Te Araroa (day 44) - Mid Wairoa Hut to Porters Creek Hut [Richmond Ranges] / mile 1203

"Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It's the best part of the day." George Allen Sr.

Last full day of the Richmond Ranges section, tomorrow if everything goes well I should stay in town for the night.

First portion of the day was a long climb along the Wairoa river with many crossings throughout the way. Water was freezing cold. The sun didn't show up in the valley until late morning so my feet got quite numb. Eventually I've reached Top Wairoa Hut where the trail departed from the river and started to climb towards Mount Ellis. Once there the steep rocky descent begun. I slid two times on the wobbly rock and landed on my butt. I was low on food, my energy levels weren't great and my body needed those calories to keep up the pace.

At 3pm I've reached Hunters Hut and decided to push to the next one as that would put me in reach of St Arnaud, the town where I could get my next resupply sorted. I've managed to arrive at Porters Creek Hut just before 6pm. Surprisingly two other hikers that stayed at Mid Wairoa Hut with me last night joined me after half an hour. It was Kasia from Wales and Jesse from Christchurch in New Zealand.

Jesse was hiking the South Island, his dad was joining him at St Arnaud for a week, his brother was trying to complete Richmond Ranges with him but he got injured on the first day and had to go home. 

I thought Kasia was Polish as the name would suggest, but she was in fact Welsh. She was on a similar time schedule to me, her boyfriend was visiting New Zealand end of February. Kasia wanted to finish hiking by then and do some sightseeing with him. She walked South West Coast Path, which I also did back in 2019. 

Both Jesse and Kasia did really well today, it was a tough terrain we went through, with a lot of climbing, river crossings, bouldering and walking on scree and wobbly rocks.

The fourth and last occupant if the hut tonight was Euan from Scotland, he was also only hiking the South Island. Euan over pushed himself today and decided to take an early stop at the hut but was hoping like the rest of us to get to town tomorrow.

The hut we all stayed in was peaceful and nicely located. It was a standard 6 bunk Doc hut with a fireplace, long drop toilet and a water tank.

Tomorrow will give me the answer to a question if I made a good decision not sending the ressuply box to St Arnaud. Hopefully the prices in the local shop won't be too expensive and I will be able to pick up few left over items from other hiker boxes. Either way it should be ok.

I really enjoyed the time at Richmond Ranges, it was the most picturesque and demanding section so far. We shall see what else the South Island has in store for us soon.