Te Araroa (day 52) - Deception River to Bealey Hut [Goats Pass] / mile 1374

Challenging day walking up the Goats Pass, jumping the boulders and crossing the Deception river all the way to the top.

Many river crossings happened today, and you would have thought that if you are walking up the river they get progressively easier. But not in this case. As it turned out Deception river doesn't have much space while flowing down from the Goats Pass, so it gets quite deep and the current is very strong. So much so that after a day of rain, this area is impassable. At the top of the pass there's a hut you can find here a CB radio where you can contact Doc about the river levels. Some people got stuck in this hut for three days during wet weather, waiting for the water level to drop. Many turned back and skipped this area completely.

I was lucky enough to arrive here in good weather conditions and could climb this fairly challenging and quirky section of TA. Goats Pass is all about walking and climbing on boulders right from the bottom to the top at the pace of 1 km an hour. Path is strictly following and crossing the Deception river down to its first droplet, you can literally see river being born.

Many runners zoomed by me while I was climbing today, they were all training for the coast to coast race which involved kayaking, cycling and running over Goats Pass. Apparently they could make it bottom to top to bottom in about 4 hours, it took me 9 - guess I need to train harder, or walk without a backpack.

I've reached the other side of the pass at 3pm and walked the remainder of the trail on the road leading to Arthur's Pass and the Bealey Hut. I decided to skip the village altogether, even if I hitched there, it would be no hot food available at this hour. I had enough supplies to keep me going until Methven anyway.

I got surprised at the hut, first of all I was the only person to sleep here tonight. Secondly someone left few ramen packets and a bag of sunflower seeds on the table! Mouse helped itself to some of it already but it was mostly intact so I managed to top up my provisions.

I've aired the hut, ate a shrimp ramen with tuna for dinner, hanged my backpack off the ceiling to discourage residents from investigating it and went to sleep on the classic rubber mattress.

At about 8pm I heard a knock on the door, it was Patrick from Auckland travelling the south Island in a van and looking for somewhere to stay the night. He seemed to be quite surprised with me being here and asked if he could stay as if it was my home. I had no problem with that, it was a public hut after all. Patrick had a demeanour of a serial killer and I hoped that I will survive until the morning. Patrick was on his yearly vacations to the south Island and hoped to move here in few years time when the oil company he worked for would open a branch here. He was thinking about buying a piece of non farmable land by the coast and build a house there. Patrick had a quick dinner, offered me some fruit and chocolate which I gladly accepted and we went to sleep.

I'm happy to report that I have survived until the morning.