27th Jan Friday, Te araroa 118
Kiwi Burn swing-bridge 2,741km to 2,787km tent (walked 33kms) (13kms by car) Tent
Packed up the tent this morning with it still drizzling and then crossed Mararoa River via the last swingbridge.
The other option of walking the TA trail was following the river down stream was out of the question as there’s no chance that we could Ford the river is its current state.
Road walking was the main theme today and after about three hours my feet was getting sore due to the hard ground. Both Ken and I were getting tired and need a break and from a distance I could see a tin Shelter which we had our morning break. It was just in time as the tin Shelter gave us cover from a fresh downpour of rain. When we emerged, it was blue skies so we proceeded on looking for a fresh clean supply of drinking water.
A feeling of being watch
When we did find water, the sun was still shinning so we stopped to hang our wet tent to dry on the high fence while we made ourselves a coffee or more like a Cappuccino.
A farmers vehicle pulled over and then asked us if we wanted a lift to the main road, with about 10kms of gravel road walking with nothing interesting to view, we accepted.
The farmer was a local heading back home to Te Anau, he was kind enough to take us to our final destination which was the Princhester Hut and thus saving us 13kms of hard boring road walking.
Had lunch and it was decided to head to the next hut Aparima Hut, 8 hours it said it will take so at 2pm we headed off towards our new home for the night.
Going was really tough, mud was making progress really slow and by 5:30 we found ourself a nice place under the protection of trees and camped for the night.
We were talking about make a fire but at that time it was getting a little windy and then thought better no.