Day 58: Boyle Flat hut to Anne hut

Today would be a short day. We had only 18 km to go to get to Anne hut, and they were looking to be very quick kilometers. We woke around 10:00, and lethargically went about breakfast and packing the tent. The hut last night was rather busy, and we were late to arrive... so rather than disturb everyone just starting to head off to bed, we elected to pitch tent by headlight. We left around midday, and an hour later we were at Rokeby hut for lunch.

From there, we had a barely noticeable climb up to Anne saddle through some nice bush track.

This track was so easy it even had boardwalk in parts. These first two days are coincident with the St. James Walkway, a very accessible loop track.

It didn't take long to reach Anne hut. A very modern hut, recent build. For whatever reason there were no significant populations of sandflies around here either.  Quite an enjoyable place to spend a lazy afternoon while we worked on gorging ourselves on food to lighten the packs ahead of the Waiau pass in a couple of days time.

We spent the night with a handful of SOBOs, the character that stood out the most was a very chatty 'Bryan'. He was taking quite a leasurely time of things. He'd done short hut-to-hut days coming through, but it took him three days to get between Blue lake hut, and Waiau hut, having to camp at Lake Constance and Waiau forks both. This section would wind up taking him some 10 days. He'd done similar hut-to-hut in the Richmond's. I hate to think how many days food that would be... 15–20? A heavy, heavy pack.

Summary: