Day 28 - Boyle Village to Hope Kiwi hut

I spent a good amount of time checking over all my gear this morning and making sure I was ready for the Arthur's pass section. There is 9 days of rain forcasted for the area, and although it's not heavy rain, any sort of rain will rise the rivers, and this section had a lot of river crossings.

I left Boyle Village around 10pm and started the long hike towards the Valley. I was yet to make up my mind on where I would spend the night, and figured I would see how I felt as the day went on.

It wasn't long before I had to cross the Boyle River, and I had been warned that it can be a bit tricky at times. It was a fairly wide crossing with a fast current and deeper than normal water. I walked up stream until I found a comfortable spot, rolled up my pants and entered the rushing water. The depth was close to my waist and it ended up soaking my rolled up pants by the time I got to the other side. The trail continued through a muddy and swampy grassland, and after many stream crossings later I climbed into a forested area. The trail was wide, but every tree was black with fungus. The fungi that had infected the trees produces a sugary substance that wasps go mental for. It was something of a nightmare for me. I hate wasps. I walked as fast, and steady as I could, and although I was starving and looking for any opportunity to stop and eat lunch, I had to keep going.

After about a hour of hiking I had made it past the worst of it, and miraculously without getting stung. I had a few wasps fly into my face and body, but my crazy paranoia reflexes kept me safe, or so how I like to see it.

After my tuna wrap lunch I carried on into a shaded forest, and was happy to get a break from the wasps and the sun. The cool air filled my lungs with comfort. I continued on in the forest before stumbling upon my good friend Wietse, packing up his gear after his midday lunch. We continued forward as two. We then ran into two north bound hikers from the states who stopped and had a chat with us. They told us that there was tons of trail damage and fallen trees up ahead from the recent cyclone, and to also watch out for the massive amount of wasps. They met someone yesterday who got stung 3 times in one day.

By midday we reach Hope Halfway hut, where I was considering spending the night. I went inside to check the hut book, and to my surprise I saw my own name written down in the book with "I love maganut bars" written next to it. It took me a minute to realize that Justin and Dylan must have hitched the swamp section I walked this morning and was now ahead of me and Wietse. Although the hut was nice, I decided to continue hiking and finish my 30km day at Hope Kiwi hut, which I had heard was a favorite hut for people to stay at.

As Wietse and I continued towards Hope Kiwi hut we ran into some fallen trees. One part of the trail was so bad that we both had to crawl on our hands and knees in the mud to reach the other side. A few trees weren't so bad, but within 300 meters of reaching the hut we had to walk through an entire forest of fallen trees. I'm not talking a few trees here and there, but pretty much ever tree had fallen over. I couldn't image what it would be like to be in this forest when all this went down. Wietse and I couldn't follow the trail and instead walked north and bushwacked our own way through the mess. We climbed, crawled, and slid over and under trees until we reached a running stream. We followed that stream - soaking our boots - until we spotted a clearing where we spotted the hut on the other side.

To no surprise, Dylan and Justin were already at the hut. It was about 30km day for me and Wietse and we were pretty exhausted. I dried out my gear as best I could and settled in for a night with my trail friends. The 4 of us have sort of become a group. We don't hike together, generally, but we all seem to plan out where to meet and how far to go each day. We're all also quite slow in the morning, never in a hurry like most hikers we seem to be with.