Mission planning: fretting over Nelson Lakes route options, the need for a paddle partner and gear

Just the main preoccupations I am spending my time burdened with.

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time agonising over whether to head over Waiau Pass and paddle down the Waiau River to Hanmer Springs or double back to Lake Rotoroa and take the Buller to Murchison, then find a way to join up with the Upper Grey River. You know, standard issues most people my age have to deal with.

These are two route options that head in quite different directions. The Waiau-Hanmer option would plant me further south, to the east of the South Island’s main divide. From there, I’d pick up Te Araroa (TA - the walking track down the length of the country that I’m supposed to be avoiding and saving for my 50th birthday) and shuffle myself through to the central lakes of Coleridge, Takapō, Pukaki etc.

The Buller-Murchison option would take me west (west is best), but with a undetermined jaunt from Murchison to the Upper Grey. There’s a nice long State Highway between them, but nobody wants to walk tens of kilometres down that with a boat on their back. I clocked up a 28km State Highway walk when covering the North Island and can confirm that was quite enough. My shoes from that day concur. Several days bowling down a highway is an adventure of the wrong order.

Which do you think I should do?

Very rough sketches of two route options from Lake Rotoiti. Source: Open Maps, definitely not any of the dopey things Chat GPT created

To add to this decision-making indecisiveness, another source of anxiety has been whether or not I’ll find someone to actually accompany me on either of these river runs. If I’m solo, I’ll most likely have to take the TA, look longingly at the rivers as I hike next to them and savour crossing those cracking turquoise lakes once we get to the centre of the motu (island). When crossing the North Island, walking besides rivers, not paddling felt like I was failing. Do you know anyone who might be keen to packraft a river in the upper South Island next week? Please put them in touch.

Gear is also using a lot of brain cells in the run-up. Last year, before my 17-day dash to St Arnaud, I grabbed two Belkin power banks. Both compact, with 10000 mAh and USB C ins and outs, I thought these would be suitable enough for my needs. However, when I got into the field and plugged them in, my phone charged the power banks! Not the other way round, like, uh, a powerbank is meant to do. A quick bit of research revealed that not all USB Cs are born equal and this particular pair were missing some chip that did balabalabala. it did something. I desperately want to avoid a repeat, so heavy research to find a power bank combo for this mission is an energy drain.

After some tent research, I also invested in a brand new Durston X-Mid 2 Solid. It’s the ultralight, trekking-pole tent that many people walking Te Araroa rave about, including my mate Mathieu who walked the trail a few seasons back. He first told me about these tents and I eventually pulled out the plastic card to order one. One trip to Whatipū last weekend and I can safely say I’m impressed. The fly pops up quicker than you can say “cheap Decathlon pop-up tent” and then you hook up the inner: no more sopping wet inners if you’re pitching in the rain. I say that last bit like my first go with the tent was all super-easy and didn’t require me lots of time and mistakes to figure it all out - Lol.

Trekking pole in situ on the tent. All fine, until I need a pole for a 15-minute trek to get water

On top of all that, I’m also freaking out about whether to get a new headlamp, an inReach, a new phone, the need for a new water purifier cartridge, whether or not to fly with new power banks or Click & Collect them from Christchurch, plus which hat I should take (“Aotearoa” or “gold prospector”).

All of this fretting is the mirror opposite of why we go wild. Just get me out there already.

“My journey across the South Island with my little blue boat” restarts this Sunday.