Te Araroa (day 51) - Cameron's Hut to Deception River / mile 1355

"Natural things are by their definition wild, unkempt and more often than not crawling with bugs. Quite obviously, then, natural things are just the kind of things that one does not strive to acquire" Fran Lebowitz

Second day of walking along the river today it was Taramakau river. It 'only' had two crossings but they were quite sizeable and of course there was tons of smaller stream crossings thrown into the mix.

First thing in the morning I went over Harper's Pass and met a huge bubble of Northbound hikers on the descent. It looked like I was going past the main bulk of people who started in Bluff this summer.

After the pass trail was mostly easy going and following the river, except when it would briefly disappear into the forest and.. disappear. Most hikers at this point learned that going on the river bed itself was way easier than manoeuvring around the forest so those parts of the trail were overgrown and hard to navigate.

At 3pm I reached Otira river and started to follow it towards Arthur's Pass. To be precise, I was going towards a footbridge leading to Otira Highway which was going towards Arthur's Pass Village. My plan was to skip the village entirely as I had enough food to keep me going. I could potentially hitchhike there tomorrow from the other side of the Goats Pass I was going through next, to eat some hot food. It all depended on at what time I'll reach the road on the other side of the pass.

Deception River was my final destination of the day and the main challenge for tomorrow. I will have to cross it 14 times on the steep ascent to the Goats Pass. Many people skip this section entirely, hitching the road I've mentioned above.

Just before I set the campsite I met Ellie from Finland, tiny girl hiking Southbound like me. She was staring at the first river crossing of the Deception river and decided to turn around and road walk this section. She explained to me that she hated river crossings and after reading the warning signs by the bridge leading to Deception river she made a decision to go back. Ellie was a purist (no hitchhikes allowed) so she was planning to road walk this entire section as it was possible to do it this way.

After this encounter, I crossed the Deception river twice and it was indeed a fast flowing, powerful and quite deep river. Water went nearly to my hips and splashed over my shirt once. Shortly after I found an ok place to camp, it was 6pm and I didn't have energy to look for a better one.

I cooked some noodles with cous cous and canned chicken, traditionally got swarmed by sandflies, filtered the water for tomorrow and went to bed.