We’ve now had dry feet for four straight days. It’s pretty incredible but we know for sure we’ll be getting wet again tomorrow. Enjoy it while we can… We started off today by going back to the second cafe we’d visited yesterday. They opened at 6am so we decided to go for an early breakfast to kick off the day. It was delicious and we had no regrets about gorging again and Heather even got to experience and apple and custard muffin which was delicious. Back on the trail we headed out of town and towards Lake Ohau. It’d be another relatively straight forward day with little in the way of up and down track.

After crossing over the Ohau canal we turned and began walking along a cycleway that was basically a gravