Monday 20.02.2023

• Te Araroa kilometres done: 1978km
• Official kms: 9.5km
• Garmin kms: 9.62km
• Total time: 2:27
• Calories burned: 1033
• Body battery: 9/10
• Accommodation: Lakehead hut.
• Tent nights tally: 14
• Zero days had so far: 20

https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/walking-te-araroa-3000km-for-the-key-to-life

Track me live here:

https://aus-share.explore.garmin.com/curtiss

My brother Mark is flying in today & we are starting Nelson lakes, Ladina & Alina are also joining us.

Well the morning didn’t go to plan, my brothers flight was canceled, he was able to rebook on a flight landing in Blenheim at 11:15am. Fortunately for us Lester is ok with driving to Blenheim then around to St Arnaud & then home again. This does make it a 4 hour+ round trip for him though!

I don’t think we will start walking until 1pm. At least there’s 2 options of huts to stay at.

Alina & Ladina turned up at 9am, we left Aunty Briars at 9:15am & headed for Blenheim stopping at Havelock to get lunch & a coffee from the bakery before arriving at the airport to collect Mark.

We then headed to St Arnaud & arrived just before 1pm. The walk to Lakehead hut was fairly quick as it’s only 9.5km. This took us just over 2 hours. About 700 metres before the hut there’s a jetty at the end of the lake. We decided this would be a perfect place for a swim & all made the decision to go to the hut, unpack & then go back for a swim.

Surprisingly the water wasn’t cold & we all enjoyed a dip & jumping off the jetty.

Even after this it was still early so we sat around eating snacks (lightning our packs) & talking. It was nice to have a chilled out afternoon.

Tomorrow we have decided to leave here at 7am & are walking to Upper Travers hut, this is 21km & should be nice & easy hopefully with some swim stops on the way.