Start – Roses Hut
Finish – Arrowtown Holiday Park
Daily Distance – 22 km
TA Distance – 2682 km
Bluff Distance – 359 km
“No-one should ever have to cold soak!“
– The mores and manners of the European hiker, 2018
The above quotation was used by way of explanation when donating a spare gas canister to a fellow hiker
who had ran out. It also illustrates beautifully the difference between American and European hikers. If
provided with no information other than rucksack size, it is possible to sort these 2 groups with a fair
degree of accuracy.
American hikers often think nothing of arriving late, eating a dinner of cold soaked cous cous and then
retiring to bed. A European by contrast will gleefully rustle up a hot meal, choose from 3 different types
of chocolate for pudding and then bemoan that his cheeseboard consists of only mild cheddar.
There is an unspoken respect between the ultralight Americans and us heavyweight Europeans. I
personally admire the Spartan like discipline of the stoveless speedsters, but definitely love my cheese too
much to change.
Anyway, I digress. Today was a really tough, but really fun day. A mixed collection of hills, ridges,
valleys and rivers before dropping back into civilization for a much needed shower. My highlights of the
day were wading 5km down the Arrow river to Macetown (water assisted walking!) and summiting the
aptly named “Big Hill”. After 2500km there are still hills which reduce TA hikers to sweaty messes who
need to assume the foetal position for a few minutes at the top. The track from the summit down into
Arrowtown was also beautifully maintained. All too often the TA dishes out type 2 fun, so it was great to
finish the day with a type 1 (regular) fun section.
Tonight will be spent at the holiday park in the historic town of Arrowtown. Together with the nearby
settlement of Macetown, the town was built as part of the New Zealand gold rush in the mid 1860s. It
now survives as a quaint, but friendly tourist town.
