Category: Day by day

Date: 14 March
Trail covered: 22.4km (kms 2419.6 to 2442.0)
Weather: cloud cover that lifted

Where did I leave off with the night walk… Oh yes, I was having a quick nap on the side of the road facing Lake Pukaki. I ended up lying there for about two and a half hours, from 2:30am until nearly 5am. I didn’t use the sleeping bag as I was worried about damaging it lying directly on the grass. But I was wearing all my clothes so I didn’t get too cold. Once I started to get cold before 5am, that’s when I started to walk again.

I checked Metservice for the day for the sunrise time, when I might get to see Mt. Cook, and apparently it’s at 7:30am today – good timing. I noticed that as well as the sunrise times listed, the moonrise and moonset times are also listed. How have I not ever noticed them before.

I continued walking down the road that runs beside Lake Pukaki (Hayman Road). I could smell the smell of Pine trees. They were everywhere. No wonder the upcoming campground is called The Pines. And remember that anyone camping anywhere along here has to have a self-contained vehicle. So this guy is being naughty naughty with his tent (but check out the view).

The trail went off-road after a while, following the Alps 2 Ocean bike path (no relation to Wayne’s shuttle service). I nearly missed the turn at that point and nearly continued down the road. It’s clearly signposted but because it was so dark I didn’t see it. By pure chance I happened to open Guthook just ten seconds or so before I needed the turn. So look out for it! If you end up walking on State Highway 8 then you’ve missed the turn.

Still taking my time, there was a geocache on the south side of Lake Pukaki which I took my time to find. It was very close to sunrise now and I thought I could see the outline of Mt. Cook in the background from the geocache spot. Also I looked on Google Maps and the upcoming town of Pukaki has nothing there – no coffee, no breakfast. So I had some food now too, consisting of everything I had left over that I bought yesterday evening. Of course I’ll have a big proper breakfast in Twizel, hopefully 3 hours from now.

Finally the sunrise. It looks amazing, again much better in real life than photos.

And Mt. Cook peeks through, but only just (on the left in the next photo).

It’s probably worth mentioning that Mt. Cook’s actual official name has been “Aoraki/Mt. Cook” since 1998 – backslash and everything – with Aoraki being the Maori name for the mountain. New Zealand has been doing that with some place names in the last decade or two, the other main one that springs to mind is “Stewart Island/Rakiura”.

The whole morning has been the nice dedicated Alps 2 Ocean cycleway. It runs from Mt. Cook to Oamaru I think – 300km. Or possibly Tekapo to Oamaru, although that might be the “alternate” course. There are some road sections though, like the one I walked down earlier.

Sometimes it gets close to the road, but you are still separated from the cars.

Now that the sun is well and truly up, I can see the view.

I walked past this thing. What in the world is it? And surely it’s not self-contained?

Walk along State Highway 8 to the visitor’s centre, and that’s when you turn left down the road.

It gets slightly less beautiful from here on, now that the lake is out of view.

There are a lot of pine trees again.

I swear this one in the middle is giving me the finger, with its outstretched arm.

I’m not really sure what came after here. The visibility was good at first, but it all turned to custard.

I didn’t see much on this section, although I did see two cyclists and a runner pass me at 9am, and the runner ran back past at 9:40am.

It was about 10km of this, until you come out suddenly to the driveway in the next photo leading onto the highway. About 800m from the driveway I heard loud cars so that’s how you can tell when you’re close. My feet were really starting to hurt now so I was glad to nearly be there. Not reminiscent of the pain I just recovered from a week ago, this was just painful feet I think from walking on the road all this time.

Here the trail does go down Highway 8 a bit. I was reminded of how far I’d just walked.

I don’t know what the other symbol next to the State Highway shield is though. Some kind of star-gazing route? This area is supposed to have some of the clearest skies anywhere.

Not far from here into the town.

I really had felt like an omelette for at least a couple of hours, probably since the sunrise. I wondered if Facebook will have the menus for the cafés of such a tiny town, so I can work out which would sell me an omelette. When I looked, I was pleasantly surprised that it does. And the best news is that Musters Hut Café is the first café you come to in the town and they had an omelette on the menu.

They were really nice and let me charge my phone. More places should let you charge devices. It meant I ended up staying there two hours and ordering more food.

I arrived at 10am-ish to the town. This is only second time ever I’ve finished walking before 11am, the other time being coming into St. Arnaud.

Here’s my 11am picture, still sitting at the café. It was a lot busier when I arrived.

Reception at the Twizel Holiday Park doesn’t open until 1pm so I used the time to do some stuff. Although first I was thinking. The town is really quiet. Is there really a rowing regatta this weekend? Google shows one in two weeks time – the Aon Maadi on 30 March, which is apparently really big. Nothing this weekend. I don’t see any guys or girls around that look like rowers.

I really don’t think there’s a regatta on this weekend. I wish I had’ve looked at other accommodation options in Twizel rather than just booking a tent site without looking first. I would have really loved a bed tonight given how tired I will be later.

I tried to buy a replacement knife for the lightweight one I left behind before Stag Saddle. Sadly, the shop here sells the same knife but only if you buy it together with the spork… and I still have that. I think I can probably go without the knife for now – it’s not essential.

One thing I did buy is a Lotto Powerball ticket. Earlier on in the trail I was discussing with someone, I can’t remember who, about being single. I said at the time that it would be funny if I happened to meet someone in some small out of the way hick town like Twizel. And then the day after I said that, somebody in Twizel won $17million on Powerball. After that I said I really hope I do meet this person when I get to Twizel. I haven’t met whoever it is yet, but there’s still time!

So I really wanted to buy a Powerball ticket from the same “lucky” place that sold the jackpot winner, and I did. Let’s see if it wins the jackpot for me tonight. The jackpot is only $7 million this time, but I’d cope with that amount I think.

I saw Chris in town. As expected he skipped the section I just did, and is skipping the section from here to Lake Ohau. I wonder if I’ll catch him again – seems unlikely since he has a tight deadline of 1 April for his flight. He told me I was mad for walking the last section. “A hiker, walking?” I thought. Pure madness! Look up mad in the dictionary and there’ll be a picture of me.

It occurred to me also that I haven’t seen Daniel since two days ago. I wonder if he did the night walk.

Okay it’s now time to go and set up my tent at the holiday park.

Interesting that the holiday park seems to be busy. I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean the regatta is actually on, I mean it’s a Saturday and it’s an absolutely stunning day. All the cloud and mist from this morning cleared by lunchtime.

Speaking of the weather, wow it’s hot this afternoon. I’m so glad I’m not walking in this heat. The night walk was nice, a tad too long possibly, but so much better than 54km of scorching hot sun.

This afternoon I wasn’t feeling sleepy, just a bit out of it. The nap during the night definitely was a good idea. Hopefully I sleep well tonight. There aren’t too many other tents around, although in the late afternoon a campervan pulled up right next to me and the occupants have set up a little table and chairs and have started smoking. Gutted.

I also fit a resupply in from Four Square for the next five days which should get me to round about Wanaka. Did you know this town of barely 1,200 people has two Four Squares? They’re almost across the road from each other. What’s up with that? Despite that, the one I went to (being the Mackenzie one, the closest one to the campground) was still busy.

And there was just enough time to have a beer and a bowl of fries with Christie who turned up along with her TA hiker friend Taia. One beer though made me so sleepy I had to return to the holiday park and go to sleep at 8pm.

And having just got into my sleeping bag now, I’ve noticed this stain on my sleeping mat. That wasn’t there yesterday I’m sure. Where on earth did that come from?

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 15 March
Trail covered: 29.2km (kms 2442.0 to 2471.2)
Weather: gloomy

My 11am picture is leaving the town of Twizel, less than 1km from where I slept.

Yes, that’s how long it took me to drag myself out of my tent this morning, get packed up and leave. I got nearly 11 hours of sleep after the night walk and I felt great in the morning. I was in no rush since I knew today was another almost completely flat trip of about 30km alongside rivers and canals and lakes.

I had breakfast with Kristy – not Christie as I’ve been spelling it. I’ll go back and correct it, I promise! She showed me some Facebook posts that Michael had posted. He said he loved the last few days from the Rangitata River to Tekapo. He also saw my blog and something I said made him think that I thought he was the snorer. No way, I never said that. I always knew Kristy was the snorer!

Kristy also said the rowing event today is not the big rowing regatta but some South Island thing. That’s not exactly what she said but since I hadn’t had my coffee by that point I can’t remember what the event was.

Kristy decided on having a rest day in Twizel today so I set off alone. It was a gloomy day to start with.

I didn’t win Powerball with my ticket that I bought yesterday. Somebody did though because I noticed the jackpot has gone back down to $4 million which is what it always gets reset to when somebody wins it.

The trail goes beside Lake Ruataniwha, and over a dam. Its quite high!

Then I knew that the trail went to the right, so I turned right straight after the dam. But that was wrong – it wasn’t long before I saw a dead end and turned back.

But I did get to see the salmon farm scarecrow. Hilarious.

You’re supposed to go a bit further down the highway before turning right – across one more bridge.

From the opposite side of the lake I could see rowing happening. Well actually I heard it first. People were yelling and screaming so I went to the shore to see what was going on. I could see the rowers but they were a bit far away to get a photo.

The path was a gravel road for almost the entire day, but it had a good view a lot of the time.

It’s been a while since I had to carry five days worth of food. It’s noticeably heavier but I will survive. I do wish that just for a few days I could try a different pack with more shoulder padding.

At the point above in the photo there’s a pathway down to the river to get water. I took it, and also used the time to have lunch. This was the first time I got water since two days ago when I was determining if 600ml was enough for the canal walk or not. Turns out it easily was.

There were not many people using this road. One car did come past as I was having lunch but came back the other way a minute or two later.

And not long after, Taia came past on her hired bike. She said she didn’t like the gravel road on a bike. She also noticed that we had the same pack. She’d just passed another person, who she said appeared to be jogging. We looked behind us and could see someone coming up behind us in the distance. I wondered who it was – everyone else I knew or talked to at the campground was taking a rest day today.

I saw one motorbike too, and further on when the path becomes the Alps 2 Ocean cycleway again, I saw a few cyclists. I got in the way when they came up behind me because I had my music on today. “Yoohoo!” I’d hear them yell behind me and I’d jump out of the way.

The hill above which was always in the distance is apparently called Ben Ohau if you believe the topographic map. The tiny village of Ohau is at the bottom of it, across the lake. That’s roughly where I’ll be staying tonight.

The walk today was almost entirely flat, the only hill of note was this one.

It was a shock going uphill after two and a half days of completely flat terrain!

There was one hut on the way, but it must have been private. It was locked, had no visible name and I was too short to see in the window.

Once you leave the river trail and start on the Ohau Lake trail, the views get really good again.

And I was across from the bottom of Ben Ohau so I knew I was almost there.

At the campground this morning I spilled something on my sleeping bag liner, and so I had to go rinse it. There wasn’t enough time in the morning to dry it because of the gloomy start to the day, and it went in my pack wet. Since the sun came out at about 4:30pm I decided to dry the liner while I was walking. I held my poles in the air and hung the liner from them. The wind was blowing quite hard so I knew it would dry fast. It looked like I was walking along flying a huge burgundy-coloured flag!

Lake Middleton was the most likely spot to camp tonight. Its a DOC campsite that costs $8 and is just before the village of Ohau (which I was told has absolutely nothing). An alternative was to camp at the start of the next part of the trail 6 or 7km on, but I didn’t feel like walking that far. So Lake Middleton it was.

It’s a nice spot here. There were no sandflies, the sun was out, it was out of the wind, and there was even a flush toilet!

Tomorrow I want to make it to the Ahuriri River. It seems to be one of the most dangerous rivers on the trail that requires crossing. So my plan is to get there tomorrow and see how it looks. If I can’t cross it safely tomorrow, I’ll camp nearby and try the next day. There hasn’t been much rain recently so hopefully I can cross it first time.

If I still can’t cross it safely the next day, there’s a 10km detour to get around it. The river is 28km away so that should be a perfect distance to walk tomorrow.

And I never saw the jogging guy again which I found strange. I guess I’ll never know who it was.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 16 March
Trail covered: 28.2km (kms 2471.2 to 2499.4)
Weather: hot but with sun often behind clouds

There was rain during the night. I woke up and thought it was mice trying to get into the tent so I moved my food. But then it got heavier and I realised it was rain. Silly me.

So I was surprised when I woke up at 8am and saw clear skies.

A duck seemed very interested in my stuff while I was packing up.

I couldn’t resist giving him a chip.

The terrain coming up between here and Wanaka is three quite significant hills/saddles. Hopefully I can do one each day. Today’s saddle seems to be unnamed, and goes from 531m elevation up to 1413m. Tomorrow’s is Martha’s Saddle, which goes from 693m up to 1687m, and has a geocache at the top of it which hasn’t been found for 8 years. I’m definitely looking for that one. The third hill is Breast Hill and goes from 601m up to 1569m. Anka said she really liked that last hill.

