I spent the morning trying to work out if and where I need to send food parcels for the South Island leg. I think I can get away without in St Arnaud as I'll hitch up to Nelson to resupply and have a day off (I assume I'll need one after the Richmond Ranges!). I'll have to try and organise to send something to Arthur's Pass, and perhaps one more later on further along the trail. But right now I think I can get away with just jumping on the ferry.
Alyse and I headed into Upper Hutt for lunch, stopping to try one of the several cafés, Cafe Rome, which was nice but not AMAZING. We then trundled round a few shops looking for furnishing ideas for Alyse and Pete's new house. We then went back to barracks where I took an hour and a half to inventory and pack up my gear...oops. I also burnt off the last iddy bit of gas in my old gas canister before throwing it out as there's no room in my pack for the next leg for a gas canister that isn't going to last til the next resupply. While the thing sounded damn near empty it turns out there was enough left to have made a cup of tea or two. Oops again.
When I was finally ready we jumped in the car again as Alyse and Pete very generously offered to drop me off in town one last time. I was a bit sad to hand I my visitors pass and was half tempted to souvenir it (apparently that happens a lot), but I did the honest thing and handed it in. I never in my life thought I'd ever go onto a military base, but then you never really know where you'll end up--especially while doing TA!
Incidentally, shout out to Sergeant Major Nicols, whom I've never met, but who apparently told Pete over lunch in the mess hall to pass on his regards and encouragement for my trek!
In town I said I final farewell and huge thank you to Alyse and Pete. Hopefully I'll be up again to see them soon, at which point I'll have numerous favours to repay!
They dropped me at Kyla's place and I shouldered my pack down the drive to the door and fished out the key from where Kyla had txt to tell me she'd left it. She wasn't home from work yet so I let myself in, to the overwhelming joy of her adorable dog, Mila. Curiously enough it was all happiness and excitement when I walked through the door, which only became barks when I lugged my big pack in after me. I like to think it was barks along the lines of "what?! An overnight bag? Are you staying?! She's staying!!", or at least something of that sort.
I made a cup of tea and sat down to continue my perusal of the South Island sections of trails. Loosely planned it looks like it will take me 85 walking days to get to Bluff. I only hope the snow holds off that long! If it doesn't I'll most likely be forced off the trail (I've no gear for or experience in snow), so I'll just have to take each day as it comes and be grateful for each day of decent weather I get.
Soon enough Kyla came home and we had a good catch up before making a proper plan to meet up with Josie for dinner. In the end we jumped in the car (Mila too), went to pick up Josie, stopped in at the Thai takeaway on the way home and then sat down to eat and chat and watch a movie. We couldn't decide what to watch but eventually settled on Magic Mike--it didn't look like my kind of film but I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out it was about nothing and we switched back to chatting. I also commandeered Kyla's kitchen to make a batch of chocolate brownies for desert.
After dropping Josie home we crashed into bed. Mila was at first keen to sleep in the guest room with me but I must wriggle too much as she soon abandoned me to go sleep on the couch.
No comments:
Post a Comment