TA Day 26: Monday 13 January 2025

South of Tekapo Canal - Lake Tekapo (Scott Street)

This morning was calm. Everybody slept for a long time, and then the others had a slow breakfast before leaving. We left last. Still no sign of Caleb.

Today we walked ALLLLL day along the canal, so not a very interesting day. We listened to podcasts the whole day. What made the day interesting was that, a few hours in, we could see some hikers in the distance, and as we got closer we realised it was Lulu, Jules, Rose - and Caleb!

As we tried to catch up to them, a bike suddenly stopped by us. But not just any biker, it was Barry! He had rented a bike (an e-bike even) to bike from Twizel to Lake Tekapo. For two main reasons: a rash that was causing issues so he needed a break from hiking, and to catch up to us 🤗

Unfortunately Ryuya wanted to walk, and was still one day behind us.

While he biked beside us, we caught up to Caleb and Rose. Apparently Caleb had passed our campsite late in the evening and kept walking, and then the others had caught up to him in the morning.

We sped past them, and past Lulu and Jules as well, and Barry continued his bike ride.

We walked alone again with our podcasts, until we had a lunch break by the side of the road, and the others caught up to us again and we walked together to Tekapo. There we sat down outside the store together and had sodas, ice cream and just had a good time.

While there, we also met a SOBO SI hiker that we have talked to, and followed on Instagram for some time - Ralf Polke! It was nice to finally get to meet.

Unfortunately we still hadn't decided where to stay for the night. At first we thought we'd stay at the campsite, but Barry was in a nice AirBnB, and it just seemed so nice! So in the end we ended up paying for a nice AirBnB too. It cost us about 2009 SEK, but oh my god was it nice! We just wished we would have had more time to actually enjoy the place. Here we had everything we wanted - big nice bed, kitchen, washer, shower, private toilet etc.

So after buying some food from Barry we just hung out in our room and had a good time 🥰 First time in a proper bed since Riverton...

Today's:

Distance: 26.10 km

Ascent: 137 m

Descent: 78 m

Tent nights: 17/26

Weather: Cloudy morning, sunny and hot, some wind