Cows and sheep

January 14th
Birchwood Station to Telford Campsite
Distance: 28km
Elevation: ascent 760m / descent 530m (150 to 410 to 200 to 400 to 300 to 400 to 600 to 380)
Steps: 47,000

The first DOC sign we saw said the campsite was 19k, 8 hrs
Next DOC sign, 200m up the trail: campsite 19k, but now it's 9 hrs.??!!
Actual time it took us? 11.5 hrs
Today marked the first time in 2 weeks that we did a third consecutive walking day! Small victories. We've also finally arrived in South Island high country landscape we've all seen in those epic NZ tourism campaigns. The flat road section at the start helped us walk off the pub food and beer/cider from the night before. It's as tough life on the TA. 

Unfortunately, all of today's section was through private land, Mt Linton Station, and no camping is allowed at any point. This means walkers have no choice but to walk all 28 km in one day. And it's not flat terrain either as you can tell by the stats above. Honestly, it was a brutal day not helped by conditions at the end.
Before starting this adventure, I would not have thought we were physically or mentally strong enough to do a day this challenging. 

While we were crossing Telford Station, we had some run-ins with some cows that were very much not interested in moving out of the way for a few trampers. So we ended up having to chivvy them out of the way, a bit nervously at times especially when it was a mama with her calf, and the calf was just not moving. So you know mama was going to protect her young'un...  Also we had the glory pretty much all day of the smell of sheep poo.

Also sand flies galore at the campsite, listening to them hit the top of our tent is like listening to a light rain.  Vaughan is out braving the elements to fix up our camp site, clean up after dinner, etc.
Vaughan ended up doing a dive roll to get into the tent as I zipped up behind him. This resulted in him almost(but not quite) knocking over the dinner he had just handed in, but then we managed to save it just in time for his leg to CRAMP! 

All of these acrobatics did manage to keep the sandflies out, so we were able to sleep well.

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