There aren’t as many huts coming up. The next one is Top Timaru Hut which is over Martha’s Saddle and is about 55km away so I’m definitely camping again tonight somewhere.

What is coming up today is the Ahuriri River – the largest unbridged river on the trail in the South Island. Quite a few hikers report problems crossing it so I’m a bit nervous. I want to make it past the river today if possible to get it out of my mind… Although if it’s not crossable then it’s a 10km detour to cross it by bridge. I’m not sure I’d have time today to do that detour so if I can’t cross it today I’d camp nearby and try again tomorrow. There hasn’t been much rain here recently so hopefully that helps but if it rains up in the Southern Alps then that feeds into the rivers so you just don’t know.

I was on the road again by 9:20am. The first thing I noticed was the zig zag road going up the hill.

It would be nice if the trail went up there, as it would be an easy walk, but I know it doesn’t.

I was too busy looking at the mountains to realise that you’re supposed to turn off onto a track to the right that runs between the road and the lake. No worries, I just cut across the grass.

The path was still shared with the Alps 2 Ocean cycle trail and there were a lot of cyclists this morning. All of them over 65 I think, I assume everyone else is at work. Everyone was friendly and said hi.

This sign marks where Te Araroa leaves the cycleway.

It was still a pleasant walk through the trees until the bushline. It was steep though.

My 11am picture is at a fallen tree. It’s been a long time since I had to make my way around one of these!

There were rocks to walk over…

And these rocks mark the end of the bushline.

From there its still relatively clear where to go, and the path is well formed.

I stopped and had some food. Since I didn’t replace my knife in Twizel, I decided I could use my Swiss army knife to cut my cheese.

I might as well get some use out of it, the only thing I’ve used the thing for is the scissor attachment when I need to cut some duct tape (and also I used it for my toenail if you read that bit).

Also since my water filter bag got a hole in it, I realised that even though I attempted to tape it up water still leaks everywhere while I’m filtering the water. And some of the water that escapes from the bag makes its way into the bottle I’m filtering into, which kind of defeats the purpose of filtering the water in the first place.

So I tried connecting the filter to my second water bottle, which worked. So now I have two water bottles, one “dirty” and one “clean”.

Actually filtering using that bottle though is problematic because the plastic bottle crunches up and becomes smaller because air can’t get back into it, unless I loosen the filter every now and again. It’s a bit annoying but it will have to do.

Most other saddles have a steep bit at the top where you suddenly see the view on the other side. This one however is steep for the whole way up but at the top it is not.

So when you get to the top, it’s flat this time.

But there is a view. It’s very similar to other featureless landscapes I’ve seen recently.

Going down this next bit is difficult, and not well marked.

There’s more of these evil things to avoid, and even finding the path is tricky. The trail notes even say “go down the hill by any practical route”. It’s rare for the notes to be that vague.

It levels out though and becomes easier.

I scared some goats who ran off. They were a long way away but I guess they got spooked.

Coming down wasn’t very pleasant. As well as a path that was difficult to find, there was all manner of obstacles.

And a swampy bit that seemed unavoidable.

At the bottom there were signs of civilization.

And then three guys who were rebuilding the fence.

Okay, now that I see the big canyon, I know that down there is the Ahuriri River.

The sign confirms it.

It didn’t look too dangerous today, but it’s hard to tell from a distance. I tried to cross immediately where the marker took me, after first putting on my rain jacket. I did that because my rain jacket has a pocket that is high up and my emergency beacon and phone can go on there. Everything else went inside my pack.

Crossing where the marker was started off easy, but after two thirds of the way across it got too deep and I had to retreat.

So I walked downstream to find something better. About 100 or 200m the river split into two and that seemed like a good spot to cross. I remembered from crossing the river just north of the Bealey Hotel that where the river split and turned was quite shallow and not too fast moving. That proved to be the case here too.

I found the shallowest and slowest bits of each of the two divisions and crossed without any problem. The river never went above my knees and wasn’t flowing fast enough to make the poles shudder. Here’s where I went:

I was very glad to be across the river. That meant I didn’t have to take an extra three hours walking downstream to the bridge that crosses the river as a detour. Although the next problem was how to get out of the river bed. I misread the trail map and I thought I had to go along the riverbed and then up the hill. When I did that, the hill seemed impenetrable.

I turned and looked behind me and realised I was supposed to go up the hill first, then along the top. That looks like it in the distance on the left.

Although actually the markers point up here. That looks steep.

Given that I’d walked almost 30km today and it was getting cold, I decided to simply set up my tent here (far enough away from the water) and I’ll worry about where to go in the morning.

It’s definitely not an ideal spot, it’s flat but very lumpy with the long grass. No worries, I’ve survived in this kind of camp spot before and I’ll survive tonight too… Even though the temperature is supposed to plummet tonight. It’s going to be very cold tonight, I can feel it in the air already.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 17 March
Trail covered: 34.2km (kms 2499.4 to 2533.6)
Weather: warm

Today I packed up my tent and had left by 8:30. It was quite cold when I left, although it wasn’t as cold overnight as I feared it would be.

Today I didn’t have a destination in mind. There’s Tin Hut after 11km, Top Timaru Hut after 22km and Stodys Hut after 37km. I was fairly sure I’d be camping somewhere between the last two of those huts, unless the walk over Martha Saddle today went slower than expected.

But I planned to try and find a geocache at the top of Martha Saddle. It hasn’t been found in 8 years, and it’s only been found twice since it was placed there in 2009. To me, that doesn’t bode well, it should have had more finds than that, especially since it’s on the trail. But I’m going to look for it anyway.

I started off listening to music and just daydreaming because it was completely flat. Lucky I saw this. I would have totally forgotten about the milestone otherwise!

Of course it warranted a selfie.

Here’s the flatness I was talking about.

This place is really bustling.

And a truck even went past.

The path eventually went through a farm. That meant the inevitable swampy mud.

And also streams to cross.

This is where I’m heading now. I got excited because I thought I saw people on the 4WD track in the distance… But if you look closely they were only cows.

A helicopter went past. I wonder what it’s doing way out here?

I can see that the 4WD track starts to go up into the mountains here. Is there any chance it goes anywhere near the top, I wonder?

Okay, those are definitely three people on the 4WD track. I wonder if I can catch them.

They got away though when I needed to stop for water, and then at 11am I made it to Tin Hut (imaginative name, right?) so I went in for a snack.

The intentions book is interesting. Henry is only two days ahead (assuming he stayed overnight here) and since he appears to be doing side trails also, I might catch him. That’d be awesome. Also Mickey and Michelle are two days ahead also. I reckon I’ll definitely catch them.

This hut is a private hut, owned by the people whose land it sits on. You have to pay $10 into an honesty box to stay overnight.

If you hadn’t noticed, the weather in all the previous pictures was quite gloomy. When I emerged from the hut after finishing lunch, I was surprised to see clear blue skies.

The path starts going up now. This is where it starts getting really steep, once it goes up and over the hill to tbe right.

Going up this section I started singing to a particularly catchy song and just as that happened two NOBOs came around the corner and I got busted singing. I didn’t mind though. They are the first NOBOs I’ve seen since before Tekapo.

And look, here are the three people that got away from me earlier, stopped for a break.

I only chatted with them briefly before continuing on. They’re three retired guys who are from Dunedin and are just walking the section between Ohau and Lake Hawea.

The walk up to Martha Saddle was indeed up the 4WD track the entire way. However that doesn’t mean it wasn’t steep.

I don’t think I’d be wanting to bring any 4WD vehicle up such a steep, rocky track.

The steepness left me out of breath and stopping quite a lot for a period of about 5km. But, like all good saddles, the top suddenly appeared…

What was the view on the other side going to be like?

Not bad! Now, to find the geocache. I looked and looked. The description gave no hint as to what I was looking for or where I should be looking, which was annoying. I turned over every rock within a large radius, which took a long time. But I never found the geocache, dammit. Oh well, time to continue on.

It was also a well marked 4WD track coming down the other side too.

I met a German girl going northbound who told me she had lost her Sawyer Mini water filter. How annoying for her. She asked if I’d keep a lookout for it, which I said I would, but then getting it to her would be near on impossible.

I knew Top Timaru Hut would be coming along soon, but I couldn’t see it. Suddenly I saw this though:

It was pointing down the hill to where the hut was. I probably would have found it after seeing the toilet which was on the trail, but you never know.

Top Timaru Hut is not named as such because Timaru is such an awesome city. It’s named after the Timaru River which runs right beside it.

I arrived at 3pm. Clothing was hanging outside (surrounded by Bumblebees) so I knew people were in there. Inside were Mark from Hokitika and Hank from Greymouth. They’re also retired and also just doing this section of the trail. They congratulated me on getting here in such good time and then asked me all sorts of questions about the trail. They said they’re giving themselves three days to get to Lake Hawea whereas I’m hoping to be there tomorrow.

They also said they crossed the Ahuriri River where the marker poles pointed to yesterday, and encountered the deeper water towards the end, but kept crossing. They said in hindsight they should have turned back and looked downstream for a better crossing point like I did. They seemed surprised it was only up to my knees.

Originally I was tempted to stay at this hut, but there were still 5 more hours of daylight and it was quite a small hut. Once the other three guys I passed arrived at the hut it would be crowded indeed. So I continued on.

The next section of trail was a totally different beast. It was following the Timaru River through a narrow gorge with steep sides. It would alternate between crossing the river:

To forest sections:

When I encountered this river crossing, the crocs went on.

The crocs went on and off throughout the day as I was determined not to have wet feet and boots at the end of the day.

This section of the trail was quite treacherous. It was steep – steeper than the track up to the saddle – and often on the side of a cliff. It was slow going and exhausting. It reminded me of sections in the North Island or through the forests in the Richmond Ranges.

But one thing I noticed was freshly cut sawdust.

It looked like some trail maintenance had been done recently. That made me feel better about walking the trail knowing that someone actually cares about it.

And then not much later I came across this:

At first I thought they were four TA walkers but then I saw the huge meal they were cooking and the big bucket of food, and the chainsaws. One of the guys said they were doing track maintenance. Aha, that explains the sawdust!

Before I continued on, they offered me a beer, which I declined. Right now I’m not entirely sure why.

There are some points where you could walk down the riverbed, but the trail points you up a massive climb instead. This is the silliest one:

You clamber up this massive rock only to come back down to the riverbed just around the corner.

I knew I wasn’t going to make it to Stodys Hut before dark because of this section, so I started looking for a place to camp at 7pm. There were quite a few nice spots by the river further back but by now I was on a steep section way above the river with no flat areas at all.

I started tripping over rocks and stuff. I was definitely getting sore and tired and was hoping for a flat piece of ground soon.

Sure enough eventually the track went back down by the river and I shoved my tent into a tiny piece of relatively flat ground right by the path.

It was 7:30pm and by the time I set up me tent and had a pasta dinner it was 8:30pm and dark. The days are definitely shorter now. Back before Goat Pass six weeks ago I was still walking at almost 9:30.

The hole in my water filter bag is bigger now and it’s made it essentially unusable. So I’ve done what I said I’d never do, I’ve started drinking water directly from the river without filtering it. I mean, I’d been following this river since the top of the saddle and it doesn’t flow through any farms. The guys in the hut and also the guys at the campsite told me that they never filtered it, and they were okay.

It was weird drinking straight from the river, but I also felt “at one with nature”. In saying that I wished I was able to filter it and I’m definitely going to have to see if I can get some kind of replacement in Wanaka. The last section of the trail passes through some big farms so I definitely want to filter the water, and drinking straight from the filter gives me quite severe hiccups.

Anyway, another day down, and tomorrow’s going to be another day of not knowing exactly how far I’m going to go. I’ll probably be camping again somewhere in Lake Hawea or Albert Town, which is the next place after that. My tent really has been getting a workout the last few days.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 18 March
Trail covered: 14.4km (kms 2533.6 to 2548.0)
Weather: fine all day

It’s not every day you can say that you slept in a tent which had a view like this from the door.

The river was really loud overnight being right by my tent, but it was actually nice and soothing. It didn’t affect my sleep.

I had packed up and left by 8:20. I stayed in my crocs because there were still a few more river crossings. Surprisingly, the Timaru River wasn’t ice cold like I expected it to be at that time of the morning.

Just around the first corner I saw a big tent. It was occupied by Dave from Cambridge, England.

He’d only just started having his breakfast and so we didn’t talk for long. He set up camp at 6:30pm last night so he didn’t pass my tent as I set up at 7:30pm.

