The Walking Dom

Te Anau to Colac Bay
Mile 1819 / KM 2927

Audiobook of the week: 'Where the Crawdads sing' by Delia Owens

Podcast of the day: 'My Dad wrote a Porno'. I am at Season 5 and it just keeps getting better and better. Funniest podcast out there if you ask me.

Song stuck in my head: 'Grip' by The Run Up

I miss: A good night sleep without fearing a critter making its way into my tent.

After my solo adventure on the bike track I was glad to see a familiar face in Te Anau. Zilla had taken the same alternate route I had and we decided we'd tackle the next 3 day section to Birchwood together. There had been another weather warning for the Southland area which is why we stayed in Te Anau for an extra day. Totally unnecessary as the 'storm' ended up being not much more than a light drizzle. This way though, I got to sit at the Sandfly Cafe for hours, so no complaints.

The next day we hitched a ride back out to the trail head and what followed was a beautiful hike through a thick forest, over grassy rolling hills and past cows and cow pies. At one point the grass was taller than I was and I couldn't see where I was stepping, so I ended up completely disappearing in a mudhole.

When we reached Aparima Hut at around 6pm I went for a swim in the river below the hut to wash off the dirt and sweat (and probably cow poop) of the day. It was one of those candid moments I've learned to appreciate on trail. Just being at that beautiful river, knowing I was the only one around felt amazing.

After having read the comment section on Guthooks about the hut, I was 100% positive that I was not going to stay in it. Mice rule the hut - they've completely taken over and are chewing through peoples' backpacks. We could see them run around the hut while having dinner on the porch in broad daylight, so I made sure to pitch my tent as far as possible from the building. Surprisingly we didn't get any visits during the night, so against all odds it ended up being a peaceful night. The peace wouldn't last long though...

We packed up the next morning and started hiking. After a few hours we ran into a Nobo and he asked us if he could take our picture. We agreed and as I was scrolling through his photos I came across a portrait of a guy I knew all too well. Chris! I had climbed Mt. Rintoul with him and Meghan and only because of this Nobo-photo-project-dude I found out they were a day ahead of me. Reason enough for me to speed up and catch them before Bluff.

I had not expected anything from this section but it ended up being a gorgeous one. The last significant hill was stunning and Zilla and I sat up at the peak for quite a while snacking on chocolate and talking about life. That night we camped at 'Telford Campsite' which was a mistake. The campsite has probably the single largest population of sandflies in all of New Zealand. At times it sounded like rain when the flies were attacking the tent walls. I can handle a million sand flies though. No problem. What I couldn't handle was the rat circus which was in full swing outside of my tent. I don't know what they were up to but they were so loud, that at 1am I hadn't slept a second. Every time I was about to fall asleep one of them thought it would be funny to run into my tent wall to make as much noise as possible. I became so angry that after another half an hour I was ready to surrender. I thought if I'd relocate my tent, away from the common campsite, I would get a better chance of getting some sleep. So I angrily packed up my things, hiked up the hill in the dark and set up my tent on a flatish piece of grass. Once back in my tent I turned off my head lamp, ready to finally get some sleep, but it took less than a minute until an even crazier rat started running around my tent. I completely lost it. I was yelling at the invisible intruder while packing up my tent the second time that night. At this point I was ready to start hiking. If I wasn't going to sleep I might as well get moving, but then I remembered Zilla was sleeping in her two person palace down at the campsite. She didn't seem to have any rat problems at all and was snoring away happily, so I went back down to her tent to ask her if I could join in her little sanctuary. She gave me refuge and I will forever be thankful. I finally got to sleep.

Zilla had to go off trail for a few days so I decided to catch up with Chris and Meghan to hike the last ~100k with them. We met in Tuatapere to do our final resupply before heading into the muddy Longwood forest. Lots of things happened in there. For a moment we thought we lost Chris, so Meghan backtracked to find him, but he had somehow passed her without notice so we ended up waiting for Meghan for two hours instead of Chris. She hiked an extra 10k that day through the muddiest of muds. #trooper

We're in Colac Bay now. Back on the beach. Back to where it all began and we're about to tackle the very last kilometers of this trail.