Anne Hut - Boyle Village

We were half asleep but still giddy as our alarms pierced the dark night. Some fumbling around as I pushed Etienne off the edge of my sleeping bag. We’d grown to resemble a litter of puppies, sleeping in a crumpled heap, sharing everything (not least the smell). In line with tradition, team Swiss took longer than team Norway/Canada to get ready. Toby and I each slurped down our two instant packets of oatmeal in the beam of light from our headlamps before setting out into the predawn greyish hue.

It was incredibly cold. The mountainscape that had surrounded us since we crossed the Pelorus River was gone, replaced by clumps of forest, lower hills and rolling meadows. My boots were full of holes from the hard terrain that no amount of dental floss could patch up, and my feet were soaked within 10 minutes of leaving Anne Hut. The grass was dripping with dew, and we constantly sank into boggy puddles. I cursed at the marshy footing because I could no longer escape my ultimate nemesis: blisters. My feet are my babies on any trail, I spend more time taking care of them than your average teenage girl spends applying makeup in the morning. But there was nothing I could do about the disaster underfoot, and the raw patches only got worse as the sun finally rose.

Toby and I marched on in silence through a small beach forest, over the not-worthy-of-its-mighty-name Anne Saddle (not really a saddle), and arrived at Boyle Flat Hut before 10. Half the stretch done. We woke up two serious-looking dudes who’d spent the night there with our stomping up the hut stairs. The last sticky honey and jam packets made up our breakfast, our packs felt so light after we’d eaten ourselves down to their baseweight. I worried about my feet but tried distracting myself by steering our conversation to the raunchiest topics possible, laughing as Toby squirmed at my prying questions. We came to the edge of a forest and were smacked in the face by a glorious view of grazing cattle, a line of planted poplar trees and distant mountains. Toby collapsed in zen-like euphoria while I sucked on a Whittaker chocolate stick like a cigar for distraction.

Man, I needed to sit down soon. 25+ km in, Toby was somewhere ahead. As I was walking down a narrow section trail in a gorge, I suddenly heard a loud swoop, saw earth and sky tumble around me, and before I knew what was going on I was lying on my back in the dust. Jesus Christ, I hadn’t even had time to fear for my poor vertebrae! ...well y’all, this is me making a case for non-ultralight backpacking! Those flimsy fannypacks won’t do you much good when you find yourself flipped over like a pancake. My darling Osprey Aura saved my scraggly body from broken bones or worse, all I could do was crawl back up and grunt with laughter at the absurdity of the whole situation.

Despite the beauty of the rivers, beech forest and gloriously sunny day, my mind was fixed on my feet. It felt like I was walking on knives. Six blisters in total, stabbing underneath layers of hapla band and Compeed pads. Fuck, I was so ready to be done. Nature be damned, give me clean sheets! The sky somehow grew bigger and a little less wild-looking as we finally entered the last stretch of track towards Boyle. I was beyond ready to fondle my precious resupply box (boxboxbox, omnomnom). Car park. Cars! Buildings! CIVILISATION! I stumbled into Boyle Outdoor Education Centre without a trace of badass-outdoorsy groove, arms flailing, hair plastered to my face. 32 kilometres before 14.00. That speaks to the magnetic power of town!

I sank down on a shaded bench to the dissonant melody of my joints creaking. Shoved the whole newly-acquired Magnum ice cream into my mouth like a gross child, loudly slurping up the runny vanilla. This was the epitome of smashed-ness. I vaguely overheard Toby and the Boyle woman talk about Hanmer Spring being fully booked, but pushed it to the back of my mind. There’s always something. “Alt ordner seg for snille jenter” as we say back at home. I looked down at my scraped, blistered legs. Poor babies. Such troopers they’d been for three weeks now, they deserved a good long rest in town.

Patrick and Etienne were surprisingly fast today, coming in only 15 minutes behind us. Walking down the driveway to the highway and sticking out a thumb seemed like a super-human effort, we were all basically slipping in our own sweat. Bless the young buck, Quinn, who screeched his tiny red car to a halt in front of us. There was no way we’d all fit... But he would have none of it. “Come on guys, just push it in there!”, he shouted merrily, throwing himself on top of his trunk lid to slam it shut over our packs. We obeyed sheepishly, stuffing our stinky bodies together in the back seat. The sunny road to Hanmer was pure bliss: I hung out the window like a dog while Quinn chatted happily about the New Zealand economy.

Drop-off at intersection, stuck thumb out anew. Picked up by Air New Zealand pilot who drove us to tourist-swamped Hanmer Springs. Four Square Supermarket Mecca! After some intense bargaining at the i-Site we were all lodged in various housing. Peach-flavoured paradise. Longest shower of life. Fresh sheets. Droooooooool.