Day 39 - Hope Kiwi Lodge to Boyle

We took it easy this morning since it was only less than 20km to the road and the trail was supposed to be easy. First we continued in the flats next to the river before the trail went up in the forest again. 
  
Just to give you an impression on the sandfly issue. That’s in the hut halfway to the road: 

The trail was nice and just went through light beech forest. The bark of the beech trees was soaking wet and for some reason it smelled like fermenting grapes or apples. The smell was very intensive and there were many wasps going crazy around these trees. They were all over the bark.

I didn’t tell you about the hook sedge / grass. It looks like normal grass with seeds growing in on the stalk. When you pass them and your legs touch the seeds they get hooked to your hair and are pulled out of the stalk. This is super annoying since it feels as somebody tries to pull your hair out. Getting them out later gives you he same feeling again. I don’t know yet which is worse – speargrass or hook grass…?! You don’t bleed from hook grass though… 

All of the rivers changed their colour from clear to muddy since the rain washed a lot of soil into the rivers. It’s good that we crossed all the rivers earlier – I guess some of them would not have been fordable anymore.

I again had a yellowhead who was posing for me for about 10 minutes.

I played with the filter settings of my camera today. Some effects are really need and cool:

We hiked out to the street and Ben and I got a ride with two Irish girls shortly before the rain started again.

We split up in two and two since it increases the chances of getting a ride – usually nobody can take four people with backpacks. They took us half way and from there we managed to get another ride to Reefton. Now it was poring! We tried to get another ride from Reefton for about an hour bist ended up being soaking wet and giving up. So we stayed in Reefton. A rather unsatisfying dinner with fish and ships and not a good start in a rest day. Stuck in the middle, wet shoes, and no decent food sucks! So tomorrow it’s moving again and no rest…