It rained today. In fact, it’s still raining. And hasn’t stopped once all day. Between that and the shin splints I decided I was not walking today. There wouldn’t have been anything to see along the trail, I would have been miserable, it wouldn’t have been a fun day. And I’m beyond the point of…

Woke up this morning to cloudy weather so we slept in. I’d been wanting to zero in a hut. Let me tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. This is a long section, so I had a lot of food. But I still have a decent amount of time left, so I…

Today I had one simple goal: make my pack smell less horrifying. Oh, and eat lots of bbq. Well, I got one of those things done. Not that I didn’t try to get my pack to smell less horrifying, but at this point I think I need something a bit stronger than what Mirazyme claims…

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…

The last day and a half or so I’ve been in Methven. The best part of this was meeting up again with Keaton, Gian-Marco, and Christian! I swear half of the town was TA hikers. At the cafe yesterday there were at least 2 other tables with TA hikers. Most of the people at my…

Due to Cyclone Gita descending on the South Island this week I’m going to take a couple of days off the trail and also skip a short section that is both very vulnerable to bad weather and also logistically quite complex. It’s a short section, so it’s just not worth the effort to stick around…

Today’s mission: clean pack. Fix leak in sleeping pad. Resupply. Find a book. Relax. Fortunately there’s not a whole lot to do in this town, so I don’t feel compelled to try to cram it all in on my day off. I can just sit in my tent and do nothing and be fine with…

Since we got here a day earlier than expected we camped out last night at the holiday park. It was also fairly expensive like the one in Arrowtown, and the ground conditions were way worse, but at least the showers here were free. It was super windy when we arrived last night and setting up…

So. Much. Rain. Everyone is indoors. And that means all the cafes are slammed. So in the 4 hours between checking out of one hostel and checking in to another, I did a lot of wandering aimlessly. Fortunately, I also found a hidden not so hidden Internet cafe. Walked in, asked about it since google…

The weather today is quite beautiful. Tomorrow is not so much. So I’ve decided to both stay an extra night in Queenstown to avoid a huge storm coming through, and to try to do any outdoor activities I might want to do today, and leave the errands and indoor stuff for tomorrow. With that in…