Start – Twizel
Finish – Lake Middleton Campsite
Daily Distance – 30 km
TA Distance – 2507 km
Bluff Distance – 534 km
My rain trousers show so much ankle that I look like a throwback to Victorian pornography!
Apart from increasingly wet socks, today’s rainy day walk has been fairly enjoyable. With many people
still waiting for sun, the trail was quiet enough for some really good rain singing. Not quite Gene Kelly,
but in the auditorium of my raincoat hood it helped the hours pass by.
As often seems to be the case on wet days, there has been a rather unfortunate lack of shelter for the vital
activities of coffee and snack breaks. This led to the absurd spectacle of several hikers adopting the
desperate measure of having lunch in a public toilet cubicle. A plan with one small, but important
drawback. A convenience inconvenience arrived in the shape of a hopping, and clearly well fibred, cyclist
requiring immediate use of the “lunch shelter”. Sadly, this rendered the cubicle uninhabitable for a good
period afterwards.
This evening I was the grateful recipient of some trail kindness. There is no cooking shelter at lake
Middleton campsite, but a kind Kiwi camper allowed us motley crew of hikers to cook under his shelter
which had been erected above a picnic bench. A vast improvement to cooking on the ground in the rain. I
have unfortunately forgotten his name among all the others I’m trying to learn and remember, but he
deserves mention anyway. He also brewed tea (with real milk!) and treated us to a pudding of wild
gooseberries. Truly an unexpected feast!
Tonight is shaping up to be cold again. The temperature has rarely risen above coat and hat levels and is
only getting colder now the sun has set. Snow is apparently present as low as 1200m on the nearby
mountains, which could make tomorrow’s ascent to 1500m interesting. Perhaps another TA first?
Addendum
Before people ask, no, I was not one of the hikers sheltering in the toilet. I do still have some, admittedly
low, standards of dignity remaining.
