Te Araroa (day 53) - Bealey Hut to Harper River Campground / mile 1396

Nice and easy day walking along the Harper river. Trail after an initial climb was quite flat and enjoyable.

The whole day felt very "European", typical New Zealand bush had been replaced with forest, trail had switchbacks up and down the mountain and river crossings were really manageable. It was almost as if I wasn't hiking Te Araroa.
Around midday I reached a well maintained Hamilton Hut and after a lunch break there I decided to push onwards to Harper river Campground. Trail from here on was running mainly along 4wd track, with very easy river crossings. I arrived at the campsite at 5pm. Only one more person was camping here tonight, it was Kat from Czech Republic, everyone else decided to push further 18 miles to lake Coleridge, which was quite impressive.
Kat was in New Zealand on a one year working holiday visa, she was planning to extend it by another three months. She was doing a mixture of both working and travelling, but after the trail she wanted to focus mainly on work to save up for two months of backpacking in Laos and Vietnam before returning to Czech Republic. Kat was planning to go to Methven tomorrow just like me to resupply and go back on trail the day after. 

Next section was a bit complicated it was running by two braided rivers Rakaia and Rangitata which were generally considered to dangerous to cross unless there were ideal weather conditions. Going around them meant getting long hitchhikes each direction (four in total out and back in around the river) on a fairly remote and quiet roads. I was considering skipping the section in between the rivers (about two days of walking) by just hitchhiking out of one river and back in after the second one, if the traffic proved to be scarce.
I definitely had to go to Methven tomorrow to resupply, have a shower, eat something decent and have an afternoon off as the last time I done all this was in St Arnaud over a week ago.

Harper river Campground were I stayed tonight was a windy, dry place, in fact this whole section was a bit of a wind corridor but I managed to find a sheltered spot for the tent so it wasn't too bad. Weather was also holding amazingly well, I hoped it would stay like that for another few days.

Thursday 11th of January 2024, I have exactly one month to go and a "Camino" or 500 miles to walk. It's definitely doable but it will be still hard work.

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