Day 22: Highland Creek to Wanaka

The day started with a small up and down from Highland Creek hut toward Fernburn hut.

Then it climbed very steeply some 500 m up to Jack's saddle.

There was no cloud cover, or bush cover save some very brief stretch near the bottom of the valley. We were made to work for the saddle, but it would be mostly downhill from here.

The track flattened out to a comfortable downhill gradient all the way down to Fernburn hut, and we made easy distance from here. The sun continued to bake us.

After getting to Fernburn hut, we were now at the first part of the Te Araroa that we had done before. A few years back we did an out and back for an overnighter here, at Emma's sister Ang's suggestion. We knew that  there was a nice stream and some beech bush cover ahead. So we raced down the hill to get there. Emma had a brief attempt at a swim.

Shortly we'd make the carpark, following on we'd find the Glendhu camp ground in an absolute packed state.  Like sardines in a can. A horde of boats were out on the lake, fighting to compete for space. We stopped briefly at the campground store to grab some cold drinks at around 16:00. We had no interest in staying there the night, and we're glad to see the back of it. But it would mean a 16 km walk around the lakes edge to get into Wanaka where we'd be able to find Marta who had offered us a spot to pitch the tent for the night.

The sun was ferocious, and I must have lost 10 L in sweat walking around. Emma had another swim enroute. We made Wanaka in around 3 hours to be greeted by #thatwanakatree.

We then set out to find Marta's restaurant, and hopefully Marta. We were greeted with a broad smile and a lot of fuss as she seated us at a table and started loading us up with drinks, dinners, and deserts. In addition to the beer, I must have drank at least 3–4 L of water. After we finished up dinner, we headed off to do our resupply food shop at New World having spent dinner researching the next section. Five days worth, some 150,000 kJ. We also picked up a bottle of wine and some chocolate to say thanks to Marta, though it would not be nearly enough. We filled up all of our water vestibules at the spring at the center of Wanaka then it were back to the restaurant to wait for Marta to close up shop, where she plied us with more drinks.

After a wee while, it was off to Marta's out in the country side for the night. We got our tent pitched, and settled in at around 01:30. A long, but pleasantly eventful day.

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