Day 22: Hanmer to Boyle Village to Hope Kiwi Hut

29km, 9 hours.

It was day, 22. We woke tired. We decided to have a late start with us all feeling unmotivated and we said, we'd set off at about nine. We weren't in the mood but we all had to do it. All in the same dorm room and all whining, 'Why can't we have another day just to sleep because our rest day wasn't a rest day'. Except for Laura who had rejoined us and was ready raring to go.

The four of us, Chris, Conny, Laura, and I had to hitch hike back to Boyle village where we had hitched from two days earlier to rejoin the trail. The problem was hitchhiking with four people - it's quite hard. So we decided to split up into twos and Laura and I left the others and headed down to locate ourselves at the driveway of the top 10 holiday park. Thinking it might be a way of catching the leaving tourists. Hoping to get some tourists with camper vans that we might be able to fit in. We were there almost an hour and no one was stopping. No one was stopping for Conny and Chris up in the main street either. It was very disheartening after van after van past us and just waved. It was cold and spitting rain and we knew the longer we had to get a ride the longer our hiking day will be.

Then this older man out on his morning walk walks past us. Your typical Kiwi out walking in stubbies and a Canterbury jumper, not at all rugged up like we were, freezing. As he walked past us he commented 'no one picking you up?'. And we jokingly said, 'are you a local by any chance? And would you happen to have a car that you could drop us down at the state highway junction?'

With a little umming and ahhing, he goes, oh yeah i can do that for you I'll just have to walk back home and grab the car. Before he did that, I said, oh, would you mind, we've got another two friends up the road also and he said no, that's fine. I signal for Conny and Chris to come down and meet us. Five minutes later

We all jump in with Marty the crop farmer from Ashburton. Well, he was so friendly. He said his wife asked him why he was back from his walk so soon and he said 'im just going to drop some strangers at the junction!' and laughed.

He dropped us off at the state highway but not before I quickly asked how Environment Canterbury and their farm plans and land and water plans were doing. He told me that he's just done his farm plan and he got an A for it. So, good on him. He dropped us off for us to then try and get another hitchhike back up to Boyle Village but he did a u-turn and headed back and then all of a sudden pulled over again and reversed back, jumped out of the car and excitedly yells across the highway 'i didn't get a selfie!'. Marty then ran over and we took a selfie on his phone and then another one on my phone and thanked him again. What a great bloke.

Now alongside the highway, we split up again to try our luck. Again, no one was pulling over for us. Laura and I decided to head up to where there was a bit of a shoulder on the side of the road, so that cars could pull over safely. We had thought maybe theres some sort of psychology to picking up hitchhikers. If they see Conny and Chris and then they don't pull over for them but then they're like, oh, should we have pulled over? Do we pull over? and then they see us maybe they'll pull over. But who should be the one to pull over for us on the shoulder, a truck driver with a b double.

I laughed! I run down to him and then had to clamber up into the cab to ask, whether he would mind, taking us a half hour up the road? I look in the cab and notice there was a bed in the cabin, it was huge. So i was like, do you reckon we could squeeze all four of us in and he was like, ohhh yeah, come on.

So I again signal for Conny and Chris to come and we all hilariously pass all our back packs up into the cab and climb on in. I'm sure 5 people in a 2 seater truck cabin isn't legal but we didn't care, we were now on a journey with truck driver Dale. Dale had just started the job this week and had just driven down from Napier to Christchurch the day before and was on his way, back up to Nelson.

We're all sitting there crammed in, happy as anything, excited. We're all in a truck for the first time. It was like kids being put into a fire engine. All admiring the cab, asking about the controls and how hard it is to drive one of these things. I learnt it does cost $1500 to fill up with Diesel. The whole 30 minute journey we just couldn't believe it. We'd all keep looking at each other and laugh, it was just so surreal. Never did any of us ever envisage hitching in a semi on the Te Araroa.

What made me chuckle was it was a Kenworth truck so i did tell them about mums Kenwood/ Kenworth mixer story. Where her Kenwood kitchen mixmaster broke down and somehow she called Kenworth trucks instead of Kenwood and has a chat to the lady about her machine breaking down and how they'd need to organise a tow truck to pick it up before mum realising this can't be right. Connys like my mom had a kenwood exactly like that, too!

We then get dropped off at Boyle Village where we walked out of two days ago, Dale blows his truck horn goodbye to us as he continues and we started the 10 km hike up to windy point. It was horrible. It was through swampy mud in the riverbed. Our clean clothes were filthy within 10 minutes, our shoes well wet from a river crossing. There was gorse, there was bracken, there was thistles. My legs got cut up so badly but i guess this is the TA. I spied some deer legs in the grass that had been left by a hunter and commented it was probably our Horse Man when he came through.

