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…

And I almost didn’t make it! This morning, woke up, lovely weather, myself and a French guy doing a section of the TA were set to catch our 6-7pm shuttle from the carpark down the trail to Geraldine. Since the carpark was said to be 4 hours away, no rush! Sleep in, hang out at…

10% chance of rain. That’s what the garmin said about today. Early early this morning (or maybe late last night? Dunno) there was a sudden very large gust of wind that sounded like it was going to blow the roof off of the hut, and then the rain started. A couple of people had stuff…

Today is the day. The day I hit the highest point on the trail, Stag Saddle. Several southbounders have told me about “the ridge” and to take it. So I did. It was pretty great. The climb was long and occasionally a little steep, but the trail was nice and easy to follow. And the…

When I woke up this morning my tent was full of condensation. Annoying. Not unusual for a single wall tent but it meant that I was going to sleep in a bit and wait for the sun to come out and dry the tent before packing it up. I gave up waiting. This meant I…

Today was going to be a boring day no matter what. The canal I’d be riding along, while really pretty, is just a canal. You need about 5 minutes to take it all in and you’re set. Before I got to the canal though there were some good times. Someone stopped me along the trail…

Bike day. Since the next section involves a super long (42km) stretch along the Tekapo canal, I’m renting a bike and riding it. One of the options was to get the bike from Lake Ohau Lodge instead of Twizel, making it a 2 day ride instead of one day walk plus one day ride. I…

My tent survived the night. I made an adjustment, which was to stake out the headroom on the windward side to hopefully prevent it from becoming concave and pushing the tent inward. The reason this is even a thing is because one of my stakes bent all out of whack from trying to push it…

Today’s goal was to get to Tin Hut, a private hut that has been made available for TA walkers to use. Then I had a stretch goal to get past there to a place in the reserve by the Avon Burn where I could camp for the night. The idea being that tomorrow I would…

Very long day today. I got up early this morning and got some sweet sunrise shots. It was decently after sunrise when I made it out to the trail but it was still super pretty. The climb to the top was pretty nice. Not too long. It was super windy at the top and I…