Day 105 - adventure playground

Mingha - Deception track

20km hitch  + 24km walk + 6km hitch

Annie had called late last night to say that she and Grant were going to do the next section through Goat Pass as a day hike. They’d leave their stuff in Arthur’s Pass and slack pack carrying just lunch for the day. We’d planned to do it over two days with normal packs but if we could combine it into one and not carry our gear - amazing, we were in.

We had technically come off trail by hitching to Arthur’s Pass, so to re-join, we needed to hitch back to where we’d got picked up from yesterday. We got a ride within 20 minutes and all four of us squeezed into the car - lucky we didn’t have our packs else there’s no way we’d have fit. We were walking over Morrisons Footbridge to the Deception River half an hour later.

We were layered up again as we started the walk over the river bed, the rocks a bright orange before returning to their characteristic icy grey as we headed up stream.

We knew we were going to be in and out of the water all day today and the first couple of rivers were going to be the deepest. If we could get through those, we’d be golden for the rest.

Apart from their temperature, we were fine! We willed the sun to present itself from behind the mountains so we could start to warm up.

As soon as it did, we became embodiments of the trail. We were goats. Our weightless packs giving us the freedom to move much more fluidly than normal.

We were in our element on a giant adventure playground; leaping and bounding over the water, finding the biggest boulders to jump from and splashing about in the water.

There was no specific route up the valley, as long as we followed the water, we’d get to the top.

We passed by Upper Deception hut and rested up outside for a lunch we were absolutely ravenous for.

As the day went on, the sun blasting down made the water something we aimed for rather than avoided. It was fun plus it was often easier to wade through the pools rather than find a way to rock hop.

As we neared Goat hut the trail narrowed. We climbed directly up a waterfall for the last km or so.

We were at the hut by 3pm marvelling at the incredible views from the deck.

We half kicked ourselves for not planning to stay here, but then remembered we’d be staying in a warm bed with a hot shower tonight and soon congratulating ourselves (and Annie & Grant) for making the decision to slack pack.

The trail from the hut across Goat Pass was like floating on air compared to the climbing we’d done all day. Boardwalk glorious boardwalk.

It felt so good to just be walking, we were practically running in places it was so easy.

The boardwalk took us down to the Mingha river and we followed this for the next couple of hours, scrambling alongside the river and climbing down as we followed the water’s path.

We were on a race with the light now, we had to hitch back to Arthur’s Pass once we reached the end of the trail and we really didn’t want to be doing that in the dark.

Finally, as the sun dipped behind the mountains, we reached the mouth of the river and we walked back out to the highway.

We had hitched a ride by 6.30pm and were at our accommodation at The Sanctuary 15 minutes later.

If every day left on the trail was as wonderful as today, I don’t think I could ever go back to normal life.