Farewell, Otago!

February 8th 
Top Timaru Hut to unnamed campsite
KM 2523.5
Distance: 20km
Elevation: 800m ascent; 980m descent
Steps: 32,300
Time: 8:05am - 5:30pm

Leaving Top Timaru Hut behind, the trail lead us further above the tree line and into the high alpine environment. As you can see in the photo below the weather was clear although it didn't get too hot.
The wide path serves as a 4WD track as well, and zig-zags up the slope toward Martha's Saddle.

Why wouldn't you stop at the top for a breather and lunch with these kinds of views! Today's lunch was a wrap filled with peanut butter. For the trail food curious out there, we previously used Nutella or similar almond/chocolate spread, but a side-by-side comparison of the nutrition labels showed that peanut butter was superior when it came to energy, protein and fat per weight. It's something we've come to realise recently - that we're basically shopping for the exact opposite from when we're leading office jobs! It does make it very dangerous to set any real eating patterns now... although somehow I don't think I'll be craving peanut butter wraps too often.
From the top of Martha's Pass, you can see some quite beautiful, snow-capped mountains in the distance. Sorry, no idea which ones these are - any geography buffs out there that care to take a guess?
This is a view down the valley we'd just come from; you cannot see the Top Timaru Hut, but if you could it would be just opposite that first patch of forest. Not bad for a morning's work.
And just like that, as we passed over Martha's Pass, we also passed from Otago into Canterbury. That's two of the five South Island provinces done!

We both agree that Otago seemed to go quicker than Southland. Perhaps that is due to us having our trail legs under us, and not having the injury time-outs that we did in Southland. 
We made it almost all the way to the Ahuriri River, and decided to camp. Some south-bound trampers told us the river was just barely fordable, and possibly still going down, so giving it to the morning might just give us a chance at crossing it, and avoiding the 10-km diversion to a bridge.
Amazingly, or maybe thanks to the evening winds, there were very few sandflies, and we were able to enjoy dinner and relaxing outside of the tent.

Tomorrow, the Ahuriri River!

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