St Arnaud - Upper Travers Hut

Christmas Eve! We left St Arnaud early in the morning, ready for the most celebrated stretch of the entire Te Araroa. Nelson Lakes is home to the almost-mystical-in-their-reputation places like Blue Lake and Waiau Pass. With a plastic grocery bag of cookies and four pizzas stuffed inside one pizza box strapped on top of Toby’s backpack, we set off into the calm morning. Lake Rotoiti lay still and clear as glass, and we blazed along the dark forest Lakehead trail by the shores without speaking. We’d nailed 10 km before 09 in the morning. Finally we were at the unfathomably beautiful foot of the mountains.

The 14 km to John Tait Hut were magical. In bright sunshine we traversed through endless golden meadows filled with wildflowers and grass as tall as I am. Trees crept up all the way to the mountain tops. It was pleasantly warm, like proper summer, and we wandered along the banks of the crystal-clear Travers river. Without question the most stunning section of trails we’d seen so far. I couldn’t hold back little squeals at particularly fitting moments when the world was just too beautiful to digest.

We crossed the river back and forth over huge swing bridges, tracing the mossy beech forest banks where we enjoyed gummies from the alpine store and Toby had a swim. The only interruption occurred when we were scrambling over a fallen tree. Toby and Patrick cleared it, but Etienne and I both banged our shins really hard on the trunk. No biggie right? You’d think, but within half an hour it was still bleeding, and the surrounding skin was swelling up. I threw a bandage on it and pushed it to the back of my mind for the time being.

We reached John Tait Hut early in the afternoon. We’d planned on stopping there, but none of us were tired, and we’d heard Upper Travers Hut 7 km away was in a great location. Sleeping there would also put us in a better position to climb Travers Saddle the next day. John Tait hut lay in the woods on the edge of a meadow, and the skies had just clouded over. To my astonishment, the man sitting outside was none other than Dom – a possum hunter form the North Island that I’d met on the ferry to Picton. He never mentioned he’d be on the TA, but out of nowhere here he was! He immediately strapped on his tiny backpack and joined our party. We shared a packet of ginger nuts South had gifted me in St Arnaud and headed onwards.

There seemed to be an immediate air of apprehension between Toby and Dom. Those who can riddle me the male ego… They walked along stonily while I chatted to them intermittently. It culminated when we crossed a tiny bridge over a narrow canyon with a clear river flowing at the bottom. It was impossible to tell exactly how deep it was, but Dom insisted that he wanted to jump off the canyon wall. Toby looked glad to see his rival perish while I tried to persuade Dom it was a stupid-ass idea. To no avail, and we held our breath (and I filmed) as he threw himself down the canyon and landed with a spectacular splash and a thumbs up. He lived to tell the tale, but I’d had enough and walked on – leaving the fallen hero to get himself up from the canyon and get dressed.

We walked on under the grey sky. After gorging ourselves in town, we’d killed off two bags of wine gums already. Only the last kilometre before the hut did today really start to feel like work. Etienne especially was struggling. He’d lost a pane of his glasses and had problems with old sports injuries to his foot ligaments. I tempted with massages and encouragement. Coax and pull for the last of the 31 km.

Upper Travers hut, once in sight, became an instant object of adoration. Nestled in beech forest on the edge of a tussocked meadow pierced by a rushing creek, it lay crowned by a majestic mountain crest beneath Mount Travers. Unlike the lonesome Richmonds, the Nelson Lakes is heavily trafficked where it intersects with the famous Travers-Sabine circuit. The hut was crowded to the brim, and the four of us ended up sharing three top bunks. A sour-faced Dom crawled in just after our four-leaf clover returned from an icy wash in the river.

Upper Travers Hut - Blue Lake Hut

Nelson Lakes is hailed by the majority of TA hikers as the best section. Big, airy huts and fantastic landscape. So far I agree wholeheartedly. The Richmonds had some great views, but this stretch is beyond my vocabulary. Yesterday had been my favourite day on trail… until today. We left Upper Travers Hut in the early hours of the morning to climb the calf-killing Travers Saddle. The trail clung steeply to the edge of the basin, dewy tussock brushing against our legs as we climbed. It took us an hour to reach the saddle. Purple clouds evaporated steadily from the mountaintops and revealed blue sky. Another sunny day ahead! Toby being Toby ran up to one of the lower summits towards Mount Travers while Team Swiss and I sat munching Whittaker’s chocolate. It was freezing cold in the wind, and we opted to keep moving fast.

