When we got up it was still raining. But since the DoC guys got up at 7h we were awake as well. We had a long debate about the plan for today. Leaving at all? Only 9km to the next hut? Or 28km to the nice hut? We just started off in the rain and the good thing is – since you have wet feet in trail runners anyways (I have wet feet for three days in a row now and the shoes did not even dry at night) you don’t even care anymore with the river crossings.


I didn’t even bother to pull my rain pants up for it. Since the sandflies were vicious again we didn’t really stop.


We took the advise of Jeff to stay on the 4×4 track in the river and actually passed the first hut. So we just continued around Lake Summer.


I started with my self coaching session on the basis of my friend’s recommendation. Let’s see how this goes. There is definitely enough time for thinking ?


After listening to Andreas Bourani and “Wieder am Leben” I felt like listening to my favourite “dörn ab se bauer” music: AC/DC. And when Thunder Struck started I just couldn’t help it – I started running. I had to stop once to pack my camera away but then I finished the last 10km running. Not as free as without your backpack but it felt great and it was cool not to walk. Of course I twisted my ankle while running but not to bad.

When I arrived in the hut I took a quick shower outside. I emptied the first bowl of water over me and was about to refill the bowl I looked down on my legs and there were 40-50 sandflies on each of my legs. So I just started dancing, washing, pouring water at the same time and flew back in the hut naked. Good luck I was alone. It is getting worse and worse with these beasts! ?

The rest of the family arrived after a while and I started a fire to dry our stuff. I took a little nap and had lunch and eventually dinner.

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