Day 101: Waiau Pass to Boyle Flat Hut (2017-2048)

Friday, March 10

I woke up around 6 and got out of my tent to take a nature poo before the sandflies woke up. I'm glad they sleep! When I went to open the tent flap I realized there was frost on my tent. Frost! It's still supposed to be summer. Oh well. At least I have a warm sleeping bag and I'll get to sleep in a hut tonight.

This may be too much information, but this was my first nature poo on the South Island. All the trails have had so many huts or DOC campsites, I've been set. Anyway, it was cold out so I quickly got back in my tent and ate and packed up. The last thing I packed up was my frost-covered tent.

When I started walking around 7:30 everything was still dusted in frost. Clouds beautifully hung in the chilly blue valley. It was one of the most beautiful mornings on the trail but I was cold. When the sun finally came up enough to turn the frost to dew around 8:30 I was pretty excited.

After an hour or so I walked by the Ada Homestead. They had some pretty horses I could see from a distance. I saw lots of geese and little orange butterflies too. The trail was littered with goose and horse poop, but I skillfully avoided it all.

The walk to Anne Hut was almost all a flat four wheel drive track through grassland. It was definitely easy! I saw two mountain bikers and they said John was about half a kilometer ahead of me. They also said that the rain was coming in tonight or tomorrow morning and would probably continue through Monday.

Around 11 I made it to Anne Hut. It was a really nice new Hut with a radio to call a visitors center, two bunk rooms, and a nice common area. John was there drying out all his stuff from last night. I pulled out my tent to dry it in the sun.

It was beautiful out and it was hard to believe bad weather was coming in this afternoon. That said, New Zealand weather predictions are amazingly accurate, so I wanted to leave for Boyle Flat Hut as soon as my tent was ready to pack up.

I ate lunch and talked with John. He had taken a wrong turn last night and walked until 10 pm before setting up his tent. He doesn't have a very warm sleeping bag so he really wanted to make it to Anne Hut. I knew exactly what fork in the trail he was taking about. It would have been really hard to tell there was a fork in the trail in the dark because it wasn't marked. Orange markers go in both directions with no sign, so I had to pull out my map and make sure I was supposed to go to the right. There was a DOC sign 20 meters from the fork, but it would have been impossible to see in the dark because it was 5 meters off the trail for some reason.

As we talked and dried our stuff I went to sign the hut book but it was full. I like to sign them all incase something bad were to happen (search and rescue read them if needed), but I'd sign the one at Boyle Flat Hut tonight. The back cover was missing from the Hut book so there really wasn't anywhere to fit my name.

After packing up my dry tent I hit the trail. It went between flat grassland and forested trail overlooking the river. It was nice and easy. In a few places the trail had eroded and fallen away. I ran into a couple hiking northbound to Anne Hut and saw more geese, butterflies and lots of other birds. It reminded me a bit of a really big version of Creamers Field in Fairbanks.

The only real elevation gain of the day was a few hundred meters up and down to Anne Pass. It was easy and although they had bothered to put a sign up marking the pass, no trees were cleared away so there wasn't a view. But the views from the valley were nice all day so it wasn't really a bummer.

As I got closer to Boyle Flat Hut the clouds started rolling in. But I made it to the hut before any rain started falling. A kind Kiwi couple, Keith and Daphne, were there already. They were walking the St James Walkway and had come from Anne Hut today.

We talked and made dinner. Keith made a one match fire in the stove and John arrived around 7. We all talked for a bit and then hung our food. The hut book said there might be a mouse in the hut. After a long two days I was tired, so I watched some West Wing and went to bed. I had a four hour walk in the rain to look forward to tomorrow. At least the trail should be relatively flat and easy.