Legs and Borders

"Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a post-graduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In The Pub Told Me." Terry Pratchett Penultimate day on Te Araroa, it was a long beach walk in the rain and wind but I managed to find a Paua shell in return! Morning looked quite grim, I could hear the rain drumming on the roof of the cabin. I set off as soon as it got quiet. I decided to walk the section to Riverton on the road, the tide was high and the beach shallow and stony. I've arrived in Riverton at 9am, had a good (but not hiker sized) breakfast at the Jacob's Bakehouse Cafe and did a small resupply at the Supervalue. It was a long sandy beach walk from here. Right at the start of it I picked up a Paua shell, it was quite surprising I even though they might be quite common here so I kept on looking but didn't manage to find another, even broken one. Looks...

"Writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves" Terry Pratchett Last TA special has been completed. Ten hours of walking through a relentless, knee+ deep mud. It took twenty minutes to wash my feet, socks and shoes in the stream at the end of it. Weather in the morning was miserable. It was raining all night and things inside my tent were getting damp. I begun walking in the thick fog with head torch on. Mud started immediately on the downhill here and it was straight to the main course. I had to bushwalk around the biggest puddles as the mud would go over my waist if I tried to tackle it. I tried to keep it at knee deep level and duck to the side when possible. Trail was going mainly through the forest but there was also few tussock sections and they could be deceptive. They looked shallow and innocent but were also quite deep. I tripped and landed on my knees twice going through them. Additionally I scored a butt and a face landing, sliding d...

Gas station was opening at 7am and I made sure I'm there exactly at that time to have a coffee before hitching back to trail. It wasn't easy to catch a ride though, people were still half asleep and the rising sun was hitting directly front windows of passing cars. I got joined by a couple from Christchurch going back to trail as well. They decided to wait on the side until I get out. After 45 minutes a car stopped and a bubbly lady jumped out of it asking where I wanted to go. I explained best I could and asked her if she would have enough space for two more people. I waved at the couple and shortly after we were on our way to the trail. It turned out that the lady worked for Simply New Zealand and I met her yesterday at the shop asking for Paua shells. She and her husband were going to do shopping in the other town as they Te Anau markets too expansive. Ride finished after 15 minutes and we started walking. I had a short conversatio...

Since I was running on schedule and the weather was supposed to be bad today I decided to take a day off. It was just a regular eat, sleep and walk around town kind of day. I decided to buy five days of resupply at the Fresh Choice for the next leg of TA, skip the upcoming town and go straight to Riverton. I went with cold soaked porridge for breakfast, peanut butter and nutella wraps (I stole the idea from Atsushi) premade and packed in separate ziplock bags for lunch and noodles with chicken and peas for dinner. Snack selection were nut bars, trailmix and Whittaker's chocolates. I threw few boiled eggs, dried apple slices and Oreos to the mix. I had a coffee at the gas station (they always have best and cheapest coffee), then had an amazing venison and plum sauce pie at the Miles Better Pies and bought new pair of undies as my old ones got too big (or I got too thin) and they were sliding off my arse as I wal...

Today I was mainly trying to run away from rain through an obstacle course of blow down trees. It was raining all night but my sturdy MSR tent took it really well and most of everything was dry in the morning. It stopped at 7am and despite the weather forecast announcing thunderstorms the sky was looking fairly clear. It was still 30 miles before I could get a hitchhike to town (or so I though at the time) so I was trying to get as far as I could to have a longer day off tomorrow. Initially trail was wet but easygoing, running along a four wheel drive. Eventually it went over a bridge to the other side of the lake and into the forest, here the issues begun. Despite the visible effort of Department of Conservation to keep it tidy, path was full of blow down trees and it looked more like a obstacle course from ninja warrior than a trail. After 5 kilometres of it I was done and took an alternate path running alongside the gravel road on the other side o...

"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 o...

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...