Day 88: Just Another Day at the Office

January 6, 2020

Kilometers: 2077.8-2111.8

Hope Halfway Hut to Hurunui No. 3 Hut 

We started working right at 8 and got to our home for the night at 5 with a thirty minute break for lunch- it was just another day at the office. 

We slept in a bit later than we have been recently with the late night yesterday. Despite this we were walking at 8am with a long day ahead of us. 

We spent most of the day walking next to the river. We started along the Hope River, with the track on the bank at some points and in the forest alongside it sometimes. We made good time and arrived at the first hut 7kms away in about an hour and a half.

We got there at 9:30 and a few hikers who had spent the night there still hadn’t left yet. They were surprised to see me there so early. I was likewise surprised that they weren’t on the trail yet. When Peter and Charlie arrived we had a short break and then took off. 

The next section began over wide open fields. The wind blew extremely hard but luckily it was coming from behind us. The tailwind pushed us forward across the plain towards Kiwi Saddle.

Around the time we got to Kiwi Saddle, which was barely a high point, we started passing many TA hikers. I think a lot of them are just hiking the South Island so they don’t have the same hiker legs that the three of us have developed over the course of the last 2,000kms. They were impressed with the speed at which we were walking. 

We passed Lake Sumner but didn’t get as great views of it as I was hoping for. The track continued through on a forest track.

As the trail came out of the forest it led over a large piece of farmland. It began to mist but the wind made it cold, I had to stop and put on my rain cover and jacket. I then got to the junction that led to my personal stream but they had botched the spelling on the sign a bit. It’s “en” not “an” how many times do I have to say it? 

I arrived at the second to last hut of the day and had a snack while waiting for the others to catch up. After a short break we were back at it for the last ten kms. The last section was mostly through the river valley and the head wind was fighting us. We passed a hot pools that was as hot as a hot tub but the gazillion sandflies there and the “don’t immerse head or you’ll get fatal amoebic meningitis” had us keep on walking instead of getting in. 

I arrived at the hut right at 5 with the others not far behind. There was a young English woman there, Holly, who we have seen in the intentions book the last few weeks and finally caught up to. We all played rikiki.

For dinner I had an appetizer of a salami wrap and a breakfast bar. For my main course I had 400 grams of pesto pasta and for desert I had some chocolate. The less I have to carry for our big day tomorrow the better. After dinner an Indian hiker, who’ve run into a few times so far, joined us in the hut. 

Tomorrow we don’t exactly have a planned destination to get to, which is very unusual for us. We want to finish this section in the next two days and there aren’t huts placed where we need them to be to accomplish this so we will be tenting somewhere. Let’s keep on making miles.