I woke up at the hostel, starting the day with the last of the sausage and eggs I had left for my sortie date. Yepp, today I finally hit the trail for good! It will be interesting after nearly a month of hostels and house sits to see how well my body handles the trail again.
I said goodbye to my friend Magda, who runs the hostel in Invercargill. She just finished the trail last season and stuck around to work because she loved it so much! She had great stories about hiking the trail, and I was amazed to find that it was her first time on any long distance hike or nature excursion of any kind!
Around 10, I head out and have a 12km walk down a road that leads to the scenic Oreti Beach. It’s pretty chilly, in the high 40s, and it’s supposed to rain on and off today.
I made good progress, and around 3pm came to the major obstacle of the day, the Waimatuku Stream. It was about 3 hours past low tide, so when I tried to cross the river the water practically came up to my head! Luckily I backed out before i fell all the way in and only got the lower half of my backpack wet (well, that and most of my clothing). Argh, this was supposed to be an easy crossing! I tried multiple other crossings, but just could not find a place that didn’t have chest deep water.
Well, I’ll take that as a sign. I’ll just have to pitch camp here and wait for low tide tomorrow, around 11am. I snag a nice campsite in the dunes, and enjoy the rest of the day, giving my heavily strained ankles and legs a break after just 20km. They’ve really taken a beating from all the road walking this first 60km, so they no doubt need as much time for recovery as I can give them.
Oh, and I lost my headphones! Noooooo! The must have floated out of my pocket on the first crossing attempt… damn.
I’ve read other people’s crossing stories saying “it’s only ankle deep,” so I don’t know how I got so unlucky to have such a poor first attempt at fiording. But, looking at the tide tables, the sea does rise 7 feet during high tide, which would certainly explain why it was the way it was.
I fall asleep to the wind and the rain lashing my tent. That was one benefit of having to stop early, as a series of persistent rain storms moved in after I pitched the tent.
Tomorrow, I will continue on down the beach to the town of Riverton, grab some supplies, and then hit the next 150km section of trail through multiple gorgeous kiwi forest reserves. You won’t wanna miss it!