A Dangerous Business

Date: 2nd March 2024

Start: Colac Bay Holiday Park (km 2948.9)

End: Beach Road Holiday Park, Oreti Beach (km 2987.7)

Distance Travelled: 38.8 km

Total Distance Completed: 2838 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Reach Out I’ll Be There by Human Nature

Visibility in the Morning: what visibility?

Has my tent always been this comfortable? It’s been a while since I’ve used it – Arrowtown, to be exact – and I don’t remember enjoying the privacy it brings compared to huts and hostels. I still prefer a proper bed, don’t get me wrong, but I think I finally understood why some of the hikers I’ve come across will always opt for the tent even when the opportunity for a shelter with rigid walls, a roof, and actual mattress is offered.

I was slow to get away this morning, which yes is par for the course for me, but I was properly taking it casual this morning. I didn’t leave the holiday park until 8:30, a pretty late time considering the distance to cover today (I will say, I didn’t actually know how far it was to my destination until I arrived there). I figured I’d be able to cruise over the sand pretty easily so no worries from me. Perhaps I should’ve been a bit more punctual, because the tide was up at the first beach, forcing me onto the loose gravel slopes above it. Loose gravel… is slow and annoying and could’ve made this walk quite miserable. That was averted by a thick fog bank that lathered the coast in cloud, dropping visibility to around 20 metres.

I was in for a nasty surprise at the end of this first beach where I was greeted by, get this, a farm track. And here I thought I was done with them after Merriview Hut. Guess I won’t be going as fast as I thought.

Happily the trail was well trodden with gentle slopes, although it could’ve done with some new markers which were hard to spot and quite faded. I did check to see if it was possible to just follow the beach around, but the coast here consisted of rocky cliffs which were impassable with the current tide.

That meant there was a little bit of climbing to do to get up onto said cliffs and follow the grassy paddocks down the coastline.

The fog was still hanging around at 10:30, and as cool as it was I had hoped it would clear so I could get some views out to the Foveaux Strait. My wish was granted later on, but only after finishing a rather sweaty climb to the top of a hill overlooking Riverton. It was crazy how rapidly the temperature rose, going from a fairly chilly morning to a perfectly fine day in the mid 20s.

Wondering if the fog was the fault of Stewart Island, I descended off the hill and went into Riverton for lunch. Fun fact, remember how I passed by Aparima Hut several days ago in the Takitimu’s? Well it’s named after the Aparima River that passes close to the hut. The mouth of that river… is here in Riverton. If only one of us had brought a raft, we could’ve been here so much sooner. In town I ran into Marley and Katherine, a couple from Perth who I first met at Greenstone Hut and walked through the Longwoods with (and somehow haven’t mentioned until now, whoopsie!).

Now it’s time for the big beach. 22 km to the far end, in many ways far too similar to my first few days up north. Flat, hard sand, and not much else to see. There is one big difference: I am in far better shape than I was on Ninety Mile.

I settled in for a long, fast cruise down the sand, and I wish I could say more about stuff that happened over the next 5.5 hours, but nothing happened. I just walked and walked and walked, raking in the miles and only stopping to remove my shoes before the final river crossing of the trail. At this point I’m keeping my feet dry even if it costs me time.

Unlike my usual walking pattern, I didn’t stop for any breaks along the whole beach, partly because I felt good and didn’t need to rest, but also I had been looking at some ominous clouds behind me and assumed I’d be getting rained on at some point. The rain never came, but it did get colder so I didn’t mind putting on my rainjacket anyway. The end result was my exiting the beach much sooner than I thought I would, onto a short road walk to the campsite.

That’s when I turned off flight mode and got a message from Matt about tomorrow’s plans. They were not good: leaving at 6am. I didn’t understand that decision at all. Tomorrow would only be 3 km further than I walked today over similar terrain and it wasn’t even 6pm when I arrived at the holiday park. Reluctantly I agreed, but secretly I ventured to not actually be ready until 6:30. If they wanted to leave earlier that was fine by me, I figured I could make up half an hour over the course of the day. That’s not even mentioning the rain due to arrive overnight. If it’s raining at 6am, I’m not leaving until it leave. With that all settled, I settled in for my final night of camping on Te Araroa.