From Te Anau the route takes us through farm land mostly. There are a few steeper climbs but not much to rant and rave about. There is however, a story that I'm sure Luke will get tired of being reminded of.
On the second day, we stayed in a place called Birchwood Lodge. It's basically an old out house king of thing that some farmers have in their garden. They charge $20 each per night and you get a bed, kitchen, shower and bathroom, and a washing machine which is quite a good deal compared with what the price and facilities at the holiday parks!
It was the sort of place that made me feel a bit of a snob. While everyone else was just pleased to have a roof over their head, I wondered what my mother would say if she saw where I was staying. I imagined probably something along the lines of 'wear your flipflops in the shower and use your own cutlery.' Ah- it was a wicked place really.. just needed a lick of paint and a bit of bleach to the ceilings...
The owner gave the boys a lift to the shop (now with Renee, Kilt Brian, Benjamin from Sweden, Ben and Josh from NZ) and they all came back with a few beers and a bottle of wine for Renee and I to share. It was the last stretch and we wanted to celebrate! So we all had a drink and were playing a game of Code Names when Luke asked everyone if they wanted a fire. Of course, everyone did because we had marshmallows to roast! So, Luke set about collecting wood and starting the fire up.
About twenty minutes after Luke had got the fire roaring and we battled furiously in an intense game of Code Names, I smelled something strange. I looked to the fire and noticed an old pair of shorts had been left on top. They were on fire. Renee grabbed them and carried them outside before dumping a bottle of water on them but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that the burning shorts had reminded Ben and Josh about where they had left their mobile phones charging. Panic struck - Ben and Josh's phones had melted to the fire place. Ben's was off, obviously, while Josh's simply displayed a helpful message on the screen, 'Your iPhone is too hot. Please cool down.'
We plucked them from the fire place watching not to burn our fingers n the metal casings and put them out on the deck to cool down. Ben's battery had melted to the outer so we used a knife to pull it away from the rest of the phone and let it cool while Josh's, bar a half melted screen, was actually working!
We spent the rest of the night awkwardly trying to avoid the topic of mobile phones and soon headed for bed in the prison style bunk beds which had mattresses too big for them and rolled its occupant to one side or the other each time they tried to get comfortable.
The morning after, Ben and Josh left pretty sharpish and the rest of us followed around nine-ish once the sun had decided to grace us with another fine day.
From there, it took another two days to reach our 32nd and final hut of the entire trail, Martins Huts in the Longwood Forest. The track up to Martins was a perfect round up of the trail. Hiking through knee high mud, being drenched by a stubborn low hanging cloud, having a relentless hammer of Southern wind against our faces, and a severe lack of hope that we'd ever actually make it to the hut - it was everything, believe it or not, that had made this trail so bloody cool! If it was easy, if we weren't challenged and made to face everything that New Zealand has to offer from its completely unpredictable weather system, it wouldn't have been worth doing and certainly wouldn't be worth telling you about.
When we got to Martins, a four bed shack with no windows and a dirt floor, there were already seven people staying there. Benjamin, Rowan and Rosie had beds, Dylan and Lutz were sharing, Ben and Josh were on the floor and the whole hut was covered in wet gear that smelled of old waterproofs and muddy socks.
Luke and I, Renee, Martin, Kilt Brian and Pawel all pitched our tents in the limited space outside and took turns to squeeze into the hut and have our share of heat from the fire. We may not have got to spend the night in the final hut, but we did have one hell of an experience. We all sat around in the tiny, dark room and reminisced about the trail and about our next few days to come and, aside for the absence of a few others, we had our 'trail family' all in one space.
The morning after was a solemn one for the fact we had to put on all of our wet gear and mud-sodden boots for another day in the forest. We headed off nice and early because we thought it was going to be another rainy, muddy day but it turned out to be a beautifully easy day following an old mining water run all the way to Colac Bay pretty much.
As we came over the brow of the hill and caught our first sights of Colac Bay, it almost felt like the end - we could see the sea and beyond that was Stewart Island - I could have cried right there and then (but I didn't because I am the new kick ass Bear Grylls come Wolverine come Dora the Awesomest Explorer Ever.)
From Colac Bay we walked along the coast all the way to Riverton for a lunch stop and then again all the way to Invercargill (almost).
Not quite ready to finish, Luke and I decided to walk that last beach by ourselves. We stopped three or four times to read. We pitched our tent to have dinner (which was like eating in a cape in a sand storm) and just relaxed and talked until it turned dark. We packed the tent up, and we hiked the remainder of the beach with nothing but the incredible South Island sky to light our way.
It sounds romantic and nice but in fact, there were bad boy racers on mopeds driving up and down all the way and when it came to finding somewhere to pitch up once we'd left the beach, it was so bloody dark that we didn't really know where we were and whether in the morning we'd be on someones front porch!
Nonetheless, we woke the morning after on the Lifeguard Club's front lawn and left pretty sharpish to walk into Invercargill. When we got there at 9am, all we wanted to do was carry on to Bluff but we'd decided to walk with our friends and that's what we were going to do so we fought the urge and spent the rest of the day in Invercargill gearing up for the very last day of our trail. We arranged to meet the team by the bridge at 9.30am sharp the morning after.
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