Day 129 - snow blanket
Taipo hut —-> South Mavora Lake wild campsite 33km
There was a reason I needed all my layers on last night. I woke up this morning to find all the mountains covered in snow. It felt like i’d been picked up and plonked in a whole new country - it was beyond stunning.
Thankfully the snow hadn’t quite fallen as low as we were, so we got the best of the beauty without any of the issues of walking in fresh snow.
It was just the cold we had to deal with as we set out across the next stretch of the Mavora walkway.
We bashed our way through yet more tussock and followed the open valley for most of the morning.
After smashing out 12km, we stopped for a break at Boundary hut. On paper, it was an identical hut to Taipo, but in reality it was a shitshow. Rubbish left, mouse holes stuffed, broken water tap, broken door, even a pile of frozen vomit outside… John and I ate our snacks and thanked our lucky stars we hadn’t had to sleep here.
We pushed on following a 4WD track to the edge of the North Mavora lake and reached Carey’s hut 90 minutes later - this hut wasn’t in any better condition. It was like two people were living there; stuff everywhere, their breakfast bowls and coffee still on the table unwashed. We pushed their stuff to the side and perched precariously to eat our lunch. At least there wasn’t any sign of mice in this one… It was the first time in four months I’d seen any sort of disrespect in the backcountry huts. The mess felt like hunters… what TA walkers would be carrying beer bottles!?!
The afternoon was wonderfully flat, all around the lake on a sandy rocky 4WD track. We reached Mavora Lakes campsite about 3pm and stopped in the car park for an afternoon snack.
John had bought into my theoretical finish date of the 3rd May, which meant we needed to push on this afternoon past the campsite in order to knock off some more km and edge closer to Te Anau. The campsite was the most basic you could get anyway, so we filled up our bottles and headed on towards a wild camping spot we’d read about on Far Out.
The trail took us back through beech forest and alongside the South Mavora Lake with stunning views of the mountains we’d just walked through.
As we pitched our tents at the end of the lake, we realised we’d entered Southland - the final region of TA. Northland and Cape Reinga only felt like yesterday so I suddenly felt quite emotional about finishing.
Our campsite was perfect; right on the edge of the lake (John maybe a bit too on the edge) and sheltered from the wind. We’d really managed to pick our wild camps well.
It had warmed up significantly thank goodness and we cooked our dinners outside before falling asleep to the sound of the lake lapping on the shore.
