Te Araroa (day 68) - Greenstone to Manova Lakes Campsite / mile 1713

"I couldn't find a campsite so I ended up bush bashing around this lake until 10pm with my headlight on until I found a flat meadow I could camp on. And that's how I've spend my 71st birthday" Mark

Long day with wet feet.

Trail from the parking to the Greenstone Hut was pristine, I must have met over twenty people that were sleeping in the hut last night walking back to their cars. One of them was Quadzilla, calendar year triple crowner. I knew he was doing the TA and was hoping to see him along the way. He and few other PCT hikers were heading North. It turned out that I've met the girl Quadzilla was hiking with on the PCT two years ago, we were both part of a trail magic around Hiker Town. Her trail name was Marvel. Later on her friends told me that she actually changed her legal name to it. That was some serious, American style commitment right there.

After the Greenstone Hut trail quality went drastically down for the next 10 miles. Trail was overgrown with some blow downs and going through a muddy area. It was wet feet club for the rest of the day. At the Taipo Hut I've met two more Southbounders, an Indian and an American. We were going back and forth for few hours until the next hut.

I was planning to stop at the Carey's Hut, the last hut for us along this section, I've got there at 6pm. There was one other hiker inside, Mark from United States. Mark had a lot to tell me about himself and his last few months on the South Island. So much so in fact, that after 45 minutes of his constant monologue I've gathered that I won't be able to take it for much longer and decided to carry on walking. To his defence Mark was clearly very passionate about hiking and perhaps with couple more people around willing to listen to his stories it would be different but at this point I just wanted to have a quiet evening.

Going further was a little bit risky as the forecast was predicting rain tonight and thunderstorms tomorrow morning but I could always wait it out at one of the sheltered areas on the Doc campground. Rain finally caught up with me an hour later and I decided to pitch the tent in a sheltered from the wind area close to the 4wd road. 

From here to Te Anau, the next town I could resupply in, was mostly easy going gravel road. I was hoping to get there in two days time before midday and have a Nero at the backpackers but it all depended on the weather.