At this point I proceeded to go up a steep hill on the true right of the river bank. It was really steep in my crocs and when I got to the top the path didn’t go anywhere. Damn, looks like I’ve taken a wrong turn. I had to slide down on my butt to get back down.

Then, just down the river a bit more, I saw a group of people who looked like they were about to set off. However, they were off the trail a bit.

I went down to talk to them. They were a group of six retired people all hiking this section of trail. One of them pointed out that my pants are ripped at the back. Grrr, I bet that just happened now coming down the hill after the wrong turn. That’s frustrating because I only just bought these pants when I restarted the trail a week and a half ago. At least I was wearing underwear today!

As I had to change into my shoes to go up the next steep hill, the group of six trampers got past. It was then hard to get back past them because the paths are really narrow.

Two in this group in particular were going really slow and looked quite unsteady. Apparently one of them is 71.

I was reminded again that the trail maintenance people had been through yesterday.

This is the turnoff up to Stodys Hut.

I had read that it is steep up to the hut from here. An estimate of 1.5-2hrs for 2.2km seems to confirm that. Alright, time to go!

Yes it is indeed steep. And it didn’t let up at all.

I was worried for the two slow trampers. If they struggled on a narrow ledge which was flat, how on earth will they be able to pull themselves up here? And then I told myself off for being quick to judge.

Being up so high though meant that the views started to show again.

It was hard going the entire way to the hut. It was the sort of thing where I took 20 or 30 steps and then stopped to catch my breath, and this went on for over an hour.

I knew that the hut was just past the treeline. So when I saw this, I was optimistic.

But no, you’ve got to go sideways a bit first, and then back into the trees.

Eventually I saw the hut peeking through the trees.

I don’t entirely know why, but the only photo I took of the outside of the hut was this one on a weird angle. But it’s the only one I have, so here it is.

At 11am I was inside the hut.

It was a dark and dingy hut, with a concrete floor which had a tarpaulin over top of it. The tiny little window hardly let in any sun and the hut was shaded in the trees anyway. I reckon instead of Stodys Hut it should have been called Scody Hut. I had my lunch outside the hut and up the hill where it was actually sunny and warm.

I noticed that the intentions book was completely full, but I managed to scrawl my name on a loose sheet of paper. It’s always annoying when the book is full because you don’t know who else is around.

Someone had written “steepest section since the Richmond Ranges” in the book. I’m inclined to agree.

I saw there was some quite brown newspaper plugging up gaps in the window.

I was really curious to know how old this newspaper was – would it be from the 1400s when this hut was probably built? No… When I took the paper out and read the edges it was just the Sunday Star Times from 2011. And since it was the sports section I didn’t even bother reading any of the news that happened that day.

The three fastest members of the group of six turned up at the hut about half an hour after me, after I’d had lunch and was preparing to go. We saw a helicopter in the distance.

But then it started getting really close, and landed right by us.

We thought maybe something had happened. Had one of the other hikers hurt themselves? Was there some big problem that would mean we’re all stuck here? Nope… turns out the guy was swapping out the full intentions book for a new one – that’s all.

I don’t know how much it costs to run a helicopter but I bet it’s a lot. I wonder how many minutes that helicopter could stay in the air with the $92 I gave DOC for my hut pass.

At least I got to be first to write in the new book, other than the DOC guy!

After that excitement I continued on. I could see the hut in the distance.

The mountains were in full view now. As well as seeing the mountains, I could see the path running up the hill in the left side of this picture.

It was many kilometers of again featureless landscape but with a great view. The only thing that happened along here was that I met up with a guy going north. He was so engrossed in his music that he almost walked right past me. But he said hello at the last second, and told me that he saw 5 people at the next hut, that it’s already quite full. That was a surprise to me, they can’t be TA hikers surely, they must be day hikers.

I’d decided earlier that I don’t really want to walk past the next hut tonight. The distance between here and Wanaka means that there’s no point in doing another long day today because it would just be a short day tomorrow. So I might as well have a shorter day today and a longer day tomorrow when the terrain is flat. But this conversation with the NOBO made me wonder if I’d get a bed in the next hut tonight.

At the point in the next photo there’s a decision to make, well for most people, not for purists like me.

The trail to the right (as you approach) and up the hill goes to the next hut via Breast Hill and is the official TA route. It’s a fair bit steeper than the other route which goes to the hut via an easier 4WD track but doesn’t have any kind of view. The alternate route is also the poor weather route. Of course I went up Breast Hill.

Of course then I thought like Beavis and Butthead would. Heh heh heh, you said breast. Hehehehehe. I felt very childish that the word breast was making me giggle.

Anyway, this path was also fairly steep. Nothing compared to the track up to Stodys Hut, but enough to leave me out of breath at times.

Hmm, is that there the “nipple” of the breast? Is that why it’s called Breast Hill?

Whatever the reason for the name, there sure was a stunning view of Lake Hawea at the top.

I spent a bit of time up here admiring the view and also admiring how quiet it was. There was no wind most of the time, so it was really still. But when the wind did blow it was cold. The temperature at the moment over the last few days has been nice. When you’re up quite high, even when there are no clouds and the sun is shining brightly, it’s not too hot.

There was also cellphone reception up here, and other than a heap more companies emailing me about Coronavirus (no, Intercity bus company, I don’t need you telling me to wash my hands), there were no urgent emails to deal with.

I’d been thinking that since the section between Wanaka and Queenstown is apparently quite strenuous (the Motatapu Track) and I’ve been doing quite a lot of reasonably challenging sections since I restarted the trail, I really ought to take a rest day in Wanaka, so while I was up on the hill I booked myself into a motel in Wanaka for two nights from tomorrow. Time for a bit of luxury I think, even though it was the cheapest room at the cheapest motel, it’s more luxurious than another holiday park or backpackers. It might be the last bit of luxury on the trail.

So now I have to walk the 35 or so kilometers into Wanaka tomorrow, but other than a big downhill from the hut to Lake Hawea, it will be completely flat. That’s okay, today is only going to be a 14km day and I’ll have an early start after a night in the hut.

I started walking down to the hut.

I saw two people walking very closely to the edge of a big rock. It looked dangerous to me!

As I walked past they came down and introduced themselves. They said they were doing a day walk to the top and I’d see them at the hut.

I knew that the walk tomorrow to Wanaka went past Lake Hawea and so I wondered how I would actually be getting down to the lake from way up here. When I reached the junction to the hut, it appeared I’d simply be going straight down the side of a steep hill. Can’t wait.

I made it to Pakituhi Hut. It looks quite new.

Turns out it is, it was built in 2011. Much nicer than Scody Hut.

Despite reports of five people already in the hut, there were the two beds reserved by the couple I ran into up the hill and that was it. I reserved my bed and then spent some time relaxing enjoying the time to myself. I knew the hut would get full later.

I spent some time looking at this sign.

First, I noticed that the descent to the road tomorrow is estimated at 2 to 3 hours for a 4km walk. That’s seriously slow – it must be one hell of a descent.

Second, there is a hut on the map called Moonlight & Roses Hut. That’s an awesome name, but it’s up high in the mountains and seemingly has no track to it. I wonder what it’s like and who stays there?  EDIT 1 April 2023 – three years later I went and found Moonlight & Roses Hut, as part of a four-day expedition hiking around this area.  Click here if you want to read about it!

The third thing I noticed is that Little Breast Hill is taller than Breast Hill. How odd.

While I was enjoying time alone, a Dutch couple turned up and reserved beds but then did the walk up to Breast Hill, and also Dave who I met this morning turned up but decided to keep walking to Hawea. Dave and I talked a bit first and he said when he started out he had a 34kg pack. I remembered back when I started hearing about a guy called Dave who had a 34kg pack. It was nice to finally meet him! He was infamous back in September!

Dave said he got lost walking up the big hill to Stodys Hut. He wasn’t paying attention and must’ve taken a wrong turn. He said it left him exhausted and sore – must’ve been one hell of a wrong turn.

The group of six took a while to turn up, but they did eventually. So there were 11 people in an 8 bed hut, but all of the group of six decided to sleep in tents outside the hut, or in one case on a mattress directly on the balcony. Apparently most of them are snorers and they don’t want to bother people. That’s really nice of them.

As you can see, 11 people in a small place is quite crowded so once I had my dinner and hot drink I went up to my bunk and wrote my blog entry. I don’t have any chocolate or anything sweet left in my food pack so I’m really looking forward to finding a café in Hawea in the morning. I hope to leave early but since I’m the only TA hiker here in this group, I have a feeling this group is going to be up late making a lot of noise.

They all ultimately were up till quite late, not being really loud but they were playing some kind of dice game and it smelled like they were making some kind of chocolate fondue which was excruciating because it smelled incredible. But I didn’t want to go and join them because the two exclusive subjects being discussed were translations of words in various European languages, and coronavirus.

I know I’ve been complaining a lot about the amount that people have been talking about coronavirus and I’m getting sick of it, however listening to these guys talk about it tonight was the first time I realised how much of an impact it has on foreigners here. They didn’t know if they would even be able to get back to their various countries and sounded quite worried. I felt bad for them.

Once the others were in bed I realised how annoying it is to be in a hut with couples. Not just couples, but young couples. Not just young couples, but new young couples. Every minute or so for half an hour I kept hearing “whisper whisper whisper whisper hehehehehehehe kiss kiss kiss” then they’d be silent for half a minute and then I’d hear “whisper whisper whisper whisper hehehehehehehe smoooooch”. Ick. I think the hut was finally quiet about 11:30pm and I could finally get some sleep.

Today is Day 150 over. On Day 100 I remember thinking that I hoped I wouldn’t be walking in another 50 days since then. Well, look what happened. I really hope I’m not still walking on Day 200! That would be May!

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 19 March
Trail covered: 35.3km (kms 2548.0 to 2583.3)
Weather: fine again

I had set my alarm for 6:45am so that I could get to Wanaka at a reasonable time today. At one point during the night I looked at my phone and it said 6:03am. Sweet, I thought, I’ve still got 40 minutes of sleep left. But I swear that once I rolled over the alarm went off for 6:45 instantly.

On the plus side, I was up before the sunrise. On the minus side, it was too cloudy to get much of a scene.

I tried to be as quiet as I could so that I didn’t bother the other two couples sleeping in the hut, despite the fact they kept me up so late last night. My breakfast consisted of the only food I had left in my pack – a wrap with marmite, cheese and a few chips. Now the last bit of food in my pack is a dehydrated meal I have left for “emergencies”.

I left at 7:15am, and I was just able to see where I was walking without the headlamp.

I was apprehensive about the 900m descent. I pictured it being the reverse of the climb up to Stodys Hut yesterday but it turned out to be much tamer than that.

There were like usual a ton of Wild Spaniards to avoid.

I saw Dave’s tent again. I guess he hadn’t made it to Hawea after all. This must have been by choice as he left the hut yesterday about 5pm and so would have had plenty of time to get to Hawea if he wanted to.

The tent was on quite a slope though. It looked uncomfortable. But since I heard absolutely no noise coming from the tent I decided to keep walking without trying to see if he was awake.

I saw these sheep, really close to the fenceline. I just knew they would all run away when I went near them, and I didn’t want to bother them, but there wasn’t any other way to get down.

Sure enough they did run off when I went near them. In fact all the sheep from all over the hill all formed several lines and made their way a long way from me.

Farm dogs must have it really easy. I just had to look at these sheep and they all made their way off into the distance.

The bottom one-third of the descent zig-zagged it’s way down the hill without any steep climbs over rocks or anything challenging.

My knees weren’t burning as much as I expected at the bottom. That was nice.

It took 1 hour and 30 minutes to get down to the road, less time than the 2-3 hours the sign yesterday estimated for the 4km journey.

I noticed on this sign that the road is called Dingle Burn Road, same as on the sign in the hut yesterday, but on all other maps it’s called Timaru Creek Road. Dingle Burn Road is a great name, it should be called that.

Just as I got to the bottom of the hill and stepped onto the road, a girl started to head up. We had a brief chat – definitely rather her than me.

There was a short walk along the road beside Lake Hawea:

And then a walk beside the “beach”:

I caught up with a guy from the UK while walking along the lakefront to Lake Hawea. Of course he wanted to talk about coronavirus. If I understood him correctly he is self-isolating by living in a tent nearby. Hmm, should I be getting too close to him? He did give me a Paleo Bar when I told him I was hungry and had run out of food, which was nice.

I took a slight detour off trail and arrived at what seemed to be the only shop in Lake Hawea. It was great to get a coffee and an omelette. I noticed there were three other hikers there. Surprise surprise the topic of conversation at their table was coronavirus, so I made no effort to talk to them.

I also got a coconut slice, a chocolate bar and a sparkling water. It was a lot of food but I didn’t mind.

While I was in the café I got in contact on the phone with an old workmate, Gareth, and he was available to have a drink later once I got to Wanaka. That was good news, but I’m going to have to buy a new pair of shorts. I can’t go into a bar and have a drink with ripped shorts with my underwear showing.

