Start – Martin’s Hut
Finish – Colac Bay
Daily Distance – 30 km
TA Distance – 2963 km
Bluff Distance – 79 km
St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, and like exhausted, muddy snakes we finally slithered out of
Longview forest, finally emerging into the warming afternoon sun. Sometimes you do not walk the TA,
you do not enjoy the TA, you just push through it and move on. And when you finally look back upon the
forest that has taken so much energy and effort, it’s with a sense of pride in a hard challenge overcome.
Then, all that remains, is to give it the finger and go in search of the nearest pub.
The post-finger pub for tonight is The Tavern in the seaside town of Colac Bay. Conveniently it also
offers cheap camping, which is convenient as the day, and my legs, are both too far gone to comfortably
manage the additional 12km to Riverton tonight. I can recommend the food here, but the finest offering
by far is the iced cream. $4.50 (£2.25) supposedly buys you 2 scoops of iced cream, but they seem to
consider it a challenge to see just how much the cone can take before collapsing under the weight. The
result, an iced cream as big as your head and a very happy tramper. Followed by every other tramper
immediately ordering one too. At the table tonight are Ben, Natalie, myself and Daryll from Canada, who
we met during this last section. At 65, he is the oldest person we have met doing the trail, but is the very
definition of the unstoppable tortoise. Despite moving slowly, at every break stop he seems to appear
round the bend, just plodding on and never stopping. Having completed the big 3 US trails, all over the
age of 55, he gives me hope for a lengthy hiking career of my own.
Happy St Patrick’s Day to all of my Irish friends. A day of celebration that seems to have been adopted
with gusto by the residents of NZ. Perhaps it’s the lack of snakes…
