Day 131 – South Mavora Lake to Te Anau – 3/4

I set up my camera to record a time lapse overnight, hoping the clouds would clear off. I woke up a little while later to the sound of rain on my tent, so I got up, got my camera and brought it into the tent. After that I didn’t really get back to sleep. I had set an alarm for 4:00 in the morning to take star pictures, so I didn’t sleep well, however I did get some nice pictures, although I did have to wait for some clouds to clear.

At 6:00 I woke Jayden up and we got packed up. Since we camped earlier than we planned the day before, we had a lot of ground to cover to get to the road where we could hitch to Te Anau.

We walked the rest of the way around South Mavora lake and then along the Mavora River until we got to the second swing bridge where we meant to camp the day before.

From that point we read and were told the track was very slow and hard to follow so we decided to take everyone’s advice and cross the bridge to follow the gravel road on the other side of the river.

After walking a couple km on the road a truck came along and I stuck out my thumb. The two fisherman gave me a lift to a junction just 3 km before the highway (they were headed to another fishing spot down another road). Jayden decided to walk the whole way instead of taking the lift.

When I got signal I got a message from Holger from a couple days earlier, from after Queenstown saying he only made it to Kinloch that first day, so he was probably a full day behind.

I walked to the highway and hitched to Te Anau, I waited an hour before getting a ride, but in that time I was able to book a room at the holiday park. The only thing available was a room with three beds, but it wasn’t too much and after not sleeping I really wanted to sleep in a bed instead of camping, so I booked it.

After a shower I get a message from Holger asking how things were going and where I was. “I just got to Te Anau. where are you?”. I didn’t have signal anywhere along the last stretch until I was close to the highway, so I couldn’t imagine where he might be. “I’m in Te Anau too” he replied. “Well as luck would have it, we have an extra bed if you’re interested!”. It turns out he hitched from the campsite on lake Mavora so he could catch up for my birthday!

Jayden made it a little later and they went out for dinner and a couple drinks. I was exhausted and went to bed early instead. I slept like a rock.