The river coming from the lake is a feeder to the whole Clutha dam system. It doesn't generate it's own power but fills the dams below.
It was kind of hot and sticky. The river fast and blue.
When we came to the bridge where we would say our goodbyes I walked across it to take a photo so got separated from the group.
The next thing I know there's Geoff in his daks on a surfboard in the middle of the river - hanging ten.
The electricity company behind the dams has built two artificial waves for kayakers to play on but the local surfers are in for the ride too.
Apparently we'd missed the luau the night before. There were spotlights, beers and a hot tub. Surf was up.
We met a guy, a kayaker, who had done a ninety day trek along and over the Alps from Fiordland taking in many of the high points like Mounts Aspiring and Aorangi.
It put our trail adventure into perspective.
Perhaps Fabian (see yesterday's blog) should give that a go.
On we plodded while our "new" family made their way back to their tent.
One of the weirdest things about the new pathways sprouting up around the country is the dog shit.
Well, not the shit itself. The weird thing is the little blue bags that you find hanging from trees that contain the dog shit.
What is that about? In a country awash with bovine faeces we have become uptight about the occasional doggy-do in our urban wilderness areas. But uptight in a very dysfunctional way. It has become very fashionable to dangle fido or feefee's poo poos from branches in some sort of mistaken belief that we care. That we are tidy Kiwis.
Let it rot people! Or at least take it home and dangle it on your own bloody trees!
What do you think is going to happen to your bagged, tied and festering Labrador plopsies. Do you expect the poo fairy will come and take it away?
And blue. Why blue? Because blue is a fresh colour. A clean colour. How about bio-hazard orange.
Sorry. Just saying.
We stopped for lunch at Hawea's Sailz café and General Store.
Last stop for seven days. Great salmon pies. Great service. Great spot.
They are real TeA Nice Guys. We got to charge our phones and put out feet up. We met up with Andrew and Peter who have been in front or behind us since we started.
They are a couple of old school mates from San Francisco who are doing the whole country. They drank beer while we had a cuppa.
We swapped notes then headed off to the "campsite" for the night.
It was a bit like being The Flintstones. All the rocks on the beach were flat. We sat on chairs made of rocks. Ate from tables made of rocks. Made our tent with a veranda made of rocks.
They slept under pine trees at the start of tomorrow's track. We slept on the beach. It rained. There was lightening. There was an almost full moon over the lake.
It was good.