Chilly night last night. I slept in the thermals, socks, singlet, t-shirt, buff(around the neck) and hat. Really liking the icebreaker gear right now. No ice on the tent but it felt cooler than the first night after leaving Rakaia Gorge.
Up just before the sun again today. Packed and ready just as the sun made itself known. Breakfast was a handful of muesli and an OSM bar. Sometimes it feels like these were the major source of food out here. I know they weren't, but it still feels that way. The weka seemed to enjoy it also. I didn't give it much, more used it to tempt it closer to see how close it'd actually get. Didn't quite eat out of my hand. It did follow me for about 10 minutes though.
The trail was quite busy again today. More of the tourist type of encounter with groups saying Hi in passing and me thinking they're not carrying enough for the trip while knowing that their kit is being ferried via boat. Much better way of doing it. :) Most of the people today seemed to have departed from Bay of Many Coves or Punga Cove.
Easy trail again today. Made reasonably good time and was quite pleased with the distance given how much like death I didn't feel. Some nice downhill slopes that I could run and again, the views were fantastic. Beginning to wonder what sort of bandwidth and latency they have out this way. :)
One couple, the last couple actually, had stayed at Furneaux Lodge the night before and had said good things about it. The place sounded nice and I'd not planned that far ahead. There are a lot of accommodation options around Endeavour Inlet so I wasn't that worried about it. Worst case was to push through to the camp ground just past the bay. With this being my last night though I was wanting to treat myself a little. Furneaux Lodge looked like it might have been a bit out of my budget but it wasn't too bad actually. They offered a discount and even upgraded the room I was in. Even without that the prices weren't too bad for somewhere this remote and accommodation of this quality.
Dinner was the gourmet burger. I think they killed several chicken for the amount of meat this thing came with. There was no way that I could eat the whole thing. But I managed it somehow.
Early start tomorrow again.
Final day on the South Island.