Waiau - out to Hamner Springs

11km, 3.5hrs misty rain.

We took the shortcut across the river and bush bashed up the ridge to the track to cut out back tracking to the swing bridge. We must have cut about an hour and a half off our walk..

The walk itself was pretty easy, through the amazing beech forest. There were quite a few fallen trees to climb over or under.

Coming out to Boyle village I got reception and had some lovely birthday wishes from my awesome family. The boys also met us and drove us to Hamner to get pies (yum!). Then to the Hamner forest camp where we were to be staying. We couldn't check in until 2pm but because Paul was staying already we took advantage of hot showers.

Then the boys pulled out all the stops and produced a birthday party with cake and chips and dip - they are such awesome blokes!!

I had a room to myself in a little cabin, with access to indoor plumbing, it felt like the height of luxury.

The following day I made some phone calls trying to work out what to do about my boots. The toecap had started coming off on about the 3rd day and I had glued it back together in Murchison but that hadn't done the trick and they had started talking so the only thing to be done really is return them. Paul was going to go to chch anyway so I asked him to take them to the smiths there and hopefully get a refund. I had talked to the whg owner and sent her some pics and she seemed pretty sure it should be able to be sorted.

Then Paul, Patrece and I went for eggs Benedict in Hamner (yum!). Later on the girls and I went to the hot pools that hamneris famous for... soaking in the hot pools was AMAZING but the watersides were not as exciting as I had hoped.

Last thing was to pack a couple more 4 day hike food bags for the next couple of sections that we are unlikely to get a resupply for.Leggi altro