I don’t think my knees will ever forgive me for that hellish 1200m decent from Travers Saddle to West Sabine Hut. Can you tell how steep that is? The hut was at the bottom of the far valley, and the trail forced us to brace with legs, poles and soul. Just as we passed the treeline, Etienne – who was in the lead – turned to us with an alarmed expression. “Daaaaamn!”

“What’s going on?” Patrick almost walked into me after Etienne’s sudden stop.

“I left my underwear in the hut!”

We stood dumbstruck for a second before keeling over with laughter. It was all I could do to not pee myself for the second time in less than a week! Etienne suffered from bad rash in his groin from all the sweating and chafing, and spent considerable time attending to it with baby powder in the hut bivvies each night. He had hung his boxers out to air at Upper Travers, where they now remained on the porch to greet every new hiker. He had no choice but to go commando for the rest of the stretch. We hiked onwards merrily through the beach forest, snorting with laughter every time someone would imitate Etienne’s signatory “Daaaaamn!”.

We reached the lovely West Sabine Hut to enjoy our lunch under the dazzling sun. It was just as sweltering both inside and out, so we sat on the deck to air out our socks. I peeled off the band aid patch covering the sore I’d gotten from yesterday’s incident with the log, and felt my mouth go dry. The wound wasn’t better. On the contrary, it was bigger, swollen and weeping. Shit! No way I was going to get sepsis out here, and I bit my lip as I dabbed the wound firmly with alcohol swabs. I decided my best bet was to leave it uncovered and let the sun dry it out. Etienne’s shin wasn’t looking much better, and we concluded that the tree trunk was poisonous. How about a sign advertising “Want a helicopter ride? Scrape yourself here!”

Coming away from West Sabine Hut, with a throbbing shin and swollen feet, I thought back to El and her hiking philosophy. I decided to saunter the stretch up to Blue Lake Hut for all I was worth. So for the rest of the afternoon under the huge New Zealand sky, I walked slow enough to hardly break a sweat, running my hand along the trunks of beech trees, listening to the sound of the rushing Travers river. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed the act of hiking so much! Everyone took it easy, wandering the soft moss and stony banks of the river in easy strides. Tiny butterflies fluttered around the ruffled alpine daisies growing along the side of the trail. Mountains leaned in all around us, the sun shone splendidly, and I felt like the luckiest person alive.

This hiking life combines the ultimate adventure, freedom and simplicity. You’re logging a heavy pack up steep gradients for 8 hours a day, but you are also free to do whatever you want along the way. In the last few km before Blue Lake Hut, I discovered a calm spot in the river with a grassy bank to sit on. I stripped naked and dove right in, squealing at the cold. After grappling with wet merino underwear I sat and waited for Etienne to join me, and we shared a block of chocolate to enjoy with the silence. We walked the last mile together, gaping at the crystalline river and the gooey algae growing in clumps at the bottom.

At Blue Lake Hut we grabbed the last bunks and set off to explore Blue Lake, which lay just up the trail. The hut was swarming with activity. The Nelson Lakes track intersects with the heavily trafficked Travers Sabine Circuit, and Blue Lake is a major attraction. The clearest freshwater lake in the world, it is a sacred site to the Maori and it is forbidden to swim in it. I could just barely hold back from touching it, it remains one of the most stunning sights I’ve ever seen in the wild. Look at it! With over 60 m visibility underwater, it didn’t even look real as it lay like an ultramarine gem nestled in the grand mountainscape. This is where life is. We tanned for hours on the narrow shores framed by fuzzy green beech forest, our eyes magnetically glued to the rippling blue lake surface.

For 18 months I had envisioned living these days. Now that I was here, I realised that even my wildest fantasies couldn’t capture this kind of beauty. “How wild it was… to let it be!”

