Legs and Borders

Big day, it actually felt like two and might lead to my zero day tomorrow. I decided to take the challenge of walking Tekapo Canal in one day, there were few reasons for that. It was supposed to be raining the day after, there was no official campsite between two towns (lots of good flat camp space though) and the water sources were scarce. I started hiking at ridiculous time, it was 3:30am when I set off with the head torch on. Hiking alongside the canal in the dark was fun. I switched off the torch and followed the white line of the asphalt road, sky was jam packed with stars. It was like walking on a giant treadmill spectating the universe. It was cold and humid, I had to wear all the layers to keep warm. After 4am I could see first glimpses of the sunrise and at 5:30am the light spectacle really kicked off. Trail was following the Alps2Ocean cycling path for the whole day so the grading was very generous for th...

"Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home" Fran Lebowitz I woke up in the morning just before the sunrise. The tent was completely frozen and so was the moss around it. I've put all of my layers on and started to pack up. To be fair, it wasn't that bad, it wasn't raining and wind was minimal, after 20 minutes I was on my way down from the Stag Saddle. I stayed off trail last night, so I had to find my way back to it. I followed a stream that was crossing it on my gps. The trail I chose to reconnect with was an old Te Araroa running through the valley, the new, more scenic one was higher up on the ridge but since I couldn't find it yesterday (no markers) I decided to gave up on it. Alternate was going through the tussock land, not many people was using it, the trail wasn't easy to spot but it was marked really well. I was walking from one marker to the other and it took about 3 hours to reach the Camp Strea...