Sunday 15th January 2017 Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre to Hope Kiwi Lodge 2060km – 2086km Day 78

A pretty disturbed sleep unfortunately, but at least I didn’t have any mice crawling over me. I went to sleep wearing my thermal top and this cooked me unfortunately, resulting in me waking up the first time.

I packed everything into the backpack and it was pretty bad and overly full. I have a couple of things hanging off the side and secured just in case they fall off.

The Tui Track starts just in front of the Outdoor Centre and follows the road for a kilometre before crossing it and spearing down across the grassy river flats towards the Boyle River. The orange markers lead me to a place where it directs you to cross, but I had doubts that it would be possible with the current flows. I ventured in a little bit to gauge the situation and quickly reversed back out. I traveled about 500m downstream and found a promising shoal and attempted the crossing here. It got a little difficult about 80% across, but I managed to keep everything under controls and cross reasonably comfortably. The track followed the river mainly across grassy flats and rocky sections until it came to the Doubtful River, once again I had to head upstream from the marked crossing to get across this one.

After this point the track climbed up above the river escarpment and wandered up and down where necessary. It hit a massive fenced off paddock and due to the locked gates and deer fencing the track is diverted around this precious paddock and it differs from the map linage shown. The track then joined up with the junction from Windy Point where it seems most people start the Hope Kiwi Track so as to avoid the river crossing.

The Hope Kiwi track was pretty pleasant and it wanders along the river flats and high up in the surrounding forests. In general it climbs higher rather than staying down on the flood prone areas. There were quite a few cows in this section and lots of cow poo, I wasn’t drinking any water from the streams in this section. There was a swing bridge over the Hope River before the track finally headed for the Hope Kiwi Lodge. The Lodge must’ve been a farmhouse of some sort dating back to when the flats were a farm or pastoral lease of some sort. The building is nothing like I have seen as a hut before and has been converted to a DOC Lodge. The concrete footpaths outside are original and show the premises have been around for a long time.

We have German tonight who I had to ask nicely not to light the fire as everyone would be sweating inside. He was going to do so to cook on as he has no stove, so I had to lend him my gas cooker to keep the peace. He has no DOC hut Pass or tickets either, but is more than happy to burn the wood at a serviced hut.

Also we have Estelle and Vincent whom I saw at the Blue Lake Hut briefly as they were staying in there tent by the lake. They have done some big days and hitched the section to Windy Point and caught back up to me. Another Frenchman Erwan is here as well, I have been slowly catching him up and he has just had two nights off trail in Hamner Springs to rest and resupply.

Unfortunately Erwan brings bad news about the weather closing in and rain on the way. The rain if it eventuates in large volumes will make some of the upcoming river valley sections difficult or impassible.