Legs and Borders

Short day but very satisfying. I woke up, it was raining. Heavily. I decided to stay in the tent until it gets better. It did around 8am I ate an apple an the cold soaked porridge, wrapped the camp up and hiked out. The tent stakes broke (again) as I was folding them up but I decided to address it later. It didn't take long before rain came back. Road was going around the lake and through a massive Glendhu Bay Lakeside Holiday Park, I asked at the reception here if they could borrow me few tools to fix the tent and they did! I got some industrial lubricant and a wrench and managed to screw the parts back together - the thread was gone so I wouldnt be able to do it manually. Trail soon hit the dirt road and before I knew it I was climbing Motatapu Track in the dense forest. Eventually it came out onto a tussock plain and went along the ridges to Fern Burn Hut. Here I met Too Clean a triple crowner from US and Thomas from Germany, they were zeroing in the hut due to the w...

A town day but also not really a town day. It all started with descending from an impressive ridge. Breast Hill in the morning looked quite mediocre, I'm not gonna lie. But as very often is the case it's not the first impression that matters but what is underneath.. Or on the other side. And what was on the other side of Breast Hill was simply breathtaking, I would count it as one of my personal top 5 views on the entire Te Araroa. The descent from the ridge overlooking Lake Hawea was an absolute, steep delight. Trail was going down over 4000 feet or 1 km, but the weather and timing was perfect for this kind endeavour. Once I got to the bottom, rest of the day was.. roadwalking from town to town. First I visited Lake Havea village where I bought some delicious food I was craving for the last couple of days. I carried on along the Lake Hawea Track towards Albert Town where I met two lovely old ladies Anne and Norma. They were on a ...