Te Araroa – Day 47

by

Bushcamp to Bushcamp

23.5 miles

Mile 1341.7

Around midnight I woke, needing to take a piss. While trying to fall back asleep I rubbed my eyes, inadvertently transferring whatever was on my finger straight onto my right eyeball. It felt like I had a boulder trapped under my eyelid. I spent the next 30 minutes rubbing, blinking and shooting water from my water bottle into my eye trying to remove the boulder to no avail. Finally, I left my tent to walk down to the creek, thinking maybe I could splash it out. No luck.

Every time I closed my eye I could feel something scraping and poking, it was horrible. If I’d had a mirror I’m sure I could had easily of removed the particle, but of course I didn’t have one. Finally I managed to fall back asleep with the rock still in my eye.

Oh, I also found this big ass spider in my tent…

When I woke a few hours later the pain in my eye had only grown worse. I packed up camp and continued down the river with blurred vision.

About an hour in the trail disappeared into the rocky river bed, which became the trail for most of the day.

Around noon I finally gave up trying to exercise the particle from my eye on my own. I asked a hiker I passed if she could see anything in my eye, and a moment later she was showing me the twig she’d plucked from my eyeball. The relief I felt once it had been removed was overwhelming.

Continuing on with my sight restored, I followed the river up towards Goats Pass.

There was no trail to speak of. It was a day of splashing through pools and crawling over boulders.

The going was slow, but wickedly fun.

At the top of the pass I found a well maintained trail leading down to the bottom.

I made camp a bit before dusk to give my damp gear a chance to dry out.

Cheers!

2 thoughts on “Te Araroa – Day 47”

  1. Austin,
    That was the scariest story yet!

    First the pants, then the shoes and then the bloody eyeball.
    Ouch!
    Even with a mirror you would have had a hard time extracting a twig from your eyeball.
    I admire your ability to travel on your own in the wilderness, but a companion hiker must a necessity at times like this.

    Good luck and get that eyeball looked at.

    John

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