Start – Colac Bay
Finish – Riverton
Daily Distance – 11 km
TA Distance – 2974 km
Bluff Distance – 68 km
Well, I had hoped that would be easier! As so often though, the TA confounds expectations. A lot of
hikers stop their journey in Queenstown or Text Anau and sections like this are why. It seems very much
like a beautiful beach/clifftop path was built, but has never been subsequently maintained. Consequently,
there are chunks of cliff that have fallen away, but no revision of the route, leading to a lot of scrambling
or forging a path through head high bushes. The marker poles have also bleached from orange to an
almost perfect white, making them difficult enough to see that it becomes a guessing game of where to
aim. With 2 enforced 35km days coming up I really had hoped for a day of nice trail, rather than battling
a route which could have been lovely.
As a plus, Riverton is a massive step up in location from Colac Bay. As a culmination of St Patrick’s
celebrations last night, a group of drunk guys stayed up to the wee hours singing with an admirable gusto,
although sadly no sense of tuning or lyrics. By contrast, the Riverton holiday park is lovely. Offering a
generous 50% TA discount, we even had a semi-private garden to ourselves, with a beautiful lawn and
picnic bench too. Add in the games room, fully equipped kitchen and resident dog, and it’s one of the best
I have stayed at.
Invercargill tomorrow and my penultimate TA walk.
