So Long and Thanks for the Fish

Back from my hike and didn't die or get eaten by cranky moa birds (perhaps because they are extinct). 36km later and my calves feel like they are about to explode. The conservation dudes put in boardwalks and stairs to preserve the environment and they really liked the stair part. Lots and lots of stairs, hundreds of stairs. I'm all for conserving the natural environment, but an occasional graded slope would have been nice.

The first hut I stayed in was pretty full- besides 6 hikers there were also a bunch of hunters which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because they let us poor starving travelers have some of their freshly caught blue cod- the BEST fresh fish I have ever eaten. The downside was that there were at least three ear blasting snorers in the group. I probably slept for a total of 2 hours the whole night. Snoring is an absolute deal-breaker for me. If I have a husband who starts snoring later in life he will be forced to get an operation or a divorce.

At the second hut it was just us trampers- myself, a middle-aged dutch couple, a young french couple, and a solo hiker from Richmond, BC who was just finishing up the much longer North-West Circuit which took him 10 days. He was really cute but I failed to get his name before he left bright and early at 6 am. There was a shallow bay outside the hut where I found a bunch of mussels. I collected enough to share around and after some cooking advice from BC boy, I boiled up the lot of it. You don't get fresher than that. A hell of a step up from the noodles and salami I had brought along for sustenance.

I left at 6:30am and started my hike in the dark, which was rather cool because I could see the sunrise and hear the birds start chirping and all that good stuff. Hiking in the dark is not normally something I would recommend, but on Stewart Island there are no predators and no creepy murderers (that I know of) to freak me out or imagine I see in the shadows so I felt rather confident.

I got back into town around 10:30 and after a welcome shower I filled my belly with harbour-side fish and chips and undid all that awful calorie burning in a hurry. I spent the rest of the day being a lazy bum and trying to stretch out my suffering calf muscles. Tomorrow I take the ferry back to the real world and then on to the Fjordlands of the west coast. Huzzah!

-A.