Start – Hackett Hut
Finish – Starveall Hut
Daily Distance – 5 km
TA Distance – 1890 km
The greatest challenge of today has been not binge eating a weeks worth of supplies while watching the
rain sheet down outside the hut window. The second greatest challenge has been waking up at 05:00,
fording Hackett creek half a dozen times and then slogging up the 900m climb to Starveall hut before the
rain set in. That gives you some idea how insistent the trail munchies can be.
Arriving at the hut I met Ben and Natalie from Bristol who are spending the day waiting out the storm
too. Having spent last night on my own it has been lovely to have company through the day. Peculiarly
given that my thoughts are increasingly turning towards the finish line and home, they are moving on
from NZ to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in America for 6 months. Having confidently predicted at 17:30
that nobody would be crazy enough to hike up in the storm, Matt and Mieka arrived sopping wet having
hiked from Rocks hut. Even more surprising, Silvio from Germany arrived at 18:30 having hiked from
Captain Creek hut, a distance that I have covered in 2.5 days. Hopefully nobody else arrives as all beds
are now taken and any soggy hikers who arrive will have to sleep on the floor.
Last time I checked the weather was looking better for tomorrow, so no repeat of todays day of napping,
reading and trying not to eat. Fingers crossed anyway.
Addendum
We used a discarded copy of 50 shades of grey as kindling for the fire today. Unfortunately owing to a
lack of dry wood we never could get a fire started. Fortunately, we now have a much more tasteful hut.
Now if we could just figure out something to do with the obligatory deer skull…
