I have no memory of this place...

March 6

Hanmer Springs to Boyle Village to Anne Hut

KM 2051.5

Distance: 29km 

Elevation: ascent 963m, descent 658m

Steps: 47,300

Time: 8:10am - 5:50pm

Today we woke up early, knowing that we would have to hitch out of Hanmer Springs (on a Sunday Morning) up to the state highway, and then hitch again to the Boyle Village, in total about 60km from Hanmer. We figured to give ourselves the best opportunity of finding a ride, we needed to be out on the road by 7am.

It was a very quiet road at 7am, and the few cars passing us were not at all interested in picking up some hitchhikers. But then a car started to pull over before either of us even stuck our thumbs out. Guess who was in the passenger seat - Linsey!!

She had met some family in Hanmer, and her niece had offered to drive her out to the start of the trail today. There was just enough room in the car boot for one more pack, and the two of us and one of our packs fit snugly into the back seat.

Eliza made it to within 10km of Boyle Village before she started feeling carsick, which was mostly a win, but it took her about 30 minutes on the trail before she was feeling 100% again. Ginger chews help... and are delicious, so win-win :D

Today and part of tomorrow we are actually on the St James Walkway, which is a relatively easy 5-day through-hike that we had done about 5 or 6 years ago. It is billed as a good first multi-day hike for people to do, and it was our first multi-day hike. Pretty sure that completing it, and feeling good afterward, set us on our curent path to doing Te Araroa, so fair warning to anyone considering it.

Oh, and it's beautiful!

In and out of beech forest, next to the Boyle River which burbles as a friendly background sound. Also, DoC has obviously been doing some good work with trapping, because the bird life is nice and abundant. If anything, the robins and tomtits are so bold as to be a little bit pestery!

Here's a photo with both a robin and a female tomtit in it:

DoC has also been doing work to control the wasps, and you can, every once in a while, catch the smell of vinegar in the traps. It gives you a nice feeling of comfort, knowing the wasp populations are a bit under control.

Despite this being an easy track, it does go over a saddle that did challenge us a bit, right toward the end of our day. In fact, we pushed ourselves to a much longer day than we might otherwise have attempted, just to help make getting to, and over, the Waiau Pass (in 2 days time) a little bit better, and a shorter day. This is one of the parts of the trail that Eliza definitely remembered, hence the signal that this is the second time here. 

Eliza also very fondly remembers Christopher Hut that we may stay at tomorrow night, but the huts we passed today are not familiar to her at all. So she has been mentally quoting Gandalf in the Mines of Moria all day...

Further proof that the trail, while easier than some we've done, is still not entirely easy, both of us and Linsey all managed to lose our footing or slip down a small slope, so all three of us ended up on our rear ends, at separate times today - but at least the damage to pride was spread equally amongst the three of us.

Part of what makes you feel like you are on an easier - or more civilised - trail is the fact that we actually had real bridges to cross - bridges that don't even have a warning limiting the number of people that can cross at once!

We were very proud of ourselves, and very exhausted, when we saw the hut today. We beat the signed time of 11.5 hours to this hut, but still the nearly-10-hour-day has been one of the longer days we've done, so we were very much ready to get to the hut, have dinner, and pass out!

Woke up in the middle of the night and tried again to get a picture of the stars, which were again amazing. You can see the Southern Cross and the pointer stars, toward the bottom of this photo.