Day 54: Birchwood Station to Merrivale Hut

32km, 8 hours.

Am uneventful day but my body is feeling tired after 8 weeks so I guess that's alright.

As the 5 of us set off from the shearer's quarters across Birchwood station we ran into one of the owners doing welding and stopped and had a chat to him. He then introduced us to all 8 of his working dogs, while his son less than 5 years old was tearing up the paddock on his motorbike having the time of his life and giving us a wave as he flew passed.

Of course there was a killer hill to start the morning. This walk was across farm land but again near vertical climbing up the fence line. The Birchwood station owner said as we left 'hope you get up the hill before it gets too hot'. He was right, it was hot!

Reached the top and collapsed on the ground in the sun. Surely that had to be the worst part of the day but sadly it wasn't.

I put Crowded House Together Alone album on and walked singing away along the forestry trails across the the top and then down into the farm on the other side. We all met up for lunch which was quite amusing based on all our 10minute shopping selections. The boys were now carrying loaves of bread. I was now eating cruskits with peanut butter and peanut m&ms.

We then hit a dirt road and here's where my fun ended.

My foot seems to be fine walking up hill or down hills but not flat. I can't flex it or roll on it at all so walking now on a rough gravel road was a nightmare. It felt like a shard of glass was stabbing me above my ankle with every step. I refused to stop and tried my hardest to distract myself from the pain. At one point the pain was so bad it took my breath away suddenly and I just had to sit down as quick as possible and loosen my laces. At what point do I stop and wait for a car to come and hitchhike, I thought? And then at the same time Im so stubborn I thought you cannot hitchhike you're nearing the end, walk it even if you're hobbling in pain. Sooo I continued. Not without pain killers and a lot of grimacing.

What made things worse was that the forestry operations have prevented us from going the usual TA route and so a bypass is in place adding an extra 5km on other gravel roads. Whyyy???

Even better was that there was no water supply points the entire day. 2 litres of water on a hot summers day road walking.

There was relief when I hit the highway but now I had 8km to go on the side of the highway with cars and a tonne of 4wds towing boats flying along. I thought it was never to end.

I literally dragged myself into the paddock where the privately owned Merrivale Hut was. Conny, David & Ivan already there. All I could do was take my pack off, throw it down, take off my shirt and collapse onto the long green grass in the sun and lay there. Apparently that was everyone's arrival response.

After a lay down I got a little bit of my sanity back and recomposed myself. Sev, Lee & Isaac were also at the hut but decided to continue on another 8km to a campsite leaving just the 5 of us at the small 5 bed hut. Sev, before he left had been out collecting water cress to add to his dinner and picked enough for us. This man (a skydive master with over 10,000 jumps), is the loveliest! He's in training for the PCT in April. Another humble trail dad that is just so interesting to talk to.

Whilst I did have one of the worst days today, this evening was one of the best. It was like the 5 of us were off trail on holidays somewhere. It was just us. Our little trail family all chilling, having dinner just enjoying being together. I absolutely loved just sitting there observing it all, taking it all in because I know our days together are now numbered. It felt so special to have this night together. Especially as normally there's others in the hut and while i love including and talking to everyone it's nice sometimes not to have to make small talk. You know the people you're with and it's just easy.

Conny had come up with an idea for a group of photo for us to do at Bluff but it needed some practice. I'm not giving it away yet but think of cheerleading/human pyramid type of thing. The five of us were all out on the grass trying to lift each other, make formations without dropping someone on their head or falling. This was more difficult because we were all in fits of laughter.

Once we finally managed what we wanted to do it was onto planking and push ups. We've been saying for over 2 weeks now we needed to do these each night, so 4 nights out from the end seemed better late than never to start.

Going to bed tonight, simply because of the greatest evening, id completely forgotten about my 2nd worst day on trail. Thank you Laura, Conny, Iván & David.

Ren x