After a long boring 10km we hit the hope kiwi track. I had in my mind that it would be an easy walk or i think maybe we just decided that it was going to be an easy walk but it certainly wasn't.

It was undulating. Full of mu I had done this walk before but I had completely forgotten about the uphills. It's funny how your mind erases the bad parts. This was the walk that I first learnt about the TA so it was kind of nice doing full circle with Laura. Again, as we both did this walk in 2015 or 2014.

I just had my music in today to help get me through. I downloaded some new new music and already regretted my choice, stuck with it for 6 days now.

I must admit my legs were tired today. i think maybe just having a day off and then your body's trying to relax. I don't think my bodies ever worked so hard! I'm hoping that by tomorrow, it comes good. We are all hoping that.

It was a lovely overcast day and the perfect temperature for hiking. The rain held off, it was just spitting. I dropped down out of the bush onto the river flats and came face to face with a herd of cows that I very much startled and i got stuck in between so I was a little frightened with that, imagine surviving the Richmond Ranges and then Waiau Pass and then being taken out by a bull. We made it through one by one all okay.

We finally got to Hope Kiwi Hut at 630pm. There were a couple of people already there and this is what I find the coolest: the hiker community, because of that hut intentions book, you get to see names. I've seen Yumi, this Japanese ladies entry in every book. She's always a day or two ahead but her entries always make me smile and think, this girl must be nice just from her comments and emojis she draws in.

When I walked into the hut, I saw an Asian lady and I got excited and said to myself, it's Yumi! I asked her in Japanese if she was Japanese and she was shocked that I knew it. She is from Tokyo but hasn't lived there for 20 years. lives in NZ now but had spent many years in Germany. I point to Chris and say Chris is from Germany and then they said something in German to each other. I can't tell you how much I loved that. Then another Kiwi guy in the hut said he also spent time in Japan and knows Japanese too. So, i got to practice my japanese with Yumi. You never know when it comes in handy! The language part got even better.

A French guy who goes by the Trail name of Ghost was there and there was also a man from the Yukon in Canada. So they were speaking French. There was just so many cross country/ language things happening in that hut that it made me really appreciate travel. It made me realise how important it is even to just learn a tiny bit of the language of whereever you're going because it breaks down barriers! Even in an English speaking country, even when out remote in a backcountry hut in the south island of new Zealand.

The french guy I remembered him from Mid wairoa hut. It was late in the afternoon. It was new year's eve and this guy with tattooed arms comes flying in and then decides not to stay and continues on. He wrote in that hut book that his name was ghost and so we've been watching where ghost goes because he's just quick and he just flies through. And then when i saw him here, i was like this can't be because he was days ahead of me, but i'm like, i'm sure it's ghost and then sure enough, it's ghost.

So we've all had a catch up because they know the German lady, we took over the mountain, they've been hiking with david and brent and Tim. So it's really cool that everyone kind of pieces bits together. Like you just feel, you know everyone because everyone Knows other people on trail.

We've got a big couple of days ahead of us. Really every day is big but tomorrow, we have hot springs along the way. It's really really cool being back in Hurunui, i feel like i know the area so well or it just kind of feels like i'm back home or in a safe familiar place. It's a weird feeling to describe. It's like you've come back home. I am just out walking in a field at the moment. It's still light but everyone's asleep. The toilet at Hope Kiwi Hut is another one to be desired. There's a sign written on the toilet door saying that this is The king sand fly toilet. And then I go in and it was just filled with cobwebs and sand flies and mosquitoes. The sign was certainly right. Sometimes it's just easier to go out in the field.

When we caught up with Brent and David the other night, We had told them that they needed to start being creative with their comments in the hut books because they always just write 'long day, great hut'. We made it a point that they need to start writing us either letters, comments, motivational quotes, or jokes. So the first hut we come to today, David's comment was'too many hazys...' and he was correct. Very correct. We had too many hazy IPAs at the irish pub, but luckily for us at least we had a day off when he had to walk the 29km.

Brent is now giving us fun facts when we got to this hut. Was that a person is stabbed every 20 minutes in london? Which is a great one to start in in a hut book. When people coming forward are like, who the heck is brent?

Today has been a lot of fun as per usual.

It's just been one of those days where you can't even anticipate anything that has happened and i think that's what i love the most is that we just got to get to a certain point, but how we get there and what happens along the way is anyone's guess. It's been really cool getting to know Conny and Chris and Jennie a bit more. We said goodbye to Jennie this morning because she's having a rest day and we probably won't see her again, which is sad. As much as it is a community, you lose people all the time because they go on ahead and whether you run into them again, you just never know...

Ren x