We camped at a nice spot next to a little stream.

Just the water quality was insecure since there was cow and sheep shi… everywhere. So we had to treat it. Slow start again since we only arrived at around 9.30h yesterday night.The first part was an easy stroll through an open valley.

I tried to keep up but my leg hurt really bad so that I fell back and limped in my own speed behind which was better than trying to keep up. I barely could walk and it was really painful! After half an hour I took a doses of 800mg Ibuprofen and turned on the audible book “Er ist wieder da” (He is back – Timur Vermes) to distract me. It worked! Even though it was the second time already I constantly had to laugh out loud. Christoph Maria Herbst is just hilarious reading the book!

For lunch we enjoyed another swim in the cold river which felt great. It was quiet hot even though we were still on 900m.

After that we had to cross the little river for an uncountable amount of times until the trail ended in no visible trail at all anymore.

It was constantly going up which we didn’t expect. We had to climb another saddle at around 1.500m before we descended into the valley. We could see Lake Ohau for the first time – finally! Now 800m down…

Next to the fact of the non existent trail also the mean speargrass is getting more and more. It’s leaves are very firm, the top has very sharp spikes and when you pass them they instantly scratch your legs or just poke a hole in you which is usually deep enough that you start bleeding! And very often you don’t even see them in the tussock fields.

My legs again look like after a brutal sand fly attack – this time just without sand flies ?

The views though were great!

We finally descended into the forrest and the trail became better again. I had to take another Ibuprofen to be able to continue and so we made it out of the the forrest. Great view of the lake!

Unfortunately we had to circle around for about 6km now instead of walking straight towards the campsite. Very annoying after a long day. But once we passed the next little forrest we had a beautiful view on Mt. Cook for the first time! Very impressive and definitely on the list for a climb! ?

We made it to the street and very lucky to catch a ride to the campsite from a guy that just came back from fishing. Pitched the tents and had dinner. Again a late arrival at around 9.30.

Hitchhiked the rest of the road walk to Twizel this morning to rest my leg. Will have many cappuccino and good food today figuring out the next days and resupplying.

582km done so far (19%). Amazing how fast this all goes!

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