That means I have to do the 25km from Hawea to Wanaka in five hours so that I get there before the shops close – time to get a move on that means.

That 25km is made up of the Hawea River Track, the Clutha River Track and the riverside track around Lake Wanaka.

My 11am picture was not far down the Hawea River Track.

People were friendly along the river trail. At first there were a lot of Mums and prams and dogs. Closer to Wanaka there were many many cyclists. It must be a popular pasttime there.

Once in Albert Town, halfway between Hawea and Wanaka, there are two campgrounds – the first one you come to is $7 and the next one is $10. They both appear to be just a big car park beside the river. I walked through both of them but there wasn’t an obvious water source, and it was a hot day. So I took a slight detour into Albert Town centre – it seemed to have exactly two shops, a Four Square supermarket and a takeaways. From the takeaways I got an ice cream and I also got a huge jug of water.

The trail from Albert Town was along the Clutha River. It was an easy walk, and I saw Dave with his brother sitting on the riverside chatting. I briefly said hi and continued on.

Once I was going around Lake Wanaka it became very windy. The trees in the area had very obvious slants to them.

There were a lot of fancy houses along here.

This was the first view of the main part of Wanaka.

Lots of construction was going on along the waterfront.

It was a lot of walking today along the various river paths, and it was quite a hot day. My back was really hurting by the end of the day, I mean my back hurts every now and again, but it was really bad today. I was very glad to finally walk into the town.

I checked into the Bella Vista Motel that I booked from the top of Breast Hill yesterday. I had a nice big room, but for now I just put my stuff down and headed back out to the Red Cross Hospice Shop. The only shorts they had were size XL or 2XL, so I headed over to the Salvation Army shop. The only shorts that fit me there were a pair of turquoise swimming togs. But the good thing is I liked the colour, they had big deep pockets and weren’t too heavy. And they were only $5. Hopefully they last until the end of the trail. Since they’re a bright colour they’ll be hard to keep clean but I don’t mind.

While walking I noticed that Wanaka has a lot of food trucks on Brownston Street. They all look amazing, but for now the only thing I got were some little donuts to tide me over until I met Gareth for dinner and a drink. I’ll have to check one or two of them out tomorrow.

I did turn on the news to see what was going on, and while I am sick of hearing about coronavirus, the news that New Zealand is closing its borders tonight at 11:59pm to all but citizens and residents is quite amazing news. What a memorable time we’re living in right now.

I met up with Gareth and we talked about all sorts of things. We last worked together in the start of 2016 and he didn’t know I was walking Te Araroa so there was a lot to talk about.

After dinner I went back to the motel room via a Gelato place and caught up on blog entries. It was nice to have a real bed, and I’m happy I have a rest day tomorrow. Im definitely going to get a massage tomorrow because of how much my back was hurting today, and also I need to replace my water filter bag.

Before I went to sleep I decided to do a quick plan to see if I could finish by Easter, which is the 10th of April. Mainly because my flight back to the North Island might be expensive if I finish around Easter. This is exactly what I wrote down:

20th 2583 Wanaka
21st 2613 highland creek hut
22nd 2634 macetown
23rd 2668 frankton
24th 2689 greenstone hut
25th 2711 boundary hut
26th 2742 kiwi burn hut
27th 2777 lower princhester hut
28th 2793 aparima hut
29th 2814 Telford campsite
30th 2841 birchwood station
31st 2868 Merriview Hut
1st 2897 Martins Hutish
2nd 2926 colac bay tavern
3rd ?
4th invercargill
5th finish

Im not going to force myself to stick to this schedule or anything, it’s just nice to know that with an average of about 25km per day I should be able to finish around the 5th of April. I wrote “Martins Hutish” as I won’t be staying in Martins Hut because of all the stories of rats I’ve heard!

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Food!

More food!

Pineappple (sic) Lumps and Donut flavoured ice-cream!

Chocolate! (thanks Kathryn)

Massage!

New gear!

Enough said.

Date: 21 March
Trail covered: 30.6km (kms 2583.3 to 2613.9)
Weather: wet in the afternoon

I could’ve stayed in bed all day because the bed in the motel was really big and comfortable. But I did drag myself out of bed at 7:30 when the alarm went off. I had my rest day yesterday and today it’s time to keep walking.

Last night, when I looked at the forecast for today, there was a lot of rain.

Looking outside, it appeared it had been raining overnight, but the weather right now seems okay.

I went out and had bacon and eggs for breakfast at a nearby café and then went back to the motel room to get my stuff. I had left by 9am.

The first thing I did since I saw the Lotto shop open was buy a Lotto Strike ticket for tonight’s draw. That’s another Lotto game, like Powerball, but the prizes aren’t as big. However this is another “must be won” draw and the prize is $1million, so why not have a go.

I also called in at the bakery and bought a chicken and avocado roll, a Belgian slice and an apricot danish for lunch later. I probably shouldn’t have, since I already resupplied for at least three days from New World yesterday, but I couldn’t resist.

In town yesterday I saw Mickey and Michelle. They said that they aren’t leaving Wanaka until Monday – two days from today. So I know I won’t be walking with them and probably won’t see them again.

The weather stayed good for most of the morning, although there were a few spits of rain. I had accepted as soon as I left the motel that I will get wet today. That’s okay, most of the walk is an easy walk, and I understand there are no river crossings for a change. I put on my rain gear from the start today – including my rain pants that I don’t wear often. It’s a shame that when I arrived in Wanaka I bought these snazzy new shorts and now I don’t even get to wear them on the first day of hiking afterwards.

The first thing I was looking out for on the walk was “That Wanaka Tree”. It’s a fairly famous tree in NZ. People claim it is the most photographed tree in the world. It was coming up soon.

There it is.

It was in the news two days ago that somebody had attacked it with a saw and cut its lower limb off. It was quite sad to see.

It was a nice walk from Wanaka to Glendhu Bay. Largely flat, with just a few small hills. There were lots of people running and walking dogs. At one point, two women had a Rottweiler and when I walked past it started walking with me, for quite a distance. Uh oh, what do I do? I was walking quite fast – do I wait for the owners to catch up and get it? In the end I tried to reach out and pat it, but it got suspicious and ran off back to its owners. Phew.

At one point the walkway went around a point. It was at this spot that I realised there hasn’t been any rain, if anything, it seems to be clearing. I’m getting hot and sweaty too, so I removed the rain jacket. While I did that I realised how still it was. It was really nice.

My 11am picture is what appear to be big spikes in the path. Turned out to just be driftwood. There was a lot of that around here.

Up next is the Glendhu Bay campground.

The best thing about this place is it’s huge and almost every spot is close to the lake, although that photo doesn’t make it appear that way. One thing that was interesting was a “self-isolation only” notice on the door of the kitchen.

The trail goes through the campground and then out down a road, however the gate joining these two bits was locked and I had to climb over the gate.

When I got to the start of the Motatapu Track at 12:30 I’d already walked 17km and was feeling good. I had my bakery lunch here.

While I was doing that, a girl named Aiko walked past and said she was heading to Fern Burn Hut, the first hut. She said I’d catch her because she’s slow. A German couple passed me as well. They said their destination was Highland Creek Hut, the second hut, which is where I was hoping to get to today too.

I think it’s worth having a look at the elevation profile for the Motatapu Track between here and Arrowtown, near Queenstown.

The P at the start is where I was having lunch. There are four big hills and one medium hill in the next 45km. I’d like to make it to the second hut at the bottom of the far side of the the first hill, so I can at least get one hill (the biggest hill) out of the way today. The clear weather has helped.

The start of the track contained a small boardwalk over a small river. That’s always promising.

Initially I had to walk through private farmland.

Then, briefly through “The Stack Conservation Area” which was quite a nice forest. I passed the other three here who passed me while I was having lunch.

Through this area a hunter came the other way. On his shoulders he was holding the skinned head and antlers of a deer. Gross. Apparently the meat of the deer was in his backpack.

The all-to-familiar tussock started after leaving the forest.

And the muddy bits.

It was getting steeper and steeper as the afternoon went on, however I knew that the real steep bit was after Fern Burn Hut, which came into view after a while.

When I got to the hut, there was one woman there whose name was Maraid from Ireland. She had spent all day in the hut because she had seen the bad weather forecast for today, and she said she likes taking rest days in huts because it’s cheaper and usually has a nice view. Then within the next ten minutes the other three I passed earlier also turned up.

It was at this point the rain started. It wasn’t heavy, but I seriously thought about not continuing today because of it. I decided to give it an hour and then if it was still raining I’d stay here.

I waited for the hour but then I realised that within that hour there was barely even one chance to get a word into the conversation – this was a talkative group. I didn’t mind, I just wasn’t in the mood for a loud hut full of talking today. Plus it was such a muggy day I was already wet just from sweating. So I decided I would keep going even though the rain was still falling. Maybe it would be quieter at the next hut.

The people there seemed surprised that I was continuing on in the rain. The German couple had decided to stop here. I think people were worried I wouldn’t get there by dark, and I was slightly worried too since it was now 4pm and the notes say four hours for this section. It gets dark around 8:15.

Because it was raining and I was wearing my rain pants with no pockets, I didn’t take many photos between the two huts, although there were usually too many clouds to see much anyway.

It didn’t seem that steep going up this section, at least not as steep as I expected, but I found myself forever out of breath for some reason. Maybe it was all the food in the pack or maybe the rain didn’t help. I was very glad to get to the saddle.

As expected this time, there was no view at all.

Just a sign.

Now, time for the descent.

The descent was surprisingly easy. It was like the creators of this trail have designed it so that you should walk southbound. When you’re going up hills, there are kind of steps in the dirt to help you up, and when you’re going down hills, the trail is continuous with no breaks. It’s just what you want. Well, it’s just what I want.

In saying that, there were a couple of times that I looked behind me while going down and thought that I’m glad I don’t have to go back up there. And there was one other short but steep uphill to contend with as well, which doesn’t show in the elevation profile above because the waypoints are blocking it.

The sign at the beginning said you’re only allowed to camp on this trail in the vicinity of the huts, and nowhere else. And honestly everything is so hilly I doubt you even could set up a tent anywhere, except for maybe in the forest back at the start.

It didn’t take long before I arrived at Highland Creek Hut. It only took two hours to get to this hut from Fern Burn Hut, which was a surprise given the time in the notes was four hours. Maybe that’s why I was so out of breath, maybe I was expected to go a lot slower. The rain must have pushed me to go faster than normal.

The people already at this hut made the people at the last hut seem super quiet. This hut had three people who did not stop talking loudly from the second I arrived until the second we all went to sleep. At least they all knew each other so I wasn’t expected to join them and make conversation. They’re not TA hikers, they are just walking this section since a major 100km running race got cancelled, so I figured that meant they will probably be up talking until late I’m guessing, just like the last hut!

I also presume that they are new to staying out overnight. I had to show them how to use their little gas cooker, and they didn’t even bring something to light it with.

There was one other person in the hut, she was a TA hiker. But it was hard to talk to her because she had a very quiet voice and the other three were so loud, so I didn’t get her name. However she did make it clear she thinks the huts are too crowded and she loves having huts to herself, which for her has only happened twice on the TA. She says that having huts to yourself on the non-TA walks is standard.

It always feels good changing out of wet clothes and into dry clothes after a day of walking in the rain. The added bonus this time is that because it wasn’t raining too hard, I actually still enjoyed the walk.

I was told that Chris is at the next hut, Roses Hut. I’m surprised since he had a deadline of 1 April to catch a flight, although I guess a lot of European flights are being cancelled so maybe he’s not in a hurry anymore.

You might’ve seen from yesterday’s post that I bought a new bag to replace my water filter bag that broke. I tried it in the shop and it did have the same thread as the filter, however it isn’t watertight because trying to filter with it results in water all spraying everywhere, just like it did with the original bag with the hole in it. I wonder if I can buy a new, original Sawyer bag in Queenstown which is a bigger place than Wanaka. Otherwise I’m going to have to “wing it”, I guess.

The rain did stop, and even the clouds started clearing in the evening.

Because of how quickly I got to the second hut today, I’m feeling good about tomorrow. I plan to do the next three hills in one day. Three big ascents and descents suddenly don’t seem so daunting after today. And everyone was in bed and asleep by 8:45pm which was nice. And no whispering or kissy noises this time. Hooray.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 22 March
Trail covered: 23.6km (kms 2613.9 to 2637.5)
Weather: fine

I slept really well during the night in Highland Creek Hut. Right through until 8am, which was a surprise because while I was having breakfast the others said “did you hear all those people outside the hut at 1am? Did you see their lights shining through the hut?” and I honestly didn’t. Normally I’m a light sleeper but I slept right through these inconsiderate people who apparently were hanging around the hut in the middle of the night.

