Legs and Borders

Long push to town today through several different saddles. I left the hut in the early morning, Atsushi was also up but decided to give it few more hours before starting as it was too cold for him. Trail immediately shot up and that's how the rest of the day look like, 1-2k feet ascent and immediate descent, it felt like being on a rollercoaster. Weather was excellent, especially after yesterday's wind, rain and snow cocktail. It was warm and sunny with few clouds scattered around. I've reached Rose's Hut at 11am and had breakfast. As I was leaving I could see Scott from Australia heading towards the hut. After the Roses Saddle there was a river walk section which everyone was avoiding yesterday and walking the flood route alternate. I hated river alternates and gave the river a go, it was well worth it. Not only it was quite pretty, carved into a valley of solid stone, which was quite comfortable to walk on but it also saved me quite a bit of ti...

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...