Both of these days were super super super hot. I met a couple of guys at Boundary Hut and and walked with them on the second day.

These days were super hard too. So many times I quit. In Te Anau, the guys I’d met before convinced me to do this stretch in 4 days, and the 4th day getting a ride at 10am. So, 3 long days in a row, followed by a short but very early day. I originally wanted to do this as 5 days. The whole day from Kiwi Burn to Boundary Hut I was in agony and roasting and just hating everything. So I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out how I was going to change my plans to make it a fifth day. Since I had a hostel reservation in queenstown and a shuttle booked, it wasn’t going to be easy.

Fortunately, the guys I met at Boundary hut seemed really cool and the next day I walked with them most of the day so it made the day feel really short. My feet were absolutely killing me. Between walking at weird angles because of tussock and lots of rocks mashing my feet continually, I was in some pain.

Later in the afternoon about an hour before Greenstone Hut we came across a really lovely stream with some shade trees and stopped for lunch and to refill our water.

Tomorrow morning I’m getting up super early to try to make it to my shuttle. Things say the parking lot is 3-4 hours away but I’ve been consistently missing the estimates so I’m worried I won’t make it in time. At this point I’ve decided to just go for it and if I miss the shuttle, I miss the shuttle. We’ll see.

Lots of pretty today.