Day 25: Kiwi Hut to Goat Pass Hut - best day ever

33km, 9hours

Best day ever. Is it possible to have a day where you just feel like it is one of the best days of your life? Today felt like this and I'm not sure why it was but everything just felt right.

Day, 25 day 25. I cannot actually believe that it's been over three weeks since i started. i've seen and walked through so much. I've done so much. It just blows me away a little bit and i'm not even halfway, that's what excites me the most.

It feels like forever ago that i was on the Queen Charlotte track or nearly dying trying to climb up Mount Rintoul in the Richmond ranges. Most people said that you're an idiot starting there and hitting the Richmonds straight up but if anything, it's probably helped me so much. I have so much more confidence now, and I just seem to move faster over rocks and steep downhills don't bother me. I just look at them and go.

Back to one of the best days of my life. From the way it started it didn't seem like it would turn out this way. I woke covered in sweat. I honestly thought I had wet the bed, I have never ever woken up drenched that much in sweat in such cold temperatures.

I have no idea why. When I went to bed it wasn't cold but it wasn't hot either. I just had my tights on and a shirt and socks. Sometimes normally i'll have a jumper on or something but this time I didn't, I just had my quilt open so i wasn't even enclosed in it.

I remember waking up partway through the night and touching my face and thinking why is it dripping in sweat and my hair was wet. It was so bizarre but I was still cold. My shirt was soaked through too. My one clean shirt I thought before dropping back off to sleep.

I slept through to about 6:30am and when I woke up I mentioned the sweating and Chris is like, 'me too'. He was glad because he thought that he had got a fever from his infected toe. Poor guy. But i was just like, no, i think it was just weirdly hot and cold last night. Or maybe we are both coming down with something, i'm not sure.

Today, I decided to head up to upper deception hut which is 25km day. That seems better than normal, but we're going up through the Mingha Deception track, which is part of the Coast to Coast race held in new zealand in Feb each year. So that will take us up to upper deception hut and then you go over goat past but Up through that, it's all boulders and rock hopping for the day. It's meant to be pretty mean. I've heard so much around how difficult this stretch can be and how people skip it when they reach Morrison Footbridge but I'm looking forward to it. Another challenge, another different terrain to tackle and ticking off something ivee been wanting to do for a very long time.

Every day is different on the TA and I've stopped really reading the trail notes and just taking it as it comes for added excitement. I did read someone's comment that the markers were gone at some point and to stick to either the true right or left bank of the river but I just forgot where that was.

I got so off track early on walking down the valley, where I was meant to come out of the bush ended up on a steep drop into the fast flowing river so that wasn't an option. I just headed back into the bush and bush bashed my way down stream a bit till I could find a point to come out of and navigate across the river. When I came out everything was so still the sun was shining down the valley the river looked so blue and instead of crossing it I just decided to walk down it. It was quite shallow, I was just enjoying walking right in the middle of this scene.

After criss crossing the river a bit more i came back up to the bank and somehow misplaced the marker if there even was one there and ended up walking down what I can only describe as a gauntlet of gorse. It wasn't even a track it was like a rocky flood track where a stream had been at some point in time. I'd committed though and I was getting through this gorse with every grimmace as I pushed through my legs and arms being torn up by it.

Figured i'd come out of the stream somewhere but as i was going through it, I was just thinking this is so why I wanted to do the TA. Everything about today was like a choose your own adventure day. I loved the challenge and it's kind of like everything we did as kids, but on a whole new different level and on an adult scale.

When I walked through the bush Id think, oh my goodness, imagine growing up here. Imagine if Jared and I and the Brayford boys in Beauy had this type of bush in our backyard. Heading out after school to build cubby houses, and then i would notice a big old trees going imagine The cubby houses that you could build in these, or What we'd get up to in the rivers and creeks and Dams. I'd remember some of the crazy stupid stuff we did as kids and just all the fun. I feel like i'm kind of maybe reliving a little bit of my childhood the last few days. Except there's no 6 foot bike jumps into dams that im testing for the boys or flying down a golf fareway on a bike and riding it into a sewage filled water hazard, i've got crystal clear water!

I finally regained the track and came to a cross roads and noticed a wooden sign with a turn off to a lake and then I looked down further along the track and saw an orange marker. I couldn't see one in the other direction so figured I must have to head towards the lake.

I started walking down there thinking that might be the path. Oh my gosh, Ive come around the corner and I see a rusted steel drum that's been used as a fire. That's fine but as I walk up further around, you know when you just get the feeling that this isn't right. I should not be here. And then i see tucked away a shelter/ a house, not a house but it's out of like a blue tarp and all different things.

It's a decent make shift house but definitely not a hut! I stop in my tracks in case someone sees me and I glance around and see a tree and there's all these ropes hanging obviously where they hang their kills or whatever animals. I hope it's animals. The path kind of looked like it went past the shelter but I was like, hell no! I've never felt more uneasy in a situation. So i quickly and quietly turned around and went straight back to the river and continue following it out.

I got lost again thinking I was taking a short cut and ended up in some pig or cow field again covered in gorse. I was not going to let this field defeat me but I was slightly worried in it with the grass being over waist high, and there being hidden stream like culverts hidden under the tussocks. After 15 minutes I reached a wall of matagouri and I literally couldn't get through, I had to go back to the river so I frustratingly turned around and headed out.

I found a 4wd track and followed it out when all of a sudden Chris comes out onto the track from the side bush. Wed both had different mornings both getting off track in the same valley! Back on track we walked together until Morrison Bridge. The start of the Deception Track.

I was so excited for this part. There really was no track it was just up the river all afternoon. The DOC sign said 8 hours to Deception Hut or 9 hours to Goat Hut. I was setting off at midday I knew I could definitely make it to Upper Deception Hut in day light but there was a part of me that's like 8 hours surely that's an exaggeration! I decided to see how fast I could do it, even with my heavy pack. 4 hours it took me to Upper Deception Hut. I was having a ball racing across the rocks and boulders, criss crossing the river. It was like I was a kid again just a lot more skilled!

At Upper Deception I ran into Chris again and as it was mid arvo we decided that we could easily reach Goat Hut.

This part of the river was one of the most beautiful places I've seen. Snow on some of the peaks, the bush beside the river so lush and green. The water we were walking through was crystal clear and it was just so much fun bouldering and jumping onto rocks and pulling yourself up with branches. Really using parts of your brain that probably rarely is used. I was just in awe the entire way up. Smiling. Laughing at the situation of where I was and what I was doing.

I made it to Goat Hut' in 1.5 hours so really did that section in 4.5 hours less than the advised time haha. At Goat Hut' the first person I see by the water tank, I thought I know you. And it ended up being Paul Hopwood, a guy I worked with at ECan in Christchurch. He was up there with his wife and son so it was so lovely catching up with them! It made the day even more special when you see a familiar face.

The hut was full so there were heaps of people to chat too. We ended up all sitting outside on the hut steps chatting and just enjoying this amazing sunset on the mountain behind us. It was the perfect end to the best days.

Ren x