rest before we start our journey down the Otago Central Rail Trail.

WIFI is hard to find in rural New Zealand, will update the journal when we get a chance.

Distance: 61.4km

Time: 5:47

Average: 10.6kmh

Max: 42.63kmh

Climbed: 320m

Pam fording a river on the East Manuherikia trail in the spring.