Day 42: Christchurch to Trustpower campsite

We woke in a holiday park in Christchurch after a successful day yesterday hitchhiking and getting a resupply of both food and gear. We had only a loose idea of what we would be doing today, with intention to get to Methven to hook up with Wayne the shuttle driver for his Lake Coleridge leg tomorrow. There is no option for a bus from Christchurch to, well, most anywhere... but specifically not one to Methven. There is one coming through at about 14:00 to get to Rakaia township so we thought we'd bus to the south of Christchurch and try for a hitch to Rakaia, but failing that we'd be able to catch the bus. From Rakaia it should've been possible to hitch to Methven. However, this plan was shortly turned on its head, when we thought to give Wayne a call to book him for tomorrow, only to find he would not be running. Ensuing this, following information from Wayne that he was running out there this arvo at 15:00, was what can only be described as a mad and frantic dash after a slow and relaxed morning.

We quickly decided our best bet was to try and retrace our route from yesterday back out toward Darfield, then through to Windwhistle where we could head Wayne off on his way out to Coleridge. Frantically we needed to find a way out to the city limits on the Darfield heading road so that we could attempt for a hitch. A search for bus route information commenced, and we were deflated to find we'd only get within about 5 or 6 km of our exit road, and that we'd need to walk the rest, wasting valuable time. Time that we needed if we were to have any hope of a rendezvous with Wayne. We walked the couple of km to the bus route heading in our direction and got on. During the process, Emma had a little brainwave... we could use the electric scooters to cut the time out to the boundary. We reached our stop and started scouting around for the scooters, and downloading the app.

About 15 minutes later I reached our boundary. I hurtled through suburbia, leaving Emma well in my wake—she had elected to turtle through suburbia. The scooters are billed by the minute, so I didn't want to take any longer than necessary. It had started to rain a couple of minutes before I got there, so I put my rain gear on and waited for Emma to arrive, thinking she'd only be a couple of minutes behind. It started to bucket down, I checked the time when I parked up but couldn't stop the clock on my scooter because Emma had payed for them both. Finally, 11 minutes later, a very saturated Emma timidly arrived. We'd travelled well outside the 'scooter zone' so were billed additionally for where we'd parked the scooters. But we set about finding a hitch. The principal of the Darfield highschool happened to be driving passed shortly thereafter and took pity on us in the bucketing rain. We had expected to take some time to find the first hitch, but it happened so fast that we were now somewhat assured that we would make it.

Travelling west we quickly broke out of the storm swooping up the east coast into a blue skied expanse. Further out west again we could see burgeoning rain clouds, but here on the Canterbury plains... nigh on nothing. A common weather pattern we were told. Hence why it is naturally such dry country, and why it has traditionally been used for sheep land. However, it has all now undergone dairy conversion and that necessitates, or perhaps were bought about by the availability of modern monstrous irrigators, which were ever present on the landscape in all directions.

Ahead of schedule, we grabbed some lunch to eat at Darfield.

We then walked out to the road headed toward Windwhistle, and again surprisingly found a hitch not too long thereafter. A middle aged couple, themselves keen trampers. They were only going part the way up the road but we were thankful all the same. They dropped us at a Tavern near Coalgate, and it weren't long before we had our next hitch. A young fella, and Glentunnel local. Glentunnel is only about 3 km up the road from Coalgate, so it were to date our shortest hitch. But it eliminated the last of the real side roads, so the next hitch should get us through to Windwhistle. Again, a short while later, an older bloke stopped in his motor home heading back home to Fairlie. Quite exceptional luck on our behalf. We'd expected the whole process to take much, much longer. We were about an hour early so we took shelter by the Windwhistle school's bus shelter, and got out the tent to dry.

Then we wandered up the road to the Coleridge junction road where we were accosted by a pair of younger blokes in a Ute, out on something of a roadtrip. The passenger was heavily soused, and very raucous. His mate was having a ball of a time watching the interaction. Half embarrassed, but going along with it. His passenger insisted on plying us with beers, of which they were well stocked. They were headed to Te Anau but were quite insistent that they give us a ride 'where ever we wanted to go'. We nearly got a ride out of them up to Cape Reinga, which would've saved us a few months walking. We were yarning with them for a good while, having a few beers while we waited for Wayne. Eventually, as some are prone to doing in such a state, the rowdy one dropped his pants for no apparent reason and at this point the driver having had a hard time getting him back in the car took off. This left him needing to shuffle 50 m down the road with his tail tucked between his legs and shorts around his ankles to catch up to his mate where he finally conceded to getting back in to continue their road trip. Leaving behind them a very lasting impression upon us. Certainly a hilarious, if entirely unexpected interaction.

Shuttling in with Wayne he explained that he was doing a bit of an emergency trip up Harper road (which the TA follows for 25 km inland from Lake Coleridge) in order to collect a few SOBOs who were freaking out about the incoming weather and wanting to book it out ASAP. He asked us if we were sure we wanted to head in, which we confidently replied in the affirmative to. A little weather won't stop us. We got dropped off about 16:30 and walked around Lake Coleridge to rejoin Harper road.

Then the monotony of a long road walk began, and the weather arrived soon after we joined the road. In fairness, on a pleasant day, the scenery would have been quite pleasant with lakes aplenty, and mountains besides. We averaged about 5.5 km an hour, so the travel was exceptionally fast. It was however, very wet, very windy, and very cold. These factors probably urged our pace ever faster as we worked to stay warm. We got to the Trustpower campsite shortly before night fall, thoroughly saturated.

We pitched tent in a hurry, thankful that the campsite was rather sheltered, nestled alongside a pair of mountains, with a big pine windbreak toward the open valley center. The wind was blowing fiercely out there in the open, but very little in here. Fortunate because the site was old rocky river bed, so we could not garner much purchase for the tent stakes. We changed into our dry sleeping clothes, hopped in our bags, snacked for dinner, and were soon asleep.

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