Bread and Storms. Arthurs to the Harper

After a day of eating, food buying and catching up with Anton we bus back inland to Arthurs Pass. We walk a few hundred metres out of town and inflate the boats. Big mistake. A few minutes fast travel then the Bealey River splits and we are left dragging boats and searching for water. Fast little runs are interspersed with energy sapping drags. After a few hours the river soaks into the gravel leaving us hauling boats toward the distant Waimakariri River. We hit the Waimak in all its glory and finally make good time to the Mt White bridge. We get out on the wrong side and drag ourselves through the scrub, across the railway to the road. As the day ends we trudge the highway to the Cass Track and camp in long grass as rain begins.

The next day we drag our enormous packs (mine is around 21 kg) with ten day's food through pleasant beech forest. The abundant birdlife seen in the Lake Sumner area is reduced here. Twice we have seen stoats running through the forest. Cute and menacing.

I am for surging on but Ian wants to stop at the decrepit Cass Saddle Hut. Thunder rolls and that settles it. Ian bakes astonishingly good tank loaf which we devour with butter and jam. He then makes donuts in his little pan with icing and dried apricots. As the storm shakes the hut, thunder rolls and creeks roar we sip soothing black tea and munch donuts. Happy. We are very happy and sleep contentedly.

The morning dawns fine as the mist burns off and we climb above the bushline with giant prickly speargrass and alpine views to Cass Saddle. A good track takes us beside a pretty creek to the fine Hamilton Hut. Debris from last night's flood lines the river. Te Araroa trampers swap tales of their encounters with flooded rivers and suddenly rising streams.