Blue Lake Hut

Introducing some discord into our world of harmony. Today was supposed to be the day we climbed Waiau Pass, perhaps the most famous stretch of the entire Te Araroa. However, large rainclouds loomed on the horizon. Our experience with the Rintoul mountains in the Richmond Ranges had cautioned us, we weren’t about to embark on another blind journey across treacherous mountain terrain. We had enough food to spare for an extra day, so we decided to stay on at Blue Lake Hut for another night. Hiking parties came and went, but many decided to stay put like us.

How I hated the guts of the postman in St Arnaud who had lost my resupply box containing Into the Wild. I was desperate for entertainment, we had absolutely nothing to do except wander around the hut aimlessly. Toby, being eager to rid himself of his absurdly large supply of crappy energy bars traded me five of them in exchange for half of my Whittaker chocolate stick. I’ve always been prone to boredom overeating, and after nibbling down three bars I felt sugar-poisoned to the bone. Sigh.

Going up to Blue Lake in the bad weather wasn’t exactly tempting, so I settled for listening to The Savage Lovecast and frequent naps. God, I bore myself just recollecting this day. I was desperate to get back out there and hike – I longed to see the iconic Lake Constance glittering at the bottom of the basin whilst savouring the victory of having reached Waiau Pass (this very image features on most covers of TA-guides I’ve read). The elevation profile on Guthook promised a real challenge, but after the Richmonds nothing could phase us.

 Blue Lake Hut - Waiau Hut via Waiau Pass

Today is the day. The skies looked like they couldn’t quite make up their mind, but we were running out of food. There was nothing for it, we had to traverse Waiau Pass today. We stepped out of the hut and headed up the stony trail. Christ! It was icy cold, our breath came in puffs around us. Up and up we went, past Blue Lake, onto the next outcrop, through patchy forest and soggy tussock.

That’s when it started to snow. The skies were blue, and still it snowed. What in the world… We’d all read the DOC warnings of snow occurring year-round in high alpine areas, but come on, this is New Zealand in summer! We’d been sweating for over two weeks now! But snow it did, so thickly that we could hardly see the far shore of Lake Constance. It wasn’t like snow at home, where thick flakes would come down in sheets from a grey sky. No, this snow was fine and glittery, falling almost like rain as we battled up the crazy steep banks of the lake. The scree had no discernible trail, but we either had to go up or swim across the huge lake. We tripped over tussock and desperately tried to warm our fingers in our armpits. The cold was numbing, we lost the feeling in our feet. To hell with it. We were from Norway, Switzerland and Canada. Mountain people. We had to make a shelter now or freeze.

Who knew that the Swiss spaceship tent would come to the rescue? How beautifully ironic that the beached whale we’d made fun of for weeks would end up saving us. We set it up on the stony and flat south shore of Lake Constance, battling the fierce wind to fix the guylines. Fitting four people inside was a beastly tight squeeze, but with all of us spooning one another we managed by a hair. Snow pelted down on the tent. An hour went by. Then two. I knew we were in deep shit. There was no way we’d get over Waiau Pass in these conditions. The thought of turning back and exiting the park through the Travers Sabine Circuit was devastating. Suddenly nature felt hostile, this dream of the trail so fragile. I felt very, very small.

Then Patrick went out to pee. I’d buried my head in Toby’s chest and looked up to see a big smile across Patrick’s face. “Come outside” he beckoned. And will you believe it. It was like the storm never happened! Lake Constance surface glistened calmly, sunshine streamed down, blinding us as we tumbled out in delirious joy. Only a faint sprinkling of snow on the mountaintops revealed that morning’s troubles. We lunched in the vestibules, willing our socks to dry out in the still cold air. We dismantled camp and made our way across the wide basin towards the intimidating-looking pass. There was just scree so steep you had to crane your neck all the way back to see the top of it. But I’d never felt such energy.

My calves burned as I pushed straight up the mountain, thinking back to Glen Pass on the John Muir Trail with its dainty switchbacks. Waiau Pass offered no such leniency, but we were flying all the same. The white stones gleamed up at us before they gave away to alpine tussock and mountain outcrops. This was it, time to turn around.

I looked out over the stunning valley backdrop, Lake Constance gleaming like a sapphire straight out of all the Youtube videos I’d watched so hungrily for 18 months. Everything I’d dreamed of back when I sat rotting in university was all around me, the beloved trail beneath my feet. I am walking into my life.

