Today- 28km from Mckeller Hut to Taipo hut

Total – 2690km

The Mckeller hut we stayed in last night was pure luxury. Fabulous views and really comfortable and new.

Today we did the Greenstone track to loop back to the TA , which started at the Mavora Walway from Greenstone hut.

After the big day yesterday, a lazy hut morning was in order, and we left about 10am.

Decided to pop over to the lodge nearby and see if Nina was there working, and yes she was! She was stoked to see us and we told her about our awesome day yesterday.

Then it was time to walk. Had one of those days where I couldn’t wake up properly. My eyes were tired and although we still had a good pace, it seemed we weren’t making any progress.

The track was pretty nice, through open valleys and mossy forest, it was easy walking at least.

Had an excellent cheese break and choccy snack in the forest next to the river.

It was nice to be on easy walking track, although there was more mud here than we had seen in a long time.

Despite a break fueled with good snacks, we still felt tired. It was just going to be one of those days.

Plodding on, we kept at it, and coming round the corner I caught up to Emeric who had stopped to talk to Steve who was having knee troubles. Gave him some ibuprofen and deep heat, and Emeric gave him his walking poles, and we headed the last two km to Greenstone Hut.

Greenstone hut was another big modern hut , with two bunkrooms and lots of space.

We had a feed then went for nap time for half an hour. Incredible. I love naps on the trail. Waking up, the hut was full of people who were doing the loop track and some TA hikers.

We packed up and headed onwards, lasting about 100m before Emeric was on the ground, twisting his knee. He was okay luckily but we were laughing quite hard and could still see the hut from where we took a break.

We had just under 10 km to go, through some forest and we took our time, having some good chats and a lot of laughs as usual.

The trail definately turned back to classic TA , with roots and mud and narrow overgrown track, with some trees down as well.

But it was fun. The trail opened up into a beautiful valley and we had good views. And some cow friends to keep us company.

We also did some classic off trail rambling, through a swamp, and were playing the floor is lava. This is where we were both stoked to have boots, and our feet were dry.

The evening colours were beautiful as we headed up the valley. I did some cross country to find the track again as it sidled up the valley through tussock to get out of the swamp.

Heading around the corner saw the hut, Taipo hut, really cute. Already full, we pitched our tents and went for a really brisk swim in the awesome swimming hole under the nearby swingbridge.

Dinner and bed time! Wieke also arrived and camped with us.