Te Araroa, Day 118

As usual, I am awake early and silently move out of the hut to not disturb the other two. I eat two tortilla wraps with dark chocolate and get ready to walk. The sunrise brings up amazing and strong colors. It is 7:30 when it is light enough to start walking.

The first 12 km to Boundary Hut are a lot of up and downs and very swampy again. Finding the markers is also a game to be played. They are not always easily visible.
In the last part, I walk through tussock that is higher than me and very dense. I cannot see my feet on the ground. The tussock is strong and heavy, and I have to push hard to move through it. Finally, I reach the bridge over a river and the other side. I want to refill my water bottles at the river, but there is no access.
It is private, and there is a fence on both sides. 

I continue to walk on a bumpy and rocky 4-wheel drive road now.
I wonder where X is. He usually catches up quickly, but I have not seen him yet.

I keep walking, looking for water. The road is very exposed, and a strong wind prevents me from taking off a second layer despite the sun shining. After about 4 hours of walking after I started this morning, I am too hungry to go on. I find a thorn bush that protects me from the wind and sit beside the road, boiling some water for a freeze-dried meal. It's my last water. I really need to find something soon.
Not far, I hear a drizzle, and indeed, there is some water dripping down along the road. I filter 2 bottles of water and continue. Soon, there are even some small streams.
I get closer and closer to the first big lake. The color of the water is an amazing deep blue. Soon, I walk along the lake shore. It's only 4 km to the northern part of the Mavora Lakes Campsite, but those kilometers seem endless. I am now walking on gravel, partly through the forest. I am very tired, and my feet hurt. At one point, I notice X somewhere behind me, but he stays behind until the camping area starts.
I stop for a break as soon as the camping area is reached. The wind at the lake is cold and strong, but sheltered between the trees, I get attacked by millions of sandflies. X arrives too. We don't really want to walk more, but if we stay here, we will have to do about 40 km tomorrow. I can't do that. So we walk another few kilometers on a good gravel road until we reach the end of the area where it is permitted to camp. We set up the tents and do the usual chores.

X tells me that he has been wondering about my walk a few times when walking behind me, and today he realized that it looks like a sad person walking.

This is interesting. Last night when I wrote three sentences about that day as some kind of a note, I added a fourth sentence, writing: "I am sad." X asks me why. And I am not fully sure. Lying in my tent I start thinking about it and write down reasons. And I believe I found the root of it. Maybe. But it is interesting how this feeling showed itself through the way I walked.

Beautiful sunrise colors. From red to orange, like a fire on the sky:

And then I start walking, first crossing the bridge near the hut:

The. Swampy and muddy tussock walking. The swampy areas look often nice and green, mossy. But walking on it, one sinks in, into muddy water. At some point there is a barbed wire fence and I have to crawl underneath it to get to the other side.

Finally there is the bridge that leads to Noundaty Hut and the 4-wheel drive towards Lake Mavora. The river looks so good and I am thirsty but as described, there is no access to the water.

Lake view walking...

Just before the camping area starts there is a "puddly" forest section along the lake:

At the camping area there is also the gravel road that we will walk tomorrow. Still today we use it for a few kilometers to get to the last possible area where camping is allowed. At the Southern and of South Mavora Lake.