Day 101: Upper Travers hut to Blue lake hut

Wednesday 22.02.2023

Te Araroa kilometres done: 2014.5km
Official kms: 15.5km
Garmin kms: 16.65km
Total time: 8:17
Calories burned: 3935
Body battery: 6/10
Accommodation: Blue lake hut
Tent nights tally: 14
Zero days had so far: 20

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I felt like I had a pretty bad sleep last night. When the alarm went off at 5:30am I wasn’t to impressed. This morning we are leaving at 7am oh & Sam turned up last night after walking all the way from St Arnaud, it was good to see him again.

We started walking just after 7am as planned and within a kilometre we had reached a big milestone, 2000 kilometres!

Straight after this it was a steep climb up through rocks to gain the saddle, I managed to get there just under an hour and a half of leaving the hut, I felt good about this timing. We stopped at the top for a break & it wasn’t long before Sam had caught up, he stopped & joined us also.

Top of the saddle with Sam, Ladina, Alina & Mark

After hanging out at the saddle for 20 minutes we all started to feel cold so decided to start off again, this was a section I wasn’t looking forward to as it’s a steep descent down. The knees suffered through this bit but held up ok. It was slow going to gain the river at the bottom. This is where I caught up to Sam who was having a break.

It was only 3km to West Sabine hut from here & seemed a bit easier than the previous part. I got to the hut just before midday, Alina & Ladina arrived about 20 minutes before me & Mark about 10 minutes before me. It was good to stop here for a 30 minute lunch break.

We all left together after lunch towards Blue lake hut, but it wasn’t long before we all set off at our own pace, mine seemed to be slow as my knees were quite sore from the earlier descent of the Travers.

The hike up to Blue lake hut has some magnificent scenery & I could often see Mark & the two girls not too far ahead. It was good to get here at 3:25pm & beat the rain.