Te Araroa Trail Greenstone Track
When I woke at 6.30am I listened to the light rain on my tent and thought about getting up.
I love being in my tent when it’s raining, the downside being you have to pack a wet tent. I enjoyed cold overnight-soaked oats (my gas has to last 5 days) and a boost vitamin drink. The rain stopped momentarily so I made a snap decision, jumped up, threw everything out of the tent and packed up. The tent has to be packed first, so I quickly packed it then everything else, just before the rain came again. . Te araroa trail greenstone track
Owing to yesterday’s incredible detour to walk the Routeburn Track (which I day-hiked), today’s efforts would take me from the Greenstone saddle campsite to Greenstone hut on the Greenstone Track. I would meet Te Araroa trail again at Greenstone hut.
Towards McKellar Hut Te Araroa Trail Greenstone Track
The Greenstone track was through lovely beech forest initially, and was pretty easy going. A trail runner overtook me, and wished I could be him for the morning, traveling lightly without a pack. I reached McKellar hut at 9.50am and had a quick break. I continued on, and the trail opened up through grasslands of the wide river valley, occasionally dipping into beech forest again.Te Araroa Trail Greenstone Track
Greenstone Valley
I had several encounters with very large cows in the grasslands of the Greenstone Valley, and I had one at close quarters with a bull who was alone, and directly on the trail in front of me. I gave him a very wide berth, and he continued to walk down the trail, then he began a slow, low repetitive moo – which I took to mean ‘leave me alone lady’… So I walked quite far out of my way to avoid him until I was able to get back on trail.
It rained on and off for most of the day, but eventually cleared up a bit. My legs felt like lead today. I probably over-did it a bit yesterday doing the Routeburn in a day. Or maybe I should have slept in this morning. The trail was really nice, but felt like it went on for longer than the almost 26km. I was really glad to reach Greenstone hut at around 2.50pm. I’d been entertaining the idea of going to the next hut this morning (3 or 4 hours away) but there was no chance of that!
The Greenstone hut is quite popular as it’s the hub of several walks in the area. I camped behind the hut. There were numerous people there already, from the UK, Germany, Australia, France & USA. The sun came out and I had an early dinner at 4.30pm. Trouble was I was hungry again by 7.30pm, and I didn’t really bring enough snacks on this stretch. I must do a bigger resupply in Te Anau in a few days time.