A nicely formed track!!

March 12

John Tait Hut to St Arnaud (to Richmond)

KM 1964

Distance: 23.6km 

Elevation: ascent 428m, descent 605m

Steps: 36,100

Time: 7:40am - 3:20pm

Today's forecast called for rain, as did last night's forecast, based both on the week-old forecasts we were carrying on our phones, and those more recent ones relayed to us by people going the other direction on this route. And there was some rain on the hut roof over night, but never very heavy. And we woke up to this beautiful morning vista. 

We still put our rain covers on our packs and had raincoats handy (Vaughan) or on (Eliza), knowing from the brief trip to the toilets that the beech trees had collected a lot of rainwater and were ready to release this water onto unwitting walkers below.

Today's walk was the first day (or two) for those doing the Travers-Sabine Circuit; we did the second half, backwards. It was through pleasant beech forest, next to the Travers River still, as it makes its way to Lake Rotoiti (yes it feels weird to write Lake Roto-anything, since roto is the te reo Māori word for lake...).

When we planned this section in Hanmer Springs, we had expected to only make it to Upper Travers yesterday, and then we would stay at Lakehead Hut tonight, with a short walk into St Arnaud for Sunday. But we were feeling so good yesterday that we made it past Upper Travers, which meant that today we were aiming not just for Lakehead, but for St Arnaud (and pizza and beer) this afternoon! 

You can imagine that this gave us a little extra motivation, and quickened our steps a little bit.

We made it to Lakehead just at noon, in perfect time to have lunch at that lovely hut. Along the way we were continually watched and flirted with by toutouwai (NZ Robins), so it was no surprise to us that someone had referenced this bird in the hut book at Lakehead. We were delighted though to see this frankly amazing sketch!

The lake itself was quite beautiful, and a bit tempting for a swim, although we both declined in the interest of the aforementioned pizza and beer.

Track times predicted we would hit town at around 4pm; we managed to get to town by 3:20, and were started into the first bites of our pizza by 4.

We also confirmed that St Arnaud had no accommodation options (there is a power boat show on this weekend), and the general store there is limited in options and very expensive. So in to Nelson (ish) it is, for resupply.

After our early dinner, we stood by the side of the road for nearly an hour waiting for someone kind enough, and with enough room in their car, to take us to the Nelson suburb of Stoke, where we had booked an AirBnB for the night. Our ride was super friendly, and not only took us to Stoke, where he was heading anyway; he actually dropped us off all the way at our AirBnB - door to door service! Thank you, Trail Angel!

We will decide tomorrow morning whether we will turn this into a rest day as well as a resupply. The Richmond Range, our next section, is quite physically demanding, as well as long - we will need to pack 10 or 11 days of food; both for the expected length of the trip (6-8 days) and also the unpredictable nature of the weather here means we need to be prepared to hole up in a hut for an extra day or two. Just in case.