Coast to Coast at Arthur’s Pass

Well it was raining this morning but now the sun seems to be trying to come out, and I think I’ll be heading out for a day walk shortly. Roni, Evan, and I completed our Waimak-Harman Pass journey yesterday, walking out from Seven Mile Hut to Rte. 73 in 2 hours. We were going to do the more difficult route up and over the Kelly Range but we woke up to rain and clouds and decided not to bother doing all the work to climb a mountain to see nothing, plus the trail guide says that the route is’impossible to find in poor visibility’ so we said no thanks.

We got a ride withing 5 minutes for the 40 km ride back to Arthur’s Pass and the three of us spent the afternoon doing laundry, showering, and recovering. Today Roni left for Christchurch and she’s flying back to Israeli in 2 days. I may see her again though because we’ve been throwing some future hiking ideas around. She’s going to do some research on things when she gets home and let me know. Evan has decided to stay another day and do Avalanche Peak. There’s another guy here too, Lee, from the UK, who’s meeting friends here tonight and possibly starting the Cass-Lagoon walk tomorrow so I may link up with them to do that track. We’ll see. Just going with the flow, no set plans, as usual.

So they just had the famous ‘Coast to Coast’ race come through Arthur’s Pass over the weekend, a 240-km running, cycling, and kakaying race from the west to east coast of the South Island. The winner did it in 11 hours which is absolutely amazing. His name is Steve Gurney, and he’s won 9 times in the last 20 years! At the finish line he literally collapsed. And I kid you not, in the newspaper it said, ‘Even the sound of a can of beer being opened by Judkins in his ear failed to revive Gurney.’ They had to lift him to his feet and carry him to a medical tent. The first question asked was will he be back next year to chase a tenth win. ‘Bugger that,’ was the response. Only in New Zealand!!

Add comment February 11th, 2003