Boyle Village - Hope Halfway Hut

After so many highs I suppose it is only fair that some lows came along too. There was tangibly less adrenaline now that Etienne had left, the stunning Nelson Lakes was past, and my body was starting to feel the wear. Every day now would be farther than I’d ever hiked before. We were off to a bad start: on our way out from Hanmer, I realised that my expensive Katadyn Be Free water filter was gone. Lost. Maybe in Quinn’s car on the hitch there, I don’t know. But I cursed myself for losing such an essential gear item. Now I was completely dependent on Toby and his Sawyer filter, and I could no longer collect water on the go whenever I needed. Fuck.

Hanmer was pretty dead in the grey morning on New Year’s Day. We got a hitch with an adventurous river kayaker named Hillary, who dropped us off back at Boyle at 10 AM.

New section, new possibilities. The trail winded through tall grass between thorny thickets, always dipping into boggy pits. After the wet feet shitshow into Boyle I was adamant that I’d do everything in my power to keep my precioussssss toesies dry. It was overcast and humid, and I could seemingly feel my old blisters slumbering beneath the surface ready to sabotage me at any moment. We crossed a rapidly flower 20m wide river, I whimpered in pain on the hard rocks – boots in hand in a last effort to salvage them. To no avail, as I slipped majestically into a stream right on the other side and soaked them through. *Insert roar of frustration*. Suddenly I hated this insidious wet and thorny trail! My stupid feet were painfully swollen, my backpack was record heavy, and panting onwards to reach Arthur’s Pass by January 6th seemed meaningless.

Patrick came up behind us as we sat down to have a superb lunch overlooking a braided river valley. A dead possum nearby stank to high heaven, and he walked on and disappeared in the bushes. We wouldn’t see him again for a long time. Alas, not even a great lunch could lift my spirits, the trail just didn’t seem familiar and inviting the way it had before. We called it a day at Hope Halfway Hut, 7 km short of the original target (to future hikers: please keep going). A grim-looking and mute hunter sat inside the spide-den hut, we quickly decided to give him a wide berth.

And then there were two. We sat frying in the afternoon sun outside our tents, eating cookies and drinking tea. Toby is just one of those people who gives more than he takes. I never needed to ask for help before he offered. On one hand I craved some privacy after weeks of being attached at the hip to him & the Swiss boys, but now that I was struggling… Toby would always wait, help, soothe, inspect, hug and guide through every rough patch of my moods. My plan had always been to do this trek alone – and I was still going solo by many accounts – but having Toby to share everything from thoughts to cherry tomatoes with made everything easier.

I wrote this journal entry in the dim sunset light until it got too dark to go on. Our tents were perched under a massive fir in the meadow by the hut. I thought about why I was there. To improve myself, ultimately. The last section had been such a wild ride that I guess it’s only natural for an anti-climax to follow. This stretch would bring much easier terrain and fewer mountains, flattening out the emotional highs too.