23km Day : 627km Total
20 January 2015
-41.374003, 173.435194

After leaving the campsite at 8:20 the first half of the days walk was mostly on gravel roads before reaching the trailhead around 11:30.  The road walk followed the Pelorus river, which is the river where the barrel-riding scene in one of the Hobbit movies was filmed.  The river water is very clear but has a distinctive green tint to it.

The trail then continued into forested lands, still following the Pelorus River for the entire day.  A couple of the  streams were crossed by swing bridges, one of which was very unstable and I had to take care when crossing.

I stopped for lunch at a small picnic area called the Emerald Pool and was soon joined by Rory, who is New Zealander also hiking the Te Araroa trail.  After lunch he prepared to take a swim at the pool, but I continued on the hike with the hope of reaching Middy Hut. 

The next 2.5 hours of hiking brought me to Captains Creek Hut and ready for a break.  The hut is located very close to the river, with an excellent area to take a swim.  So I took a wade in the water, which was chilly so did not submerge myself but i sat on a large rock hanging my legs in the water.  This would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the swarms of sand flies.

Rory caught up with me before long and came down to the river for his second swim of the day.  Now since he went into a full-on swim my pride forced me to take a plunge as well.  It was a shock at first but refreshing once I got used to the water temperature. It also got us away from the sand flies except for the most voracious ones that still attacked our heads.

The stony beach was a great place to dry out our tents from the condensation from the previous night.  And we even rinsed out our smelliest clothes and laid them on the rocks to dry in the sun.  We also got the chance to test our stone-skipping skills because the rocks here were perfect for it.  My first attempt went Kerplunk after the first skip. But the second one went about 10 skips landing on the other side of the river.  I decided to stop while I was ahead, not a bad result for my first tries in 30 years.

I did not have the energy to move on to Middy Hut.  So I went inside the hut, set up my bunk and made dinner.  While eating dinner, Joerg arrived after walking a monster day all the way from Havelock to catch up with Rory who he knew would be here.  I had last seen Joerg in Whananaki in November and we spent some time catching up.  Another kiwi hiker named Ben also arrived late so there are 4 of us in this 6 bunk hut.