Diary - Km 2473
Rivers you are not supposed to cross.
There are two big, braided rivers on the TA. One, Rakaia, was officially removed from the trail for being too dangerous and has a 63km road detour. The other one, Rangitata, is not advisable but possible to cross in good conditions, also has a detour of 138km. You can either walk the detours, take ridiculously expensive shuttles, or try your luck hitching on remote gravel roads.
We opted for none of the above and instead walked the rivers. It’s important to mention here that we were extremely lucky (underline twice) with the weather window being dry. We checked the cloud radars, river flow rates, and used crossing maps of people who have done that before. I would not attempt this in worse conditions. Rakaia was 16km of river bed with many small crossings and two rather sketchy, fast flowing braids that reached my hips. One of them got deep pretty unexpectedly towards the end, and while Kez was trying to put his camera back into the pocket before it gets dropped, I struggled to stay upright half-laughing, and Tom held me by my pack, so I don’t float away. After that first one I took the second one more seriously. My two walking buddies were further down stream ready to catch me if I get swept away, but I’m sure if I did, I’d take them with me. I didn’t.
In between these two big rivers were..more rivers. We were in and out of streams. One day, Curtis counted, we crossed a stream 69 times. It’s only uncomfortable the first time you put your dry shoes in, though.
In between the rivers there was also an earthquake (or an aftershock of one that happened a couple of days ago). I was half-asleep when a jolt woke me up. Apparently, the epicentre of that was just 2km from us. I wish I was more awake for that, because to my sleepy mind it was just like hitting a pothole while driving a car. Not as special as I’d like it to be.
After Rakaia, crossing Rangitata was a piece of cake.
Did that, walked more, crossed a pass, saw a nice double rainbow, then walked 56km yesterday just to not walk in the huge rain today (the rain that barely happened), and now trying to recover in one day (as if that’s possible) before I walk again.
The finish line is getting closer.