Starting km: (2090)
Finishing km: (2071)
km covered today: 19
Finishing km: (2071)
km covered today: 19
As it turned out I sort of got my wish of a short day's walk into Murchison today.
My friend Ryan is coming down from Wellington to walk the next few days with me. As we're meeting in Murchison there was no need to go much of anywhere today. However it occurred to me that he probably wouldn't be terribly interested in the 19km of road walking before the start of the trail in Nelson Lakes National Park.
So I decided to go out and walk those this morning so we'd be free to head straight for the trailhead this morning.
Because of heavy rain in just about every part of NZ except here (here it was merely moderate rain) the newly re-opened State Highway 1 through Kaikoura (damaged in an earthquake related landslip a bit over a year ago) was temporarily closed again. The alternate route goes through Murchison, so there was plenty of traffic. Nonetheless it was tougher to get a ride for the first 5km on the main road than it was for the next 14km up the valley side road, where the first car past (driven by a friendly young farmer's daughter who'd been grocery shopping in town) picked me up.
I didn't bring my phone along because I figured there'd be no reception (I'm sure correctly) and nothing to take photos of (incorrectly. The low cloud wreathing the hills beside the valley was actually quite pretty.)
A few hours more and I was back in town. Some iced tea, a bath (I mentioned yesterday that this is a nice hostel!) a bit of writing. Now all I need do is wait for Ryan so we can do our final food shop and I'll be all set for the day :-)
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