National Park - River at 1183km (18km)

Think we're getting used to these easy days - we started at the cafe (again) where we had coffee, pies, and wifi. We booked our New Year's Day ferry to the start of the Queen Charlotte track and our New Years Eve BYO Indian! Very excited for an Indian courtesy of Bumps.

The weather, despite being forecasted pouring rain, was absolutely luush! You could see the snow on the top of the mountains from the cafe windows which showed what the little ski village would probably be like in peak season... makes me want to go skiing!

Luke had a second pie and I had an once cream just before leaving and starting another short day.

Probably distracted by food, we spent the first ten minutes heading down the wrong road and had to back track to start again. We found the Fishers track that took us down a gravel path past the railway station. We reached a turn off where we could take a detour to see some waterfalls and considering how far we had to walk, we thought we may as well take it. We followed the steep path up and carried buckets of stone clippings (walkers carry them between 'depots' to help the guys who are making the pathways transport the stones to the end of the track). We walked and walked for over half an hour before we decided to check maps ... what we had thought was a 20 minute detour to the falls was actually a 20 minute one way detour to the lookout that we'd already passed and the falls were actually a two hour round trip! So for the second time that day, we turned around and backtracked to the actual trail.

Despite the extra hour it took overall to get back on track, we had another great day walking along a grassy path skirting rolling hills where we spotted deer amongst the usual hundreds of sheep.

When the path turned back into road, we started looking for potential camp spots. We passed a few farms but the idea of camping beside the river was too tempting. We kept walking until we could see he perfect spot... but, the problem was, it was on the other side of the river.

We scrambled down the bank from the road and decided to wade the river waist deep to get to the nice flat grass on the other side - our shoes would dry in the sun anyway!

We stripped off to our underwear once we'd crossed and went for a swim. Of course, it took me twenty minutes to find the courage to get in properly because it was so cold that I got bitten all over. Nonetheless though, it was amazing to cool down and have a quick wash before drying off in the sunshine.