Reaching the top of the pass high on adrenaline surpassed Fort William, Mount Whitney, every graduation and award I’d ever earned. Climbing Waiau had taken an hour, but somehow also seven years since I’d first discovered New Zealand. The journey spanned across a whole universe of existence. The four of us whooped with joy, hugging each other and celebrating with chocolate and selfies. Right there and then we were the coolest people in the world.

The southern side was equal parts mind-blowingly steep and beautiful. We inched our way down, our minds already swept clean by that morning’s drama. Slippery rocks led down into a lush green basin speckled with small waterfalls and wildflowers. I felt like I’d lived three days packed into one. Coming down towards the bottom of the valley we navigated several river crossings, and I nimbly hopped on the stones, determined to not get my boots wet. We came to a particularly daunting crossing. Toby and Etienne charged over like bulls while Patrick and I, the smaller humans, stood whining at the jump. The big boys rolled a boulder over the edge of the bank into the river, drowning us in a spectacular splash that left us wetter than we would have been wading over the river. We laughed so hard I almost fell right in…!

How long this day had been, and yet I felt I could keep hiking forever. The four of us hiked side by side, spread out in the golden grass of the great valley. Shadows grew long until they engulfed the valley floor. At long last we caught sight of the small but perfect Waiau Hut at the far end of a great meadow, nestled against the edge of the forest. The hut had opened only a few months before and was squeaky clean. Gobbling down my freeze-dried butter chicken in the unbelievably cosy Waiau Hut, I felt extremely content. There wasn’t a single thing I would have changed about my life in that very moment. This day had taken us from the lowest low to the highest high. My body felt smashed but so accomplished. Please go hiking, readers. There is nothing better in this world!

 Waiau Hut - Anne Hut

Woke up to an emotional hangover, and spent the soft grey morning adjusting my creaking joints back into hiking mode. I set out alone and picked my way across dewy meadows, along the soft banks of shallow rivers interwoven with patches of trees. The clouds teased around, but I knew they would lift – they always do here.

Out of the last grouping of trees I came upon a 4WD track that shot straight ahead for as far as the eye could see. Ever since Ship Cove, I’d never been able to actually see the trail in a straight line, there was always an inlet or a mountain to navigate around. The valley spread out before me in a thousand shades of ochre and green. Ada Homestead, a small farm with grazing horses lay off to the right in a secluded pocked beneath snowy mountains. Far ahead I could see Toby as a tiny dot in the high grass. I raced along towards the grand vista, plugging in the best tunes I know from Into the Wild. Green mountains rose up into the blue sky, the only sound apart from my footsteps was a soft wind that tossed my hair around playfully.

Blankets of flowers coated the ground, caressing my ankles as I swept by them. I could have been the only person in the world. The songs in my ears carried me faster than I knew it was possible to hike until I was almost running. I flung out my arms and tilted my head back to shout indistinguishable happy sounds into the sky. I spun and laughed and danced and could only gasp in awe and gratitude of living in this day.

As I felt my pulse beat in tune to the humming of every blade of grass in the golden mountain valley, I knew that I was experiencing one of the happiest moments of my life. This kind of overwhelming joy that penetrates each cell in your body doesn’t come along many times over the course of the years. The feeling of absolute harmony with nature, rushing adrenaline and dancing to my favourite songs carried such a weight of extraordinariness that I felt the purpose of embarking on this trail become realised in that very moment. This is it. This is what I have been looking for, for what feels like all my life. This is freedom, happiness, love. This is everything.

I felt light as a feather, pack and all. This was simply effortless. Everything that had held me down or hurt me was being washed away with every step I took toward the magnetic pull of Bluff. It wasn’t so much gravity that tied me to the world, but this trail. How had I known back then that this would save me? I could never tell you. But carrying myself and my pack and my heart and my head over now 400-something km was the most purposeful thing I had ever done in my life.

Toby had his own music plugged in and almost had a heart attack when I jumped on him from behind. He was astounded I’d caught up to him, we laughed and fell down into the yellow grass to have lunch in the sun. The trail turned up to the right where prickly bushes dotted its flanks. Sticky honey on sticky peanut butter on flaky tortillas. Half-melted Snickers for dessert. I was beginning to feel the stingy stomach cramps that inevitably come after almost three weeks of being powered by 100% carbs and sugar. Whereas before I’d dreamed of burgers and pizza, my number one priority in Hanmer Springs would be probiotic yogurt and vegetables.

