Friday 31.03.2023

• Te Araroa kilometres done: 2685.5km
• Official kms: 28.5km
• Garmin kms: 31.23km
• Total time: 9:23
• Calories burned: 3589
• Body battery: 7/10
• Accommodation: Airbnb (house bus) Arrowtown.
• Tent nights tally: 18
• Zero days had so far: 27

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This morning there was a frost again, same as the following morning. Its definitely getting colder. I was ready to leave just after 8am. Marko, Nici & Jake were 15 minutes behind me.

Todays start has the biggest climb with an elevation gain of 550 metres above the hut. It started out ok & to my surprise this climb was the easiest, it didn’t seem to take me much time at all. Reaching the top in just over an hour.

I sat & waited for Jake then Marko & then Nici to turn up which was a good 20 minutes, but then I had to take off as I started getting cold.

Now for my least favourite part of hiking, descending! It’s a 550 metre drop down to the river below. My knees always hurt with the steep drops & I feel I’m slower going down than I am going up.

After about an hour I had reached the Arrow river. The TA guide says in low flow it is quicker to walk down the river. It was slow flow so I decided to do this. It was freezing cold though & definitely numbed the feet.

Fortunately it’s not all river travel as there are some tracks along the banks that are unmarked. At one point I mistook a goat track & ended up bush bashing through matagouri. I came out worse off as my arms were bleeding from all the spikes!

After following the river for a good 4km I had made it to Macetown. First time being here for me. Brent who lives in Arrowtown had sent me a message a few days back to say that he was probably going into Macetown on Thursday & could drop off some goodies for me. He told me that he would hide a note under some rocks in the corner of the building at the end with instructions of where to find the goods.

I found the note & the bag! What a legend Brent! I sat there & scoofed those chips for lunch & drank both cans of coke!

I decided I would walk the next 13km of 4wd track out to Arrowtown. It was fast walking but also required numerous river crossings. I made it into Arrowtown at 4pm & continued walking just over a kilometre to where my Airbnb is just off the trail.

After checking into this cool house bus I dropped my pack & set off to walk a final 5km to make tomorrow quicker. Antonia is driving to Queenstown tomorrow & I won’t to be finished walking when she turns up to make the most of our time together.

Once I got to 5km I called an Uber to get a pick up & had him drop me back into Arrowtown so I could grab some takeaways.

It felt like a big day today. I’m looking forward to a good sleep & putting my feet up!