Strong wind blowing from the morning. We walked against it so I couldn’t keep my eyes open!
We had a sight of Rangitata river in distance. This is another troublesome thing you need to hitch to the other side of the river. In fact this one is passable if the water level is low. But Gita brought snow and river changed it flow obviously also raining upstream we could see it.
We hoped we could cross by ourselves.
We turned around to Clearwater Lake. It was meaningless for us to continue to the trail end. There is a way out from the lake so we took that.
Heading to the other direction and start hitching. Soon the car stopped for us. It was a short ride but he was meeting up with his motorcycle friends at Lake Emma.
We asked what was the best way to get to the other side then one of his friend spread a map. And told us that trail around the lake goes to Rangitata and that point we might be able to cross. Also they offer us a ride by motorcycle!?
Nobu was pretty sure about “crossing” by this point but it sounded fun so we say YES!
They said drive slow and yeah it was “slow” for them but I screamed a lot!
After 10 minutes we found local guy fishing at the lake. We approached to ask about the trail. The guy told us if you can’t cross upstream you can’t cross there too.
Well we knew it but it was a fun ride with cool guys and we appreciated a lot.
Thanks for the enjoyable time!
Well back on the road hitching.
Lucky us we took two more ride to get to the other side of trail head!
Mark&Susana gave us a ride all the way. They drove extra 40km for us. Thanks a lot!
Soon after entering Bush Stream Track we had 6,7 times river crossings. With snow melting the river was quite fast and water got cloudy and hard to see the river bed. We were regularly sliding while crossing. And one time I was almost washed away and panicked but Nobu pulled me back thank god.
It was scary experience I was glad we did it safely. Later we heard 5 hikers half day ahead of us teamed up and did it together. But they all got soaked wet in the end. So we did it pretty well boing only two small people.
Challenging river crossings then steep hills up and down then up again. Finally we arrived to the hut toward evening.
Crooked Spur Hut
After a hard day, the meal taste much better. What a day!!!
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