Anne Hut was absurdly large and lay plopped randomly down in a side valley where the meadows began rolling into forests again. Etienne and Patrick burst in over three hours behind us, by then Toby and I were on the brink of walking back to look for them. We enjoyed the company of two middle aged Kiwi women and bunkered up in our own room, a rat’s nest of stinky sleeping bags and cosiness. To think that tomorrow would be our last day on this stretch – the last of Nelson Marlborough! It would be a long chunk, over 30 km. But the terrain ahead was easy, no more mountains, so we would smack two day stretches into one. Today’s 26 km had gone by in a breeze. We set our alarms for 05 and prepared for race day. Tomorrow was our home stretch, and we were ready to smash all our previous speed records. After all, we’d earned our cockiness through and through.

 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.

Hanmer Springs

Our two zero days were utter bliss. Two days off + the half day on the day we arrived was, admittedly, a little overboard. We weren’t that tired. But we had hiked faster than we’d anticipated, and our future bookings at resupply locations would all have to be changed if we kept up the speed. Also, New Year’s Eve should be spent in town if possible, some bubbles and civilisation are required! Hanmer Springs was bustling with tourists, our accomodation was really pricey due to the influx of people gathering in town for NY celebrations. We raided the Four Square supermarket on arrival, I cannot possibly describe the bliss of eating vanilla yoghurt topped with blackberries and fresh peaches after three weeks of stale energy bars.

So what did we do in Hanmer? We ate. And ate more. Of course hikers will eat a lot during their town stays - finally you have access to everything you crave without having to carry and ration it for a week. However, the amounts we ate we just… preposterous. We’d snack all day, then have lunch and dinner out too. I felt 5 kgs heavier each day, after having gotten pretty skinny in the Richmonds. I just couldn’t stop. The compulsion to binge until my stomach lining screamed was like an irrepressible instinct, regardless of the fact that we’d had plenty of food in Nelson Lakes. I like to think of Hanmer as the end of my toned hiking self and the start of my chunky hiking self.

We spent hours chilling in the hot springs for which Hanmer is famous. Clear water filled the not-so-great-smelling stone pools, green vegetation made it feel like we were in an expensive resort. I didn’t have any swimwear and had to purchase a bathing suit… that was so expensive I felt like I couldn’t get rid of it - and ended up carrying it all the way to Bluff! Still have it.

I wrote out the missing pieces of my journal inbetween fixing our resupply for the next stretch and mending my torn-up boots with dental floss. The Let’s Trek It blogs couldn’t possibly have been written in such detail as they are without me keeping a daily journal. The highlights are easy to remember, but it is the moods I want to capture. Thoughts, feelings, intentions - not just the landscape. These flashes of meaning would inevitably get lost over time, but writing a journal entry every day preserves them and allows me to share my journeys in vivid detail. All the daily blogs you read here stand almost in their entirety as they were written during my days on the trail, titles included. Coming up with the daily titles is one of the most fun parts of writing, the cultured of you will recognise many from songs, poems, books and art.

The reason why this entry is titled “The End of an Era” is because our group as it had been since day 1 on the Queen Charlotte Track would end here. Etienne was leaving. The Te Araroa was Patrick’s dream and project, he would go all the way to the sea. But Etienne had to go home to begin his military service before he went off to medical school. He planned on enjoying New Zealand from the comfort of a bus with KiwiTours for a couple of weeks, ticking off boxes like Lake Tekapo and Queenstown - still hundereds of kilometres away for us on foot. We would miss him a lot. I felt sorry for Patrick who was now essentially on his own. Even though the four of us always spent the nights together in camp, Toby and I would usually hike out together because our speeds matched more, while Patrick and Etienne would form the second pair. Hiking alone can feel liberating and has much greater potential for introspection, but the team feeling we had cultivated was so jolly, we were united in mission and spirit. Saying goodbye to Etienne was hard, and put a real dampener on the festive spirits going into 2018. Not much fireworks going on in a mountain town either. We gave one another one last hug before crawling into bed, ready for our next regional section: Canterbury.