I had hung yesterday’s wet clothes on the clothes line outside overnight under shelter but of course they were still wet and cold. I’m hoping I can stop somewhere for lunch today in the sun and dry stuff out, but that always takes time.

The clouds had mostly cleared overnight and so a different view could be seen.

I didn’t waste any time having breakfast and was out the door by 8:25. I knew that there were three big hills and 20km between here and Macetown, where I hoped to get to today. Roses Hut is on the way after two big hills and 10km, and Arrowtown is 35km away which would normally be doable but not with all the steep hills in between.

The hills didn’t waste any time in becoming steep.

And that hill was just a taster of things to come. For 75% of the day I was hauling myself and my pack up and down these types of hills. It was definitely one of the more exhausting days anywhere on the South Island.

Looking down from near the top of the first hill, I saw what appeared to be a road and signs of civilization. After busting my gut to get up here, I kind of wish the path went along the road instead.

Today the descents were a welcome relief after the big hill climbs, even if they made my knees hurt a little.

The bottom of the first hill had me in the forest. At 11am I had just come out of the forest and was staring up hill 2.

As usual in this type of terrain, the three main creatures that you see are grasshoppers, little orange butterflies, and skinks. Finally I got to take a photo of one of these skinks. They’re everywhere, you see one every couple of minutes or so, but they always dart away when you get close.

At the top of hill 2 I set up my laundry and spent an hour having lunch.

Things got half dry. It was better than nothing.

Coming down hill 2 was interesting. It was straight down the ridge so that meant the whole time you could see Roses Hut, followed by the big track going up and over hill 3.

Coming down near the bottom of hill 2 there was a patch of muddy grass. I slipped right over on it at one point and got annoyed with myself. Then, two minutes later, I slipped over again. That’s some real slippery grass right there.

Near Roses Hut there was a field with some sheep. Of course all the sheep ran off when I got near.

Except this one. He was on this side of the gate, and did not care one iota about me.

I even reached out and gave him a pat. He didn’t even flinch.

I had another snack at Roses Hut but since there was nobody else there I didn’t stay long.

It was immediately up the next hill. For some reason, I got lots of bugs in my mouth on the way up this hill, it was weird. Also, the third hill looked less steep on the elevation profile than the others, but it wasn’t. Maybe i was hurting more by the third hill, or maybe hill 3 is mostly steep at the top.

This picture is looking back down hill 3, with hill 2 being the ridge in the centre. Although hill 2 doesn’t go all the way to the top of that ridge, it goes about halfway up. The peak on the right is apparently Knuckle Peak at 1800m up.

I’d read in the notes that as you start getting closer to Macetown you start to see relics from the gold-mining area. Looks like here are two of them – some kind of building on the right and a digger on the left.

Although neither of these things look like relics, they both look in good condition from here.

There’s a choice to make here. In low or normal river flow you can take the “low water route” where you walk down the Arrow River, or you can take the “high water route” any time.

The notes say that the low water route is faster if possible. I found that a bit hard to believe since I know going down the river is usually slow, but I decided to do it. The river didn’t look high and it was the afternoon so the water wasn’t too cold. If it had’ve been early in the morning I might not have done it.

I put my crocs on for the water section. It was actually quite pleasant walking in the river, the rocks were not slippery here.

After a while I realised I wouldn’t be in the actual water the whole way – sometimes I’d be beside the water.

And then the path even turned into a 4WD track, which always makes things easier.

There were times you could see orange markers to the left way up on the hill, which was the high water route. This way wasn’t marked, although it was as simple as following the river downstream.

After 4km of walking downstream I’d reached the end of the Motatapu Track.

There was some kind of vehicle in the distance. Another relic?

Nope… It was people panning for gold. I didn’t know people still did that.

I had a chat to them and continued on. I was now in Macetown and was excited to see what was here. Macetown apparently had 100 or 200 people living here in the late 1800s during the gold-moning area but they all left and now the place is uninhabited.

There wasn’t as much in Macetown as I expected. The map had the words “derelict huts” over and over again but I didn’t really see any.

There were only two buildings in the town. One was a cottage which I didn’t see because it was off-trail. The other was the restored bakehouse. There were also a bunch of mining batteries but these were an hour or so off trail.

I still had my crocs on through here. There were still more river crossings, and just lots of water in general. It must take a chunky 4WD to get down here.

Perhaps this is what they mean by derelict hut.

Looking up on the hill, I could see a path but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Maybe used during gold-mining?

Although a bit further on there was another similar path where it was possible to walk.

Okay, so that was Macetown. There was still another hour of daylight left and so I thought I’d continue on. Guthook had mentions of other good camping spots and also potentially a hut further up.

This is the start of the Big Hill Track, which goes up and over the Big Hill saddle. Not a very imaginative name, Big Hill, especially since it is smaller than the other four hills I’ve walked over today and yesterday.

The first part of the walk was through these plants I hadn’t seen before. They rattled when you pushed them.

Only a short distance up here I found the hut Guthook talked about.

It had no name, everything outside looked a bit smashed up and broken, and on the map it said “Mt Soho Homestead (derelict)” for this whole area. I was a bit apprehensive about going in.

Wow, it sure is quaint inside, but it’s not in as bad condition as I expected (although that deer head with no eyes is just creepy). There’s lots of mess around, lots of shrapnel everywhere. I wonder if mice have ripped up the foam mat or whether it was bored hikers. There’s definitely evidence of rodent activity here. A bit of a scary place to stay by myself but I decided to do it, as it saves putting the tent up.

I made sure to cook dinner outside in the hopes that it didn’t make the inside smell like food and therefore attract the rodents.

Having a proper look around, there are definitely rats here. The droppings I can see are far too big to be from mice.

Inside I got into my sleeping bag and started writing this blog entry. While I was doing that, I heard something constantly running across the roof. A mouse or a rat, perhaps? Although it’s a corrugated iron roof, I’m not sure how a mouse could run across it. Hopefully it’s a possum and it stays outside. But the chances of rats being here are close to 100%. Hopefully they don’t keep me awake and hopefully they don’t run across my face. And hopefully I don’t see them. Since I’m the only one here I went to sleep with the torch on my phone on, pointing up at my food bag hanging from the ceiling. Although for all I knew that would keep the rats awake.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 23 March
Trail covered: 30.3km (kms 2637.5 to 2667.8)
Weather: hot with a few spits of rain

I slept great in the derelict hut. I woke up while it was still dark at 6:30am because I needed the loo. I was annoyed about having to get out of bed earlier than sunrise but at least I’d get an early start.

I had my cereal by candlelight and then I was off.

The elevation profile showed me I was immediately off up “Big Hill”, or as I was calling it, “Unimaginative Name Hill”. It was only slightly less steep than the four other hills I’d walked over in the last three days, but compared to those it was uneven, overgrown, thorny and not well marked for the bottom half. At least the grass wasn’t too wet so I didn’t get wet boots.

The descent was a lot nicer. Quite a bit less steep and a more defined path. That must be because we were close to Arrowtown, no doubt.

It went through a forest section.

Like yesterday, it also went through a muddy bit with long grass and like yesterday, I slipped over in exactly the same manner.

Arriving in Arrowtown, I headed straight for the coffee cart.

The town itself had an unusual style. I thought it was neat.

I stopped in at the bakery for breakfast #2 – the building on the right in the photo above.

When I came into Arrowtown, my first task was to try and book a shuttle for tomorrow from Queenstown around Lake Wakatipu to the Greenstone carpark where the trail stops and restarts again. I called various numbers without success. Some would only take me if I did a tour, and some were in self-isolation due to Covid-19. Some the number just wouldn’t connect at all.

So I asked on the Te Araroa Facebook group for advice on how to get a shuttle around the lake. The reaction I got was surprising. What I ended up getting was almost everyone telling me that I should be going home and it’s unwise to continue the trail since the country was imminently going to go into lockdown over this virus. Of course they provided no evidence of this, so I dismissed it as scaremongering and typical Social Media nonsense.

One person even shared a Facebook post from Hone Harawira. For those who don’t know, he is a prominent activist in Northland and he is one of the most vile and racist human beings to grace this country. He used to be a politician but when people realised just how vile he is, he got voted out again. His post basically said if you’re not from Northland (tourists and Aucklanders were specifically mentioned) then piss off back to where you came from. I tell you what, any punishment I would get from punching that lowlife scum in the face would be entirely worth it.

Anyway, now that that’s out of my system, amongst all the ill sentiment on Facebook I did manage to get the number of Info & Track who were prepared to shuttle me around tomorrow for $120. Normally it is $60 per person but they need two people minimum before the shuttle runs. I was prepared to pay it given how hard it appeared to be to get anything.

While I was at it, I also booked a refundable ticket home from Invercargill for about two weeks’ time. If I end up taking longer than expected getting to the finish then I can refund the ticket but with all the strangeness going on right now I thought it would be good to have a confirmed reservation.

Because of the reaction I got on Facebook about the virus, I called my Mum to see if I was doing the right thing by going on. She essentially said “don’t you dare come home, you’ll regret it”. She thought the same as me – if I do have the virus and am not showing symptoms, I’m going to infect a lot less people being in the middle of nowhere for 14 days than I am being in Auckland, and I’m also a lot less likely to get it in the first place. Good, I’m glad we agreed on that.

With all that sorted, I continued on. The path out of Arrowtown went through quite a varied series of places. First, a park:

Then a golf course:

Then at 11am, a subdivision built around the golf course. Kind of like Gulf Harbour in Auckland, where I have family.

Then past Lake Hayes:

Then across Highway 6:

Then through a residential suburb:

Then alongside the Kawarau River:

Then on a bridge over the Shotover River:

Walking around here was interesting. People who I passed seemed mostly friendly and said hi but a lot seemed uncomfortable and kept their distance from me. I’m not sure if that is just the general sentiment of people who live in this kind of big tourist town or whether its just a reaction to Covid-19, but either way I noticed it.

I went past the wastewater treatment station:

And through this uninviting alleyway:

And then finally to PAK’nSAVE.

I thought to myself how this is going to be my last major resupply on the trail. I need to get 10 days worth of food here for the upcoming section. I went inside and starting going around the aisles doing my shopping.

That’s when a message came through from my friend Nick, which simply said:

“NZ going to lockdown in 48 hours”

Uh oh. Better check the news. Yes, New Zealand is moving to “level 4 alert” in 48 hours which is the highest alert in the Covid-19 alert system. I don’t know exactly what that means but I know it’s bad and I got scared. All cafés and bars would close and there would be severe restrictions on travel. It seemed very likely I’d get stuck in Invercargill once the trail was over with no way of getting home.

To make things worse, I had cut my finger on something without realising, and when I took my phone out of my pocket my hand was covered in blood and I got it all over the phone and the supermarket trolley. I was trying real hard not to touch my face in the supermarket (because that’s the advice in the wake of the virus) but with blood everywhere I had no choice.

After some quick decisions and chats with my family, I made the call to go home right there and then. The trail is now officially over for me for this season. It was a tough decision but the final 11% of the trail won’t be going anywhere. I can do it in two weeks some time in the future.

I abandoned the supermarket trolley with my half-completed shopping and left the supermarket. I went onto the Air New Zealand app and booked a flight home. There were none today or tomorrow, only flights departing after the 48 hour window, so I was nervous, but I booked the first available one anyway.

Then, as I was walking around the area trying to look for food and trying to decide what to do next, I kept constantly checking the flight status. A flight opened up for tomorrow, so I quickly changed to it. Excellent – now I have a confirmed flight within the 48 hour window.

I went to nearby Sal’s Pizza and got some food. There was a notice saying that anyone dining in has to fill in this form with your name address and email – a Ministry of Health requirement. That’s new, I thought.

While I was eating, a seat on a flight became available on the 4:55pm flight today – that’s in two hours time. I quickly changed to it. I thought to myself it is only by the sheer grace of God that while walking the entire South Island, this all happens when I am only 30 minutes walk from a major airport. How fortunate is that. Seriously.

I called up and cancelled my shuttle that I’d booked, and I also tried to cancel my flight from Invercargill to Auckland that I booked earlier this morning but the website wouldn’t let me do it, which is weird because I’ve never had any problems cancelling flights online before. It must be because of all the chaos going on at the moment. At least I have two weeks to sort that.

I walked over to the airport. I saw my first sign for Invercargill and realised that this is as close as I’m going to get to it this season.

At the airport it was clear that things weren’t normal. The first clue was that people were being asked what flight they were on and I presume, being turned away if they didn’t have one.

Then, I saw a lot of backpackers sitting around on the floor. Why, I wasn’t sure.

Then I saw the big queue of people looking to buy tickets.

I feel sorry for these people. An announcement came over the loudspeaker “we’re trying to get our executives’ approval to increase flight capacity but at the moment we can’t. Consider flights from Invercargill airport or Dunedin airport”. I felt so fortunate that I had a ticket. The announcement said there’s no capacity for a flight out of Queenstown for the next 3 days.

