Today we had rain nearly the complete day, instead of making breaks, we walked a bunch of kilometers.
It was a good decision to be in the hot springs yesterday night. When we woke up, there were sandflies everywhere and it also rained in the night.
We were afraid of opening the tent, so we didn’t cook water this morning. I had cold oats and Lisa had some muesli. Unfortunately we had to open the tent at one point. We tried to do everything faster than usual just to make the time with the sandflies shorter.
Just after we packed everything in our bagpacks, it started to rain again ?️
Instead of sticking to the trail, we decided to hike in the river bed.
Just before the trail goes up to the kiwi saddle we joined it again. It rained the whole time, but we had some nice company.
The rainbow ? stayed with us quite a while. But it wasn’t only the rainbow it was also the rain.
Just before we entered the forest, it stopped to rain. We decided to make a small break before we continued.
So far it was an easy travel through the river bed. We were doing 4km an hour. We both believed that once we are in the forest it gets worse. Since there are normally a lot fallen trees, that you have to crawl over or under it, it takes much longer. But surprisingly it was easy to follow the track.
The track continued to get higher but there was no view at all. Once we reached the highest point, we did a small detour to get to a lookout. Unfortunately we couldn’t see much more from there.
From the lookout it was less than two hours to get to the Hope Kiwi Lodge.
Some people staying in the hut already made the fire going. We could dry out clothes and the shoes. More hikers came to the hut and in the end we stayed with about 16 people in the hut. The hut is amazing. It has two seperated rooms of bunks and a nice atmosphere in the common room. It deserves to call itself a ‘lodge’. Remy and Caroline also arrived at the hut. (The Nobos we’ve met yesterday).
One tramping party will head out tomorrow, they shared a bunch of food with us. We played some games and enjoyed the night in the Hut talking to others.
We arrived at 4pm at the hut, and it didn’t take too long until it was dark. It’s getting autumn.
Remy and Caroline won’t hitch to Hanmer Springs tomorrow, so we got a special order from them: buy batteries for the headlamps. I hope we don’t forget it.