Start – Hurunui #3 Hut
Finish – Locke Stream Hut
Daily Distance – 15 km
TA Distance – 2162 km
The doors were locked, the windows barred and suspects assembled. Unfortunately the world’s greatest
detective phoned in sick with trail lassitude, so we had to solve the mystery ourselves. Just who had
stolen the Frenchman’s socks!? On the drying rack one second, gone the next, a nice demonstration of
how hard it can be not to lose things in huts. The mystery was eventually solved through the realisation
that the Frenchman had the exact same socks as another hiker, who had then picked them up by mistake.
Indeed, realising the mistake transpired to be the easy part. Divining which of the 3 pairs of identically
branded, sized and pungent socks belonged to who was the real work. I developed a true respect for those
who will put their faces that close, for so long, to things that smell so foul. Truly, not the finest way to
start a day!
The walking today was fun and frustrating in about equal measure. One early river crossing offered the
chance to use a 3 wire bridge to maintain dry feet. Naturally, I availed myself of the opportunity, while
(mostly) inwardly humming the Indiana Jones theme music and feeling terribly adventurous. Of course,
the dry feet only lasted for approximately another 10 minutes, but 10 blissful minutes of toasty feet and a
pause in the trail’s recent efforts to give me a free case of trench foot. Apart from that the rest of the day
was generally spent weaving between bush and grassy river flats. Most of the time this routing seemed to
be more whimsical than strictly necessary, but it sure did provide variety. And besides, who wants to
walk on a nice, level field when one can tramp up and down in the bush for hours on end?
Perhaps I am just being grumpy as I’m finding this section hard going and the weather has been
alternating between rain and drizzle for days. My knees are sore from absorbing the weight of my pack,
my shoulder hurts from where I fell crossing a slippery log and I’m generally feeling a bit run down and
tired. Only another few days of this section though and every day my bag gets that little bit lighter. Even
better, I think this may be the last of the long stints between resupply towns, so my pack should never
(hopefully) weigh this much again. Hazar!