Before checking in I threw out my half-used gas canister and lighter like a good traveller, and checked in. I then went to get something sweet, and noticed they had a Patagonia Chocolates here too – just like in Wanaka!

I also had to write my name and address down when I bought stuff from here too.

When I went through security, they confiscated my Swiss army knife. I was unhappy about that. I wondered why it didn’t happen before and then I realised that before I lost my other knife a week or two ago, the Swiss army knife was always in my pack. Since I started using it for cutting cheese, it had moved to my little carry-on pack. And now it’s gone. Dammit.

Still, it’s not like I’ll be using it again any time soon. I sat near the gate and waited to board.

I was surprised on board that there were two empty seats in the same row across the aisle, and the seat right next to me was also empty. It didn’t appear to be “social distancing” – every other row was full. I was surprised to see empty seats when there were so many people queueing for tickets earlier.

Once on board, I can honestly say that was the scariest flight I’ve ever had in my life. It’s the first flight where I thought I was going to die. Nothing to do with the virus, it was the severe turbulence. I’ve never been thrown around in a plane so much. Not just up and down, but side to side as well. It went for the whole take-off and for 30 minutes after that. It felt like the plane was going to break apart. The landing wasn’t terribly smooth either. Boy was I glad to be back on solid ground.

After landing, between the turbulent flight and the ending of the trail, it required a large amount of strength not to cry. Although it was helped by the fact that this is actually the fifth time I’ve stopped walking the trail this season – two for injury, one for Christmas, one for a wedding, and now this. If I had’ve walked all the way to Queenstown from Cape Reinga without stopping and this happened, it would make it all a lot tougher. I think it’s hard now though because I know it’s over for the season now. I won’t be finishing Te Araroa this season.

Well thanks everyone for reading. It’s been a blast, but as I now attempt to settle back into the “new normal”, I hope you’ll all look forward to whenever it is that I complete the final 11% of the trail.

Goodbye for now.

EDIT 17 March 2021: One year later I did complete the rest of the trail! Make sure you click “Next” below to read the next few posts, or you can click here to jump ahead to Day 156!

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 27 February 2021
Trail covered: 7.8km (kms 2673.7 to 2681.5) plus at least that much again exploring Queenstown
Weather: fantastic

After waking up at 7am and milling around the house a bit, I thought to myself “oh wow this is actually happening now”. It’s all become real, and a little bit scary. When you’re on the trail full time you have the routine and it all becomes quite easy, but when you’ve been off it for a year, not so much.

Even within the first 10 minutes of being awake I had already encountered the concept that I have to pull apart my entire pack to find any one thing I might need, as I can’t remember for the life of me where I packed any particular thing. Hopefully while walking I’ll get back into my routine.

I took the bus to the airport, it passed the Jet Park facility where all New Zealand’s known positive cases of COVID-19 get transferred to to spend their time in quarantine. It reminded me how lucky I am to be able to live in a country where by and large we are free of the virus but also that we still need to be careful because it is still here and around us.

I arrived at the airport at 8:30am and it was surprisingly busy. I had it in my head it would be some kind of ghost town. I guess the International Terminal probably is.

The first thing I had to do while I was at the airport was take the 11am picture that I forgot to take on day 87 which has been the only day I have forgotten so far. Here it is!

That’s the exact spot where I was sitting on that day at 11am waiting for my flight and I dropped my credit card (one of two places on the trail where I dropped my credit card and nearly lost it – the other being Kerikeri). Let’s hope for no more accidents like that. The new shorts I’m wearing have zip up pockets… which hopefully will prevent that kind of thing from now on.

On the plane everyone was required to wear a mask, but despite that people seemed relaxed. It makes a change from the last flight I took, which was the flight back home from Queenstown this time last year on the day lockdown was announced where I didn’t want to touch absolutely anything and it was the scariest most turbulent flight of my entire life.

People on the flight today were generally well behaved, although at one point somebody got something out of the overhead locker in front of me and somebody’s walking crutches fell out and hit the person in front of me in the aisle seat. Coincidentally (or perhaps not coincidentally) this same person and the people he was travelling with were told off by the cabin crew multiple times during the flight for removing their masks.

I wish I picked a window seat instead of an aisle seat, and not just because I don’t want to get hit by falling debris from above. It didn’t even occur to me when checking in that I might want to see the view once the flight nears the South Island.

There was no drink service due to Covid-19 (despite the AirNZ app saying there would be), so the only thing to keep me occupied was my iPod, and the Air New Zealand quiz. Here’s the question that was at 11am:

I didn’t know the answer to that question, but I did know the answers to “what is the main ingredient of sambal” and “which 1993 movie’s main character had the first name Euphegenia”. Answers on a postcard please*.

Yum, now I’m hungry. I wonder if I can find sambal for dinner in Queenstown. I’ll probably skip Fergburger, the place in Queenstown that everyone in the world seems to have heard of and apparently has a queue each day out the door from the second it opens until the second it closes.

When I arrived at Queenstown Airport I didn’t recognise it at first without the huge security and police presence that was there last time, and the chaos from the looming lockdown. This time there were no panicked people… although there were lots of screaming kids. Also there were lots of hiking bags.

I went and re-packed my stuff in the check-in area. Everything fits in my bag with just my crocs hanging on the outside. That’s pretty good.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the stunning scenery of the South Island. Right from the minute you step outside, you are treated to great views.

As I stepped out of the airport I realised that the point where I’ve rejoined the trail is km2673.7 this year, whereas last year it was km2667.8. I guess the trail must have changed a bit this season – I have been given just under 6km for free! I guess I feel okay about that… but I might have to go for a walk around Queenstown once I get there to explore and make up for it. You would remember if you were reading last year about how strict I was about following the actual trail and not deviating from it unless there was no other option. I think last year the trail was roughly 3,006km and this year it is exactly 3,000km. So I have 326.3km to walk to reach Bluff.

Also as I left the boundary of the airport I saw this sign. I remembered this sign very specifically from last year as the first time I saw any sign pointing to Invercargill, and knowing this was as close as I would get to Invercargill was quite heartbreaking at the time.

Just being here brings all the memories of last year and the sudden lockdown flooding back.

Today there is no rush to get to Queenstown as the shuttle to Greenstone doesn’t leave until the morning. So that gives me a chance to look around and reminisce about last year, and to see if I’m comfortable with the weight of my bag. I could get some more snacks if I feel like my bag isn’t too heavy. That was part of the reason for buying my food in Auckland in case you were wondering – to test out the weight of my bag before heading into the wilderness. That and I’d rather spend my time in Queenstown sightseeing instead of shopping.

As I started walking today, my pack felt lighter than expected. I remember thinking the same thing after stopping for Christmas and restarting at the Richmond Ranges. I also feel like I must have forgotten something… I had that feeling back then too. At least I don’t feel like I’m struggling to carry it and I feel like it won’t be a problem.

I’m not sure if I’ll be doing any geocaching this time, I fell out of love with geocaching once covid-19 became a thing and touching things went out of fashion. There is something similar called Munzee which I started doing. You don’t find hidden boxes, instead you find QR codes and scan them with the Munzee app.

It’s not quite as satisfying as geocaching but it’s something I can do as I’m walking that doesn’t slow me down too much.

The path from the airport to Queenstown was the Frankton Path. It went alongside the lake for the whole time.

People were generally nice, a lot of people just ignored me like they would in Auckland, but one guy stopped and asked me all sorts of questions specifically about my walking poles. I think he was considering getting some for an upcoming hike.

After a short section through the Queenstown gardens…

There’s Queenstown!

The trail on this side of the lake ends at the “Queenstown Fallen Soldiers Memorial”.

From here it was a walk up quite a hill to get to Melbourne Lodge, where I stayed tonight.

But that meant there was a nice view from the deck.

It also meant I arrived very hot and sweaty. The weather was great today. I was going to have a rest but I ended up going straight back out for food and a look around as I was really hungry.

The queues around town were quite big and there were a lot of people around, and everything was quite loud. I can only imagine how busy this place used to be before we closed our borders to tourists.

I found my sambal!

And this… I had no idea when I asked for two scoops that I would get such a monstrosity.

In the evening… I went out again and got pizza. I saw from Instagram that a friend of mine was in Queenstown so I went and got dessert with him. We watched a drummer who was really good busking for money. Sadly I didn’t have any coins with me. I wish now I’d given him $5.

While I was out I debated buying some more food to take but ultimately decided not to, my pack was not too heavy today but that was in part due to walking with no water and I earlier bought 700g of cheese so I decided what I have is enough.

Before I left him, my friend mentioned he is due to go back to Auckland tomorrow. It was shortly after I left him and went back to Melbourne Lodge that my phone started buzzing with people saying that Jacinda Ardern is due to speak on the TV soon… and we all here know what that means.

Sure enough, lockdown was shortly after announced for tomorrow at 6am for a week, for Auckland only. Luckily I escaped in time, and I didn’t go anywhere near any of the “places of interest”, although I dont know what my friend is going to do – in theory Aucklanders are still allowed to travel home, but will there be any flights I wonder? This lockdown was apparently caused by people who were supposed to be self-isolating but weren’t, and instead decided to go to supermarkets and gyms.

We here in NZ are used to seeing Jacinda in this setting, in front of these flags speaking about Covid-19. I first saw it on the news when I was back in Wanaka and they closed the borders.

So the lockdown doesn’t affect me, at least right now anyway. And so that’s it for my first blog post back on the walk!

Previously on the blog I used to have a page that tracked my live location. I won’t enable that because I need to conserve battery and also I doubt there is much phone coverage between here and Colac Bay. For the same reason, you might not get another blog post for a while, possibly not until I reach Bluff. Don’t worry, I’ll still be writing them, I just can’t publish them right away! I even brought pen and paper just in case. Also, if you’re a new commenter and you leave a comment, I can’t approve it straight away either.

I wish I printed out the trail notes in case I do run out of battery. Instead I drew up this quick map just now of the last section, using the Guthook app for guidance. It makes sense to me! Now I won’t get lost should my battery go flat.

And I definitely made up that 6km walking around Queenstown getting lunch and dinner.

---

*Did anybody else watch the TV show Takeshi’s Castle back in the day? I loved that show and especially the narrator.

*The answers to the questions were Rupert Bear, chilli peppers and Mrs. Doubtfire.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 28 February 2021
Trail covered: 23.5km (kms 2681.5 to 2705.0)
Weather: mixed

I woke up at 7am today all set to head out to the wilderness. I left before reception at Melbourne Lodge was even open. Hope they don’t mind.

The shuttle was leaving at 8, but I had to get one last decent breakfast first. Unfortunately I hadn’t counted on the fact that nothing seemed to be open. The lights of Starbucks were big and bright though…

I got there at 7:20am and had to wait until they opened at 7:30am but they let me sit inside. They were setting up which included taping off every second table and chairs because of Alert Level 2.

After a large coffee and a chicken and cheese toastie I headed around the corner to Info & Track. I was happy to see a few people there. Maybe I would have company while walking.

I could see the gondola going up behind the building and it made me wish I had time to go up there while I was in Queenstown. I’ll have to come back another time and do the touristy things that are here.

Sadly though nobody else was going my way, they were all going to the more popular Routeburn track, which is a “Great Walk” and has to be booked. Looks like I’ll be walking alone! I talked to the girl inside the shop and she said she was dealing with a large number of cancellations from people from Auckland, which was to be expected I guess since Auckland went into lockdown last night.

There was actually a bakery right next to Info & Track so I snuck in there and picked up a Belgian Slice. I didn’t eat it right away, it went in my pack. But I guarantee it will be gone by the end of today.

The first part of the journey was completely silent. Nobody said anything, even the driver didn’t say anything once we were underway other than stop at a popular viewing spot, where I took this photo.

Looking at the map, I could see the valley I would be walking up on the other side of the lake.

I transferred to a different shuttle at Glenorchy. My driver for this section was Peter and he was much more talkative.

He told me all about the history of everywhere we went and what rivers come from where and go where. We had a little tour of Glenorchy first and we stopped in various places for lots of photos.

He asked if I had ever seen a murder-mystery series on TV called “One Lane Bridge”. Well apparently this bridge here that crosses the Dart River is the one the title refers to, and they were doing filming here last week. I must check it out.

We drove through a place called Kinloch which had a lot of people camping by the lake.

While we were driving I said I hoped I would meet others while I was walking. Peter said “well you’re alone in this van, what does that tell you”. Good point!

But shortly after that we saw a guy hitchhiking. Peter asked if it was okay to give him a lift and I said sure. He looked like a TA hiker and it turns out he was. His name was Shay and he’s from Essex in the UK but lives now in Mt. Maunganui.

