words with kitchen

real life adventures of an aspiring adult

Tag: Te Araroa

  • Waiau Pass anxiety

    I’m so anxious about this walk. The last 2 days have been super easy. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as easy. And then super hard up over the pass. For some reason I was dreading this whole section as though the whole thing would be as hard as the pass. But really it’s just…

  • Day 38: Boyle Flats hut to Anne hut

    Lovely day today. Got up early, rolled out after a decent breakfast, had a nice walk. Part of the way in to today was a pass, Anne Saddle, which I took quite a bit faster than I expected. I was quite surprised when I got to the top of the hill. Anne hut is super…

  • Day 37: Hanmer Springs to Boyle Flats hut

    Pretty uneventful day. Bumped into Christian again but he was going to stay at Boyle village for the night, he’d been sick in Hanmer Springs and was still recovering. Met a couple of other northbounders and walked with them for a bit but they camped a bit farther down the trail and only briefly stopped…

  • Day 36: Hope-Kiwi Lodge to Hanmer Springs

    Wet. Stinky. Sand flies. Those are today’s themes. I woke up this morning and it had been raining most of the night. It was still raining when I got out of bed, but stopped as I was packing up. There were still people sleeping in the kitchen (and I just remembered now I meant to…

  • Day 35: Hurunui No. 3 hut to Hope-Kiwi Cottage

    Today was a trying day. It was going to be a long day no matter what, but some things added to the frustration. First off, there was a hot spring along the route which was highly recommended by a lot of people to go have a rest in. I totally could have used this. Sadly,…

  • Day 34: Locke Stream hut to Hurunui Hut No. 3

    Rats. No, really. Rats. They didn’t get into my food because I hung it up but they were all over the counter and table and everything else all night. Little turds everywhere. Gross. They also stole my bar of soap. I didn’t know rats ate soap. Now I do. I decided to just have a…

  • Day 33: Arthur’s Pass to Locke Stream hut

    Another northbounder named Greg was at the hostel with me for the past couple of days. This morning we left and stood out by the road hoping to get a ride for a bit. Finally we got one, from a guy who was driving from Christchurch to Greymouth for a meeting! Eek! We knew our…

  • Arthur’s Pass rain delay

    Sigh. More delays due to rain. This time not because the storm was all that huge, though it did cause some problems. What it did for me was raise the levels of rivers I’d need to interact with to leave here to levels unsafe to cross. So, aside from leaving by road or train, I’m…

  • New posts!

    If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably noticed that there haven’t been any posts for a while. And then suddenly today there’s a bunch. Well, the bug I reported to WordPress seems to have been fixed and I can now copy paste with photos into the app and it seems to work as expected! So…

  • Days 30-32: Methven to Arthur’s Pass

    Finally back on the trail! And lovely weather! Keaton and I hopped on a shuttle from town to the start of the trail where we were greeted with amazing views of Lake Coleridge. We missed our turn onto the trail and kept following the road, a very recurring theme in my travels. Oddly, the road…