Day 2 – Riverton to Colac Bay

I planned to make a short day of it today, since I wanted a chance to meet up with Kevin Hawkes of the Te Araroa Southland Trust to discuss routes through the Longwoods, and I suspected I’d get hit by rain soon and might want to wait it out in town.

I had noticed the night before that the USB cable for my phone had gone missing.  I searched again and it was still lost.  I use this cable to charge my phone, and with it I lost not just my calling capabilities, but my GPS and music as well.  It had to be replaced, and Colac Bay would not be the place.  So I asked the hostel owner, Bruce if there was an electronics or camera shop there in Riverton.  He asked what I needed, and discovered he had a spare of the exact cable gathering dust in a drawer.  Thanks Bruce!

I’d not been on the road ten minutes when I was stopped by a fellow out walking his dogs.  “Where you headed?” he asked.  “Cape Reinga!” I replied.  He told me he was planning to do the tramp this year too, and invited me up to his house for tea.  This fellow, Dene, and I chatted a while about tramping and had a grand old time.  Turns out he’s heading Southbound in February with Lloyd Blakie, another person Geoff suggested I contact about Southland routes.  We traded contact info with a promise to meet up when our paths cross somewhere in the middle.

I headed on up a beautifully maintained track over Mores Reserve, and down to the coast West of Riverton.  The coastal walk from there was unmarked and quite rough.  The choice was between rock scramble at the waterline – nearly impossible in some places – and walking with sheep on the bluff above.  I was a bit nervous about whether there was permission for trampers to come through up above, as there was no trail, but after a bit of rock scrambling I became convinced that was the only way.  The one that that really gave me pause was when I came around a taller-than-usual fence, and where the fence ended at the sea was an old faded sign saying “DON’T ENTER – BIG BULL.”  I took it to be out of date, but kept a keen eye on the hill anyway.

The landscape in this section was really quite nice.  Each outcropping of rock seemed to have a different makeup, and all different colors.  First was a deep mottled sea-green, then a light blue and purple harbor verging on turqoise.  The next one had rusty and ochre rocks crazed with dark cracks.  All of them were worn very smooth by the waves, with fantastic shapes and hollows grooved out by wave-tossed rocks.

I arrived at the Colac Bay Backpackers and Tavern “Dustez” around seven for my rendezvous with Kevin.  He came by with some maps and GPS coordinates, and as we went over my topo maps, he gave me advice on navigating the Longwoods, and strongly suggested I get a guide to take me through, since a significant section of the route is untracked and very poorly blazed.  He’s calling around some folks looking for someone, but failing that I’ll go ahead by myself, going slowly and carefully to not get lost.