Day 8: First zero day

We needed to get a resupply in Nightcaps  which is 15 km or so away from Birchwood station for the next section. The first day in the next section is 27 km with some hills so fitting it together with a round trip double hitch-hike was not particularly feasible so we elected for a zero day. We were awoken to a herd of sheep being driven past our window, complete with a cacophony of bleeting.

We spent the morning talking with Fon, a thai girl travelling NOBO with her kiwi friend Rae. The two girls we saw when hitchhiking to Bluff. Fon had unfortunately suffered from quite bad blistering and had lost a nail. It turns out this was her first ever tramp... quite the undertaking. Her friend had talked her into it only a month ago. She thoroughly enjoyed it, in the face of all of her troubles but had decided to part ways with Rae and return home. So Rae trudged on, and Fon was left behind with us.

It turned out that we didn't need to find a hitch at all, the host Sarah offered a lift with her as she was heading in anyway. We had a resupply at the four square for 3 days and 94,000 kJ from a very limited selection of ingredients. It will be interesting to see how the meals turn out for the next section. We then stopped at the brand new pub which opened on Friday. Quite the excitement from the small town at this. There we found a sign talking about the mountain range that we'll be crossing in the next section.

Then it was back home to do some laundry in a bucket, and a lot of sitting around for the day.

On the phone planning the subsequent section from Te Anau to Queenstown with Emma's sister Rose who will be joining us for the 4–5 day 93 km part.

Finally some time to catch up on the updates. Two SOBOs arrived in the evening. Paul a kiwi, and Chris a swede. Spent a lot of time talking about the trail to come.

Summary: