Day 66: Red Hill hut to Hunter's hut

A full hut last night at Red Hills, 7 in a 6 bunker, young fella arrived last and got the floor. Two new Paul's arrived yesterday from Hunter's hut, and one of them was complaining about it being the hardest day of his life. Some 12 hours of walking, not the happiest Paul that we've seen out on the Te Araroa. We had the same intention to get through to Hunter's hut, or one further to Top Wairoa today if we could so we started early. Though we had a sneaking suspicion that it would probably not be all that bad.

A short way from the hut we encountered some SOBOs crossing a river. With the 30 odd mm of rain that we had fall yesterday, the river was up slightly. They had elected to cross the river into a corner with a shear cliff face on the opposite bank. Traditional river crossing wisdom would dictate that you do not want to cross the river on a bend, as the river's flow will condense into the corner, flowing faster and cutting deeper. This crowd of what would turn out to be four people were not ones to let traditional wisdom get in the way of a chance to take an impromptu swim. We'd seen one of the four on the track just prior to arriving at the river, he described it as a tricky crossing, getting in it up to his waist. We arrived a few minutes later to find the next pair out in the middle of the river, poking and prodding into the fast flow at the corner. Shortly after, the bloke lost footing and had a little river float down 5–10 m, fully submerging his pack and body. He recovered footing a ways down stream, sans his water bottle, which continued, presumably, down to the sea. He then eagerly came over to chat with us leaving his partner stranded in the middle of the river.

His partner turned out to be none other than Elina... 'Tip top', a kiwi YouTube person sponsored by Macpac and Pic's peanut butter. She'd completed the PCT prior to the TA. Evidently there must not be river crossings on the PCT. Not deterred by her friend's misadventure, she proceeded to prod at this corner crossing for 10 minutes or so, until she was turned around by the flow to have her back perpendicular to it, then was then pushed downstream onto a boulder. She was lucky to mostly keep some degree of footing as she stumbled downstream, and was able to grasp to the boulder and regain her composure, only half wetting her pack. By this stage her friend had finally got the message that she needed some help with the crossing and had gone back to the river's edge. Five minutes later, and a few more failed attempts at a crossing, she was able to leap across the last narrow piece of heavy flow adjacent to the boulder and the river's edge.

A few minutes later, another SOBO arrived, and elected to cross it at the same spot. We could hardly believe it, four people in three groups all picking out the worst possible crossing point. He too lost footing coming across and fell face first into the river, wet up to his chest.

Absolutely baffled by this display we'd now been standing spectator to for 20 or so minutes, and having shared a little wisdom on river crossing with them, we crossed the river on the straight between the bends. It got up to mid shin to knee depth, with only moderate flow. We were across it in a minute or so. Emma didn't require any assistance.

The tramp continued down the river's edge and started to climb.

We passed through a section of river bed with large red boulders, which are the name sake for the Red Hills hut we stayed at last night. The geography in this area is quite unique, though has shared history with an area of Otago some 500 km south where you can find similar red landscapes. I read an interesting book on it in Arthur's Pass, and quickly set about forgetting most of it. Perhaps something to refresh myself on.

We stopped at Porter's Creek hut on the way through for lunch. From there the track fell down into a valley and back up the other side, before sidling downhill on an old rocky avalanche bed for the last kilometer or so.

We arrived at Hunter's hut to stunning views around and down into the valley.

We spotted a weka outside, so brought in our shoes from outside. Hut to ourselves for the night. A good hut too.

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