I was happy that I’d have somebody to walk with. But as we were talking he said he is trying to get to Bluff in 6 days, by doing five 50k days and then a 100k day at the end. I didn’t believe him at first. But he says he is running parts of it. He said he did the Richmond Ranges from Hackett Hut to Red Hills Hut in 2 days. Incredible.

We passed a lot of tents but Peter didn’t know what they were for.

We were dropped off at the end of the road at the car park. There were quite a few cars there, which usually means that the path is well-formed and a bit touristy.

Ok it’s time to do some actual walking! I wanted to stick with Shay as long as I could. True to his word he was walking really fast. About as fast as Alex and Peter walked when I spent 30 days with them. It was hard to keep up with him. Remember of course I’ve just had almost a year off.

At one point we passed a group of people, and they stopped him and said they’d seen him running somewhere. He’s obviously quite recognisable. It felt a bit like when I used to get recognised because of this blog.

We talked about different things in between me gasping for breath. He has an Instagram (shayrunsnz2) and he is fundraising for assistance for refugees. When he lived in London he lived in Bethnal Green and I lived for a long time in Whitechapel, which is right next door. And he also has family from Aria in the Waikato, and so do I. That’s quite amazing because Aria has a population of somewhere between -1 and 6 people. Small world.

He wanted to do the whole TA in 100 days but he hurt his knee at one point and had to take 2 weeks off. I know that feeling.

He had also read Brad’s blog BikeHikeSafari and I told him I got the idea for my daily 11am picture from that blog. Here is today’s one…

I stuck with him for 6km but then I had to let him go as I didn’t want to run out of energy too soon but also I wasn’t taking in any of the scenery or anything and I wanted to do that. So I stopped for a snack and he promptly started running. What a legend.

The Belgian Slice was consumed here. That didn’t last long!

At this point I consulted the Guthook elevation profile. It looks different to how it used to look last year. I don’t like it now. And it works differently too, you used to be able to zoom in and out with one hand, and now you need two. Since one hand is holding my hiking poles, that’s quite a major annoyance.

However it does now tell you the total ascent and descent to the place you have selected. That’s useful. According to that map though, Greenstone Hut has 348m ascent and 300m descent between here and there. That sounds like a lot but the map doesn’t make it look like a lot.

Just as I finished my snack this group of schoolkids came up behind me and I talked to the teacher for a few minutes. It was the Wakatipu High School camp. They do hiking, kayaking and some other stuff, and it was their big group of tents earlier that I saw from the shuttle. One of the girls said she liked my crocs. She could see them hanging off the back of my pack.

I didn’t stick with them for long though, only 1km, as they took a side path. So from the 7k mark I was alone.

It was much easier to take in the scenery walking at my own pace.

At one point I saw some signs. I am still beating the times on the signs by 20% or so. That’s good!

I guess I’m not too out of shape then. But it’s quite humid and there’s no wind at all so I got very very sweaty. Well, no doubt its a combination of the humidity, my heavy pack and my lack of fitness.

I reached Greenstone Hut, the first hut of the day. It’s a big one, 20 bunks, and it has running water. It’s a serviced hut, which means it’s $15 a night to stay there. Lucky I’m just having lunch.

Nobody is here… it’s just me. Shay was the only person here before me today. He wrote that he’s going to Mavora Campsite which, if true, means he is doing a 51km day.

A few people stayed here yesterday. Mostly day trippers. The two most recent people who wrote TA SOBO (Te Araroa Southbound) are people called John and Nicola, who are a day ahead. The last ones who wrote that before yesterday were through four days ago. A few people have written TA NOBO, which surprised me. I wonder if they are just doing sections since it’s so late in the season for them to be going northbound.

I had some lunch. I really missed this simple meal of Marmite, cheese and pretzels on a wrap. I bet I won’t still be saying that by the time I reach Colac Bay.

This poster hints that there might be keas around. I still haven’t seen one anywhere! Other posters say that they’re commonly seen on the Routeburn Track. While I was having lunch I kept hearing and seeing things, and wondered if they might be keas. Well at least I thought I did… but nothing was ever there!

Time to push on to the next hut, called Taipo Hut. There are only 4 beds there, but from what I’m reading in the book here it’s unlikely there are going to be 4 other people there. So I’m not going to rush. In saying that though, last week according to the book there were a group of 33 kids from Fiordland High School in Te Anau staying here. That would have been loud!

Time to go. It got a bit steeper now. There were more roots to trip over and get poles stuck in. Ah, I remember all these very minor annoyances from last year.

Although I don’t ever remember such a lack of wind. Every time the slightest bit of wind comes through, it feels like ecstacy. On the plus side, I’m so sweaty from the lack of wind that at least if I run out of water, there will be enough water stored in my hair alone to survive for a while.

It was mostly trees at first but with the odd little clearing like this.

And it was at the first river crossing where I realised just how beat up and full of holes my hiking boots are. Any water or mud gets near those holes and my socks get wet.

And there was quite a bit of mud too. It was manageable, there always seemed to be conveniently placed bits of wood to help.

It was a little steeper than earlier but nothing taxing.

With 3km before the hut, the trail emerged from the trees and you walk across this kind of landscape.

I remember seeing these sorts of scenes in lots of the South Island sections and it brought back memories. And there was a little bit of wind too. Well I say a little bit – a tiny bit. Like a fly breathed on me.

I thought I might be able to see the hut in the distance early on but it was clearly hiding. I did see cows though, and at least one of them saw me.

The mud got worse as I got closer to the hut. I had to play the “jump between big pieces of tussock” game.

I didn’t see the roof of Taipo Hut until I was only 250m away from it.

It’s cute!

And has a great view.

And a turnstile VIP entrance.

Four beds…

Each of which are very wide!

There was no Covid-19 QR code on this hut though. I guess the virus can’t get way out here. At least I hope not.

I arrived at 5.15 which meant it took 3 hours from Greenstone Hut – better than the 4-5hr estimate on the signs. Nobody else was there. It meant I had time to just sit and admire the view and enjoy the peace and serenity which was nice after a night in Queenstown. I also got to write my blog entry and didn’t have to rush it.

And the sun was out, meaning my sweaty clothes could dry out. Hooray! The sun disappeared behind the hills quite early though so it got quite dark in the hut.

I noticed the tan line I’m already getting on my feet.

I feel aching in my shoulders and back though. I can’t wait for my pack to get lighter as I progress and eat the large amount of food I have. My eyes are also sore. I don’t know if that’s from the sun or from the sweat constantly pouring into my eyes from my forehead.

Nobody else showed up. This is my first night alone in a “proper” hut. The only other times I slept alone in a hut were the ramshackle Camerons Hut and the derelict Mt. Soho hut.

The only mention of mice at this hut was a Guthook comment from 3 years ago… but I’m still going to hang my food up on the hooks. Can’t hurt can it!

I finished the day with a nice round number of steps.

And I was surprised at how ridiculous my hair looks.

Just before the sun went fully down, the rain started. I didn’t expect that… I hope all the rain happens now while I’m sleeping.

Today was a nice first day back walking properly. A good distance and a good reintroduction to trail life. And nothing hurts… not too much anyway. If I was still “trail-fit”, I might have pushed on to the next hut 2 or 3 hours away, but today I’m glad I didn’t. And not just because I would’ve got rained on.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 1 March 2021
Trail covered: 43.7km (kms 2705.0 to 2748.7)
Weather: on and off rain

I learned during the night that noises outside the hut are a bit scarier when you’re in a hut by yourself. I think that the noises were mostly the roof expanding and contracting but also possoms or something were walking on the roof… well at least I assume that’s what it was!

It was warm too. I wasn’t even in the sleeping bag when I first went to sleep, only in the silk liner. But I woke up at some point in the middle of night shivering and so I crawled into the sleeping bag eventually.

It’s also harder to get out of bed in the morning when you’re alone. There’s no motivation to get out of bed and every reason to stay curled up in the sleeping bag. But as what usually happens, I needed the loo so that forced me to get up.

It had been raining most of the night and it was still raining when I left. I put on my rain jacket and pack cover. I thought about waiting until the rain eased before setting out, but I didn’t… I mean I can see blue sky from the hut so surely it can’t last long.

I wasn’t sure of my destination today. There are quite a lot of huts close together and then there’s the Mavora Lakes Campsite so there are a few options.

Firstly it was over this bridge. My boots are old and have lost their grip which makes it quite challenging to get up and down these types of swingbridges.

Then I got lost straight away. The red line was clearly wrong, so I looked for the markers. I couldn’t see any so I set off on the obvious track. It soon became clear that that was wrong also as it went up the river instead of down the valley.

I found the right way eventually, thanks to some hard to find makers. It was through this spike patch. The rule of the TA is often look for the dirtiest, narrowest, muddiest, steepest or spikiest path and that one is usually it.

There was only the smallest bit of rain in the morning and then it stopped, so the rain jacket came off after 600 metres.

It was quite muddy for most of the way to Boundary Hut, but at least it was mostly flat. That meant I got a lot less sweaty than yesterday.

This fence was interesting. I had to go under it. Why no stile?

It even got a mention on Guthook.

Why do we have to walk on this hill, I wondered. Why not down there by the river. I guess it must be real muddy down there.

I saw one person after about 8km. First person I’d seen in nearly 24 hours. We only exchanged a quick hi, but I did notice he had no hiking poles.

I figured it would be rude not to stop at this seat I found, especially since the sun was now coming out.

At 11am it got flatter and easier. I guessed that the next bit might be going up those hills on the right, and I was correct, but it was a light 4WD track and so it was easy going.

Shortly after this point I could really feel the sun on the back of my legs. They haven’t seen a lot of sun, especially like they used to last year when I was walking in the sun every day.

Close to Boundary Hut I encountered my first stile since I restarted. Also a sign about how this is Maori (Ngai Tahu) land but when they were given the land from the crown, it included the condition that the public can use the marked access ways.

There’s Boundary Hut… But to get to it you have to go all the way around the river to where the bridge is.

These evil things made a return on this section!

And look how long tussock is. It was really hard to find the path in this bit. Just remembering the general direction of the bridge and hoping for the best seemed like the most appropriate tactic.

Boundary Hut looks like Taipo Hut, but older and crappier inside.

At the hut Shay went through and wrote in the hut’s “intentions book” that he crossed the river to save a few meters. He also wrote “running out of day, going to careys hut”. The book was full of toilet overflowing comments as well. I won’t be using that one today. And the mystery guy I passed earlier didn’t write in the book.

I had made good process so far and so I wondered if I could make Kiwi Burn Hut which is past the campsite, but it’s 31km from here and I’ve already done 12km. It might be possible if it is a 4WD track all the way but I don’t think it is.

However it is 4WD track straight away from leaving Boundary Hut and I knew this went for a while.

It started going uphill.

Someone in a 4WD vehicle stopped and talked to me. It was just general chat but he did say that rain is coming later in the week.

After only an hour coming down this hill I saw the North Mavora Lake and Careys hut.

I only stopped to check and write in the intentions book here. Shay and John (who I saw written in the book at Greenstone Hut) stayed here, and Nicola who was originally with John kept going.

The path now follows the lake. I know the Mavora Lakes Campground is at the end of the lake.

Can you see reflection of the mountains in the lake? The water is so clear.

The track goes in and out of forest…

And beside the lake.

Here’s the campsite. It’s a really big place but ultimately it’s just a lot of flat ground and a few toilets. It’s a beautiful spot beside the lake though.

The campsite had a QR Covid Tracer code too, but after Greenstone Hut none of the other huts did.

I had a quick snack here, and thought about whether I could make Kiwi Burn Hut. To get there at a reasonable time I’d have to do 17.5km in 5 hours, and I’m feeling very tired. But would love to stay in a hut tonight.

And it makes logistics for the upcoming sections easier – there are some big gaps between huts and accommodation soon. Based on the intentions books, I bet John will be at the hut, if I don’t see him camping somewhere.

I set off towards the hut, but after 1km I got a slight twinge in my left leg which almost made me turn back. I didn’t turn back, because it only hurt very briefly and there are apparently other camping spots on the upcoming trail where I could camp out if I had to stop walking.

It was a pretty easy trail from here, which helped with getting to Kiwi Burn Hut by dark.

This is the South Mavora Lake. Not quite as majestic as the North.

I kept looking at my watch. If I could consistently do 4km/hr I would arrive at 8pm when it would be still light. But that means the path must be consistently this good. Is that possible? Who knows!

That means a 45km day. I probably shouldn’t even be doing that kind of day for my second day. But I just can’t help myself.

The path was usually good but there were a fair few fallen trees. One in particular was really hard to find my way around, but pink ribbons tied in trees nearby showed the way.

It started raining on this bit of the trail too, but I didn’t get too wet because I was under tree cover.

This sign says there’s a big river crossing tomorrow ahead.

It says that if you think the river won’t be passable, you should cross it here by using the swingbridge. I wonder why it just isn’t “the way” – although Kiwi Burn Hut is between here and the river crossing.

So tomorrow if it turns out the river crossing is not possible, then I have to backtrack to here, which will be annoying. We will wait and see. It has been raining a bit all afternoon but not much more than a drizzle.

Finally, I feel like I’m getting somewhere – the first sign pointing to the hut!

Every 1km my GPS watch beeped and it was a great feeling. But 45km never seemed to come. I was getting very sore by now. And when making my way around this small group of fallen trees, I cut my leg on a rock and drew blood. That didn’t help my mood. God how I couldn’t wait to reach the hut.

The hut is off trail about a kilometer and a half. You go outside the trees and the grass gets long and hard to follow. And again I swear I should be able to see the hut by now, but I can’t!

Finally… There’s the hut. It was a sight for sore eyes. I know I used that saying a lot last year so I’ll try not to overuse it from now on.

Outside the hut I saw one set of poles and boots. Yep, like I figured, John must be here. Although when I got up to the door there was a girl inside. I asked if she was Nicola and she said she was. She asked if I was Matt and I said I was! She knew who I was from my blog.

She had left Greenstone Saturday morning (one day before me) and so I had the dubious honour of telling her that Auckland locked down Saturday night and her parents might not be able to come down from Auckland and meet her at Bluff, which she said they were hoping to do.

She packed the same number of days food as I did and so she has a heavy bag too. She also said she didn’t know where John had gone.

She said she spent a lot of time today sitting by the lake contemplating stuff, and she decided to take her time instead of push on any further. I was a bit jealous. I definitely got no time to do contemplating today.

It was nice to have someone to hang out with bit since I arrived so late, by the time I had dinner it was dark. But our plan is to leave together in the morning and cross the river together.

There are two bedrooms in this hut. Always nice to know that if I snore it probably won’t wake her up.

Doing a long day made me realise that Shay should be able to run 50km each day. If I can walk almost that distance then he should be able to, he’s still a teenager and he’s much more fit than I am.

Everything hurts. Literally everything. Lying down is so good. But I have to be careful, the bunks here are old rickety metal bunks and they’re so wobbly. I feel like the one I’m on is going to fall down if I move too much.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 2 March 2021
Trail covered: 34.5km (kms 2748.7 to 2783.2)
Weather: sunny

I woke up this morning and the full moon was out.

We had to put wet socks and shoes on, but we knew a river crossing was coming up very soon so it wasn’t so bad. We were going to get wet no matter what.

Nicola and I set off together back the way we came in yesterday.

Here’s a scary sign for a scary river. And apparently it is 11 and a half hours to our next destination. I hope, like usual, it doesn’t take as long as it says on the sign!

Shortly after we reached the river and it was not that scary. 3/10 on the scariness rating scale. And surprisingly for 8.30am it was not cold.

The path started off easy at first. It was quite well defined for the first 3 km. It was down the left hand side of the river (the “true left”).

Nicola said “I might be speaking too soon but this is a nice path”. It turns out she was speaking too soon. The next 13km were over fences, through spiky plants, and other times there was no obvious path at all so you just had to follow the river as best you could.

We took the river itself at one point for a short time. It was just easier.

A lot of the time was following a fence line. On one side was fields of these purple root vegetables.

Sometimes they made their way onto our side. But I didn’t eat any of them.

If the fence line disappeared, sometimes we had a path to follow, but often we had to make our own path.

We saw two really big and really woolly sheep.

They followed us downstream, as sheep often do. We thought they looked abandoned, as they had so much wool.

There was a tiny bit of reception on the way down. I managed to get the weather forecast. Looks bad for next week.

At 11am picture we stopped for lunch by the river.

Soon after, we could see a path that went up a hill so we followed it… But we shouldn’t have.

We saw this interesting structure – its whole purpose seemed to be to carry the electric fence wire far off into the distance.

As the path went on, it got less defined. Often you would try one way, and it would be too muddy, or there’d be a big hole, or too many spiky things so you’d have to retreat. Other times you’d be going the right way but the grass was so long it made for very slow going.

This bit was the hardest to find our way through. When the river got close to the fence line, this sort of thing often happened.

Once you go up here, you reach the road. About time too, we were both feeling a bit over this section. It took us 6 hours to do this 17km section.

We had a snack by this sign.

There’s a creek shortly before here. I filled up my water bottles from it, and despite filtering it first, the water tasted like grass.

Onto part two of the day – the road walk. 10km down this first road. It is Mavora Lakes Road, and is the road people use if they’re driving to the Mavora Lakes I passed by yesterday. We saw a few cars. There weren’t many though, so we both had our headphones on listening to music. That really helped the mood on this section.

Some geese flying in formation was probably the most interesting thing to happen on this section.

We then turned fight onto State Highway 94. If you’ve been reading the blog from the start you’ll know that I keep mentioning that the highway numbers increase as you go south down the country. Now I’m up to the “9” highways, it really feels like the walk is almost over.

While walking along Highway 94, some people try and hitchhike from here into the nearby town of Te Anau for supplies. I didn’t do that, I’m carrying all my food for this section because I thought hitchhiking would be too much trouble. But now that I’m here I’m changing my mind. Since we’re very near the next hut, I could have hitched to Te Anau, got more food, stayed there the night and got back here in the morning without missing much time. Oh well, I made my decision. Although I did want to hitch now into Te Anau just to get a milkshake.

The last Road is Princhester Road.

This road goes down the middle of a farm, and so you walk through animals.

Boy there was lots of road walking today. 19km in total. More than I thought, and I’m more sore than I thought I would be as well.

At the end of the road is something poking through trees. Can you see it?

How about now?

It’s Lower Princhester Hut! What a sight for sore eyes!

One girl was at the hut already. Her name is Lisa. She has a friend that works at Mt Linton Station which is only a couple of days walk from here so she is trying to get there as soon as possible so she can ride horses with her friend. Lucky.

This sign outside the hut hints that the upcoming days are long. Hopefully they have overestimated the time significantly, as 4 days to go right through here seems like a lot.

There was a tiny bit of reception briefly so I looked at the weather again.

Looks like it doesn’t get real bad for a week. That’s not too bad. But it does make me feel like I should do a couple more big days while the weather is good… but I don’t think my legs could take it.

We didn’t do much as usual except have dinner and chat for a bit. Although at one point I was determined to swat a loud fly hanging around us. I got it first try, but then I thought I saw it fall into my bag of food, so I had to empty all my food bag out to get the dead fly out. And then I discovered it landed on the windowsill.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 3 March 2021
Trail covered: 16.2km (kms 2783.2 to 2799.4)
Weather: warm

After two big days I forced myself to leave later so that I wasn’t tempted to have another big day. It definitely wasn’t any kind of hardship. The other two left early and so it was very nice to chill out a bit in the hut.

I took a little bit of time to read the Reader’s Digest from 1987 that was on the table. It featured an article about Bill Cosby, and also another article about the benefits of writing a daily diary (although unsurprisingly blogs weren’t mentioned).

I also read back through the hut’s Intentions Book from a year ago. There were some familiar names in there. I saw Alex, Peter, Charlie, Kay, Agneta, Rowan, Mark, Jolanda, Eirik, Robert, Nick, Florian, Ben and Antoine. I didn’t see Rhydian’s name, but maybe I just didn’t look hard enough.

There was a big gap in the book between 27 March (three days after the national lockdown last year) and 14 May.

I tried to do something with the three blisters that have developed on my right foot. Two days ago I tried plasters and yesterday I tried duct tape. Nothing sticks – there’s just no product out there that holds to skin when you have wet feet.

I left at 9am, about an hour after the others. The map showed an immediate 350m elevation from the hut, which isn’t a lot compared to previous sections of the trail but it’s my first real hill since restarting. For the next couple of days I’m walking through the Takitimu Forest.

The forest reminds me of walking up Pirongia mountain – although possibly slightly steeper at first. And my feet started the day off dry. The plants in the forest were all dry as there wasn’t any rain overnight. It was really nice.

But since I was going uphill, I would sweat a bit and at the slightest bit of sweat, like always, my sunglasses fog up. I wonder if one day, somebody will invent lenses for glasses that don’t fog up. I feel like that person will make a billion dollars overnight.

But one thing I did encounter on this track which I haven’t encountered on the trail before is these little black things that stick to your leg hair as you brush past them. They feel like very tiny but very real razor blades. It might be worth shaving your leg hair before walking this section!

The path was well formed all the time, although there were some parts that were a little challenging.

I met up with Nicola at the saddle. We had a snack here and chatted about stuff. We hoped there would be a nice view but there were too many trees so we couldn’t see much.

Nicola talked about how she spent 6 days in Blue Lake Hut, because there was too much snow to cross the Waiau Pass. On the fourth day she tried to cross but too much snow meant she had to turn back. She said she was going nuts after spending that long in one hut. I can’t imagine spending that long in a hut… although I did spend the week in the small cabin in the Methven campground.

The red Guthook line was really far away from the path through this part of the forest. When the app said we had gone 2.5km my GPS watch said we had gone 5km. That’s quite a big difference and it made it a lot harder to know how far I was away from things… Although I realised later that my watch lost the GPS signal through here for some reason, and when that happens it tries to guess your distance based on your step count. When we are hiking we take small steps so that will be why the watch hugely over-estimated the distance.

We left just before 11am. My 11am picture is Nicola coming down the other side of the hill. It looks like there’s no obvious path down through the plants but it was easy to see when you’re there.

Despite some mud every now and again…

It was nice walking through the forest.

After a while walking through the forest, we came out into tussock. Alternating between forest and tussock was to be our day for the rest of the day.

At first it didn’t seem bad. The markers were prominent and the tussock was only waist height.

And occasionally the trail went back into the forest where it was always well formed and easy to follow.

But as the day went on the tussock got higher and the ground got swampier. It was always easy to find the markers but sometimes reaching them was another thing altogether.

Towards the end you simply couldn’t avoid the mud and it was often stinky. This section was particularly nasty.

This rock formation was cool though.

And I moaned about going over this hill, which really on the grand scheme of things was tiny.

Nicola and I stuck together for most of the day but she had to stop and tend to blisters at one point and so I left her as the sandflies started biting. Fortunately my blisters aren’t giving me any troubles today.

Progress got harder and slower as the day went on. It got to the point where the tussock was as high as my shoulders and you couldn’t see the ground, which meant I stepped in mud and holes because I couldn’t see them easily.

I was getting really frustrated with the slow progress. Each kilometer started taking 30 minutes, and the 5-6 hours suggested by the trail notes for this section came and went. I kept thinking to myself that I hope I don’t have to do this again tomorrow. I think I’d lose the will to live.

I had a look at the map and tomorrow the topographical map does seem to put us in the forest all day. I hope that’s true.

2km before the hut the train joins up with a more “touristy” path and so the going becomes a lot easier.

I walked along the top of this slip and then further up the hill.

And past a dilapidated trig point.

The path looked similar for the last bit but there was no mud and no pushing through high tussock so I was fine with it.

Got down the hill to find Aparima Hut. What a sight for sore eyes!

It took us just over 7 hours to walk the 20km. That’s slow going. Today was supposed to be an “easy day” and tomorrow was supposed to be harder. And it’s especially annoying when the trail notes say 5-6 hours, it never feels good to take longer than the trail notes say!

There appear to be two huts. An old one and a new one. The old one had just a few bunks and nothing else.

There is lots of stuff outside the hut. Uh oh… is there some kind of big party here? No, it’s all stuff labelled with Department of Conservation. Nobody was around when I arrived but a few sleeping bags have been claimed in both huts.

Had a decent chance to rest. Nothing was hurting this time, but it had been a frustrating day. It was an hour or so before Nicola and the DOC staff joined me.

According to the hut book, the DOC staff are giving out food. I can see their boxes of food are still mostly full. I wonder if we will get lucky!

There turned out to be four DOC staff who were doing maintenance on nearby tracks. It was good to talk to some new people and they shared their saveloys with us. I don’t eat a lot of meat usually but saveloys tasted great after a long day. They made nachos for dinner and they looked and smelled fantastic but Nicola and I didn’t partake in those, sadly!

They said that each night they make an expensive satellite phone call back to head office to report on their progress. One of the guys made the phone call, and we overheard the conversation. It revolved entirely around saveloys and sport. Nothing about the weather forecast, or the work they had to do, or anything like that!

The six of us talked about all sorts of things. They get helicoptered in along with all their giant bins of food and supplies. They also apparently don’t know any card games.

They said they didn’t experience any mouse problems last night so that was nice to hear… although as I was trying to fall asleep I kept hearing a strange noise coming from an animal of some kind. But hopefully if there is a mouse in here it prefers all the big bins of DOC food to my small bag of food.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.