TA Day 39

TA Day 39: Sunday 26 January 2025

Locke Stream Hut - Hurunui Hut

We woke up to the sound of rain on the tin roof. None of us slept well, so we were tired when we woke up.

We had our breakfast in the hut, and when we were ready to leave, the rain had stopped. Just like Jan had said. This is the second time in a short time that he has been right about the weather, which we of course started to joke about.

It surprised us how easy the trail was, since we had heard some bad stuff from other hikers about this part of the trail. Very strange! There were some big steps here and there and sometimes scrambling, but pretty much all of it was just regular walking. Kim set a nice and steady pace for the uphill towards the saddle. As we got closer, the sun was making its way through - just like Jan had said. The forest had looked much worse with 3 mm/hour rain, and more rain the afternoon.

But even though the trail was good, we didn't really progress more than 3 km/hour. But we wanted to make progress today, and we wanted to take a break by the hot spring we would pass in the afternoon, so we only did a quick lunch stop in Hurunui no 3 Hut to take some shelter from the rain that had just started. There were plenty of people in the hut, and it was hard not to dwell too long there.

But we got going, and soon we were there! But of course, Kim managed to slip on the

steep way up to the spring and hurt her right shoulder, the same as she hurt last time she fell as well. This made Kim quite sad and made it even more difficult to enjoy the spring.

But it was really cool seeing the mist coming from the hot water in the forest. Unfortunately there was a crazy amount of sandflies there, so we just threw our clothes on the ground and got in. Lukas didn't think it was bad at all, but there was slimy things floating around in the water and being in the water Kim thought it made the skin feel a bit slimy, so she didn't want to stay long at all. A quick dip and that was good. Then we put on our clothes quickly before we got eaten by hungry sandflies.

Jan arrived just when we were done, and he seemed to like it a lot!

Meanwhile, we continued. On the way to the hut we found a geocache, and in the hut - one of the nicer ones so far, we met a Norwegian girl. So of course we had to talk Norway and Norge på langs with her.

Today's:

Distance: 26.59 km

Ascent: 693 m

Descent: 558 m

Tent nights: 27/39

Weather: Cloudy, sunny, cloudy and then showers