WEEK THREE

25th October

Rest day for the horses and I reshod Maddys front shoes and her hind shoes will last a few more days.

26th October

Hamner Springs to Lochiel Station (18.2km)

The horses and I left Hamner Springs and headed into town for a coffee and cooked breakfast at the Power House Café. 

We then continued on and headed South.  It was a lovely warm day and the roadsides were nice a wide to start with and then they narrowed up.  For a bridge and a narrow a steep hill come onto an old one lane bridge which crosses the Hope River.  There was lots of traffic on the roads as this was Labour Day and everyone was heading home from the long weekend.  We turned off the Hammer Spring to Christchurch road and headed on along the Lewis pass road.  This was very busy as well but we had not gone far when a farmer stopped and invited us to ride along on the terraces on Lochiel Station so we gratefully did this and the views for the river were awesome. I stopped and set up my tent in a paddock and spend the afternoon marking assignments as I was about to run of cell phone coverage once we went round the corner.

  

27^th October

Lochiel Station to Engineers Camp (36.9km) 

It was very windy overnight and then it started to rain as I saddled up the horses. We headed off down passed the sheep yards and started in the paddocks for another two km before heading out on the road.  This was the Lewis Pass road and it was very busy with lots of fast trucks and cars.   This was a long day on the road and it was raining most of the time but I could not put my hood on my coat on as I needed to hear the trucks coming up behind up.  I am impressed with how good the horses are with the trucks especially as when they go passed the horses get sprayed with water for the wet road. 

Just before I arrived at Engineers camp, Delwyne and Bob came past and then by the time we arrived they had found the Drovers paddock and had the gate open and waiting for us to arrive. It started to rain again and I put my tent up in the rain and Delwyne drove me up to Boyle Village for a hot shower and to charge my laptop batteries.  Delwyne and her horse Cracker are joining us on our journey south.

  

28th October

Engineers Camp to Hope Kiwi Lodge (26.1km)

It rained all night and we got up to a wet day and sorted out Delwynes gear in the rain.  We were not in a hurry to leave as I was hoping the rain would clear.  Maddys back shoes finally had become slippers and the nails had worn through so I shod her hind feet. 

She was grumpy because of the sand-flies.  We drove up and checked out the Boyle River to cross it just above Engineers camp.  We then rode up the Lewis pass a bit and crossed the Boyle River and found the DOC track and followed this for a while and then instead of orange track marker we found green track markers as well and these had horse written on them.  So we followed this and came on a newly formed track which must have been put in especially for horse access.  We followed this until we came to the Hope River and then followed the river for a while and then back on the track. 

There were some tricky bits on the track around Halfway shelter which is nice looking hut and we were tempted to say there as it was still raining.  We carried on and when we were nearly at Hope Kiwi lodge we had to cross the St Jacob River. 

Then we found a four wheel drive track heading up a hill and started to follow this until we realised it was going to the St Jacob hut instead and when we came back we saw on the back of the sign the way to go to the Hope Kiwi hut.  When we arrived at the hut we were delighted to find not only a great hut but a purpose built horse paddock.

29^th October

Hope Kiwi Lodge to The Lakes station cattle yards near the Hurninui  hut(15.0km)

We left the hut reluctantly at 8am and headed out across the open valley for a while, following old wheel marks in the grass then when we were at the end of the valley we crossed a few boggy bits to find the bush track again.  We are not sure where the old wheel marks came from or went to.  The bush track was narrow and tricky in a few places with some steep rocky sections and some trees across the track which we had to find our way around.  We climbed up and over the Kiwi saddle and could now see Lake Sumner though the trees.  There was a steep track with high sides and Maddy’s boxes caught on these. 

Once we were out of the bush track we were at the end of Lake Sumner and we carried out up the Hurunui River to find a suitable place to cross as we had been told not to cross close to the lake and to go up past the cattle yards before crossing.  It had rained most of the day and was very windy. We could see the Hurunui hut and the swing bridge over the river and we decided to camp out in the tents by the cattle yards as there was a paddock for the horses.  We quickly put up the tents and had an early tea before the rain really set in for the night.

30^th October

The Lakes Station cattle yards to Lake Taylor (19.3km)

It was a cold night and we awoke to frost and fresh snow on the surrounding hills.  We packed up and pulled down our frozen tents and saddled up and headed towards the swing bridge and found a suitable place to cross the Hurunui River, we then picked up a four wheel drove track and followed this.  Lake Sumner was so calm and mirror like we had to stop often and take photos.  We then left this and came to Lock Katrine.

 This was lovely and there were Kohiowis flowering along the edge of the lock.    We carried on and came to Lake Taylor this was so mirror calm and we took lots more photos.  We arrived at the camping ground at the head of Lake Taylor and pitched our tents.

Two days off for the horses