Day 56: Martin's Hut to Riverton

31.5km, 9 hours

There were moreporks hooting outside most of the night and then at some point it sounded like someone was trying to get into the hut. Maybe the boys were right about the horror potential of the hut. But we had put a rock against the door so it couldn't open.

We're not sure what it was but the boys did say there were some sort of animals around their tents all night so maybe it was deer... Or another big forest dweller, we're not quite sure. Whether they were deer, whether it was possums, I don't know, remains a mystery. Mystery of the Longwood Forest.

When Laura, Conny, and I went to bed, we'd put on all our thermals thinking we were in for the coldest night in the hut because of the holes in the floor and the walls. by the time we woke in the morning all of us were pretty much down to our underwear. It was so hot. We were not expecting that.

We packed up pretty quickly and was on trail by 7 :30 because we knew we were getting into a town today after 7 days and that meant we would be walking passed the Colac Tavern. We wanted to time that for lunch but that was 20km away.

The problem with that Is that you think because you're going to be near town the walk out is going to be easy. Except it never is and we had 12km of mud again to slog it through. What was the point of going down to that stream yesterday to clean off? When within two minutes I was pretty much back to the state that i was in yesterday only filthier.

Conny and I were struggling a little bit mentally today because you're like, we're just nearly there and we just want to get out. So we decided to be really sarcastic and fake and verbalise how much we love walking in the mud and how we love the forest and just be so overly positive to try and get us out of the slump.

We then played our three favorite thing games. This time, what was our three favorite items of gear that we had on trail? All three of us saying poles. The MVP. There is no way we could have done it without poles. Shoes was second, we are in love with our shoes and we all had three different types of shoes.

My third favourite was my pocket knife. I used it constantlt. The others were their tent and backpack.

We reached a point on trail where it was a fork in the track and we're so used to having David guide us or tell us where we need to go, but he was miles ahead. We panic, we didn't know which way to go so we all had our phones out, trying to work out which way it was. One was 15 mins to a car park the other was 1 hour 30. We did not want to go wrong here. all 3 of us carefully deliberating left or right and with a decision made it took 10 minutes and we were down into a car park. With a quick OSM bar break in the carpark it was then a short walk on a dirt road before hitting the highway.

We had about 9km to walk before we hit Colac Bay. Oh I could not Wait to get there. We got to the tavern, it had opened at 11. We got there at 11 30 still absolutely covered in mud. There was a fire station across the road that I went across to to use their hose to try and clean myself. But the mud was so baked on so hard from being in the sun all day, it just wouldn't come off. And the more I washed, the more I just seemed to smear the mud further. In the end I just gave up and then went to the tavern and apologized to the owners over the state I was in but they didn't care. I was so worried about my dirty legs that I didn't understand when a patron said, 'did you have an accident?' I then realized that the back of my pants were all muddy. All over my bum from when I'd fallen the day before. I'd completely forgotten about that.

I own it and say, i've just spent the last 57 days walking and hiking the country so that I'm excused.

I got the most amazing open steak sandwich and Of course because i'm in Southland now I thought it was only a appropriate that i get a Speights beer to celebrate getting there. The others got fish and chips which were insanely huge. We just sat there in awe of our food, the clean ones inside and the dirty ones on the adjoining table outside of the tavern. Of course we got coffees too and then dessert. I got a Banoffee pie and it was heaven.

We were there for probably about two hours and then we power walked down to the beach. We had made it to the beach! I just couldn't believe it. Like eight weeks ago, we left the beach behind in Havelock at the top of the South Island and here I am at the beach at the bottom of the South Island.

Conny and I quickly stripped off. How we ran into the water and dived in. That feeling of first diving into water when you are just craving water. It was just utter bliss.

The water I thought would be very cold, surprisingly was quite warm. It was beautiful, turquoise blue clear and we just swam and I think we're a little so overjoyed at making it to the water. We went and washed our socks and shoes, but it didn't do much.

Now in a food coma and salt water air tired, it was time to do the next 12kms along the beach. Which, maybe it was the beer at lunch or the big lunch, but we're not used to having a big pub meal and then setting off for the afternoon, I'm glad I took a photo within the first 5 minutes of being excited to walk on the beach because my feelings quickly change to dread.

The only fun thing about it was, Conny collecting shells being amazed at all the different types.

And Ivan and I just walking like our little daughter's just collecting shells to take home and we're saying you can't take them all home, you can only take one. We're seriously all going ga ga.

Now beach walking seemed like a nice change except within a few footsteps we remembered all our shoes have holes everywhere and are hanging on by a thread. When you're walking on a fine pebbly beach, everything is just going in your shoes. So it's not that you're walking on the beach, you're walking on stones. After having to stop three times and get stones and a mountain of sand out I just gave up, it was no use. Then you get to parts of the beach where it was just such soft stone you just sink and get nowhere.

It was beautiful. Again the weather! You could see across the Stewart Island. The water was so calm. We got to see a pod if Hector dolphins swimming in the waves so close to shore. They were so little!

There was Paua divers/fisherman in the bays that we walked around too who would give us a friendly big wave.

By the 20km point my foot was killing me. I was getting so over it and then we knew we had one more hill to climb before we could go down into Riverton. I almost called out to the fisherman to see if he could take me to Riverton.

Conny and I were lagging a bit behind, I think because we were just so tired now and that one hill went on forever. I let out a scream, Conny was angrily frustrated But we finally got to the top of that hill and then it was all downhill from there.

Luckily, the campground wasn't too far away and we made it. We made it to Riverton. Which means we have two days to go and only about 75 kilometers left. Pretty incredible. We walked into town which is about a kilometre away and powerwalked to try and make it to the four square in time because we had to resupply or just get snacks for the next day.

It was 8pm now and we were starving. We then walked another kilometre to the only open restaurant in all of Riverton. Not thinking, it was Valentine's Day and it was fully booked.

The sorrow on our face. We finally were in a town after a 7 day bush stretch and there was no food.. with no option we had to walk back to the campground and cook what we'd got for breakfast. Almost all of us ended up having eggs and toast or avocado and toast for dinner. Or if you're the 31 year old Parisian you eat soldiers and eggs from a champagne glass, with black burnt bacon compared to David's perfectly MasterChef cooked bacon and eggs.

It was very, very amusing, not at all what we planned because i think we were all hoping for a good meal out, but you got to do what you got to do.

Ren x