Te Araroa (day 67) - Arrowstone Holiday Park to Greenstone / mile 1685

"I used the same bucket to piss in for the last four years and I swear it got heavier from the toxins" Johnny

Today I made my way around Lake Whakatipu Bypass, it took three rides and three hours of walking but I got to the other side in the end.

I've started later than I wanted to, it was freezing cold in the morning and my phone did not recharge fully overnight. Finally I left with 75% battery hoping that it will last me until the next town.

It was an easygoing track between two cities, what could go wrong? Except that I've taken the wrong turn, decided to get back to the trail over the hill which had a cliff drop on the other side so I had to make my way back by bushwalking through a farmland. It was an interesting start to the day.

From here I walked to Frankton which had (the first!) PacN'Save in the South Island along the TA. I resupplied here for the next four days. Scott from Australia joined me while I was sorting it out. He resupplied for seven days as he wanted to skip the next town, it was a lot of food.

Before leaving Frankton I went for a coffee and a cheeseburger at the Maccas, going with my new policy of eating healthier (I also bought a jar of peanut butter rather than another Bavarian salami). It was few hours of roadwalking until I reached Queenstown where I immediately queued in for the hitchhike to Glenorchy. Got a ride after 20 minutes with Johnny, the nightporter at one of the lodges there. He was going back home after picking up his car from a mechanic, he couldnt find the keys to his gas inlet so he warned me that we might not have enough fuel to reach our destination.

We talked mostly about.. toilets. Human wastage, how there's too many of us on the planet and how we basically eating it up. Johnny was living in a campervan, partially off-grid. He dropped me at Glenorchy after 40 minutes. I went to Mrs Woolly's General Store, bought a veggie pizza and a latte and queued up for the hitch towards Kinloch. No more than 10 minutes later I saw smiling face of Johnny again! He took me yet another 15 miles forward, even though he was living just outside Glenorchy. This time we talked about his dislike for alcohol, organised religion and diary products. Johnny you are an absolute legend, thank you!

All I got left to do now is to walk for few hours towards Kinloch and potentially stay there for the night, it was getting late. I managed to luck one last hitch with a Dutch family going back to the campsite! They drove me all the way to Kinloch. Now I was only 12 kilometres away from the parking lot at the end of the bypass where I could pitch the tent. It took 2.5 hours of walking, I arrived at my destination at 8pm and managed to get the tent up before it started to rain.

All in all a lucky and diverse day, it's good to know that I have yet another of TA's obstacle pieces behind me. Only 200 miles of the trail remain to go.