On the road again...

42 dehydrated dinners prepared and assembled, 8 food parcels packed and posted, every item weighed, and weighed again for another trial pack, things spread all over the floor waiting to be finally stashed in the Osprey packs. News arriving that there are slips on the tramping access road in Richmond which our son Sam and his partner Lorraine are scheduled to travel up to meet us. Oh dear. We hope they make it, we really want their company over the Richmond range -and that night’s dinner and our food parcel!

It will be a lovely change for us to have company on some sections of the South Island trail. Our nephew-in-law Adi is meeting us at West Sabine Hut, and accompanying us over the Waiau Pass, and on over Harpers.

We wonder if we will catch sight of any Paradise Ducks in the South Island – they were like a talisman for us in the north where we saw them almost every day. We worry about how our bodies will hold up over two and a half months. I have nightmares about the rivers and Rob wakes up in a sweat dreaming about Mt Rintoul. But at the same time we are itching to get going again.

Not sure where and when we will be able to post to the blog again – it could be some weeks away. But in the meantime, it’s on with the boots and off we go in the teeth of a cold southerly to Ship Cove, destination Bluff…