Day 8

20km / 9.5 hours

This was a brutal day, the longest yet. It began with a brutally timed heavy shower that made my tent damp and caused me trouble packing my gear. Then the actual track was a typical NZ tramping track: muddy and in the forest. I was actually excited for this since the last days were pretty unusual but this was a level above.

I started off as early as possible given a pause to the rain showers but not as early as I would have preferred. The track went upwards quite a distance before requiring a descent, the highest point was over 700m above sea level which doesn’t sound impressive but for this area it is quite a lot and the height causes rainfall so the track is incredibly muddy.

What makes the mud so difficult is that it’s not always obvious how deep it is so you can put your foot in a spot which seems good only to have to wrestle your whole foot out, preferably with the shoe attached. If you try to avoid the mud then you’re often stepping on slippery tree roots or taking similarly uncomfortable alternatives which can leave you slipping over and falling into the mud. This happened to me once which was unfortunate but once I got the hang of things it was manageable, although still extremely slow going on both the ascents and descents to make progress.

Getting out of the forest after the hours of long slog was incredible, it was fairly late in the day but still hugely worth pushing through to get to the campsite and washing off the copious mud that lathered my boots and around my legs as well as bits in other places. Even though it was a difficult day it was still a very enjoyable one.