I’ve been feeling psychologically fatigued, and very much looking forward to the end of the trail. The weather looked nice in the morning, but the forecast said the rain would be back in the afternoon. I thought about skipping the hike today and instead hitching into town, grabbing lunch and a few supplies then hitching back to the next hut to keep with Jaden. Holger was thinking of getting off trail all together and going to Riverton. The next couple days go through the Longwood Forest, which is known for being a muddy slog and and the rain will only makes it worse and it has the Martin hut which is known to be rat infested, we have been hearing horror stories about it from NOBOs since we’ve been seeing NOBOs, they all say avoid it at all costs, but there are limited alternatives. Also the guide recommends high vis vests for the Longwood forest in March because of all the hunting, and I don’t have one. 😬
I decided to join Holger and skip the Longwood forest. I feel a little bad about it, I have skipped road walks, but this is the first section of proper trail I missed. However at the end of the day I don’t feel the need to suffer through something I don’t want to do, just to say I did it.
I waited for Holger to dry his boots by the fire before walking to the road. When we got to the road the Swiss couple that had gone there to hitch out 2 hours earlier were still sitting there…. oh crap. They said they only saw ten cars go by (both directions) since they were out there.
Holger and I decided to walk west toward Tuatapera (there is also a town East we could have gone toward), that way we weren’t sitting still and maybe we would get more traffic once we hit the next junction.
Over the next couple hours we saw 15 cars going the other way and the 16th car picked us up (two of those were just cars going out then coming back). We walked 14k before getting that ride. The road was so quiet it was almost comical… almost.
That car took us to the bigger road, where we luckily didn’t have to wait too long to get a ride into Tuatapera where we grabbed a coffee before trying to hitch the next 50k to Riverton. The plus side is if we couldn’t have gotten a ride to Riverton at least there was accommodation in Tuatapera. Luckily we got a ride to Riverton before the rain started. I think we got to Riverton around 6 PM. We went to the holiday park and checked into a cabin then went out to eat at the only open restaurant in town, which was a bit fancy, but dinner was delicious!
It rained a lot overnight.
The next morning a couple hikers set out to walk the beach in the wind and rain. Holger slept in and I wasn’t about to wake him to go out hiking in that terrible weather! At least one of the hikers who set out came back because of the wind and rain on the beach.
After noon the rain slowed and we walked to a cafe where we proceeded to eat two lunches. I had a falafel which was amazing and a panini.
My new shoes have already split open! Damn it Altra! There’s another woman who I’ve been hiking with who got the same shoes just after me and hers split open in the same place too (so it’s not just my big wide hobbit feet). They only lasted 14 days!
Tomorrow we walk 30k of mostly beach to Invercargrill, then it’s only one more day to Bluff and the finish of the trail, just 67k away. Jayden wants to do something called the 100k challenge, where he hikes the last 100k to bluff without stopping. Holger and I are having none of that, but we all want to finish together, so we will meet just before the end and walk the last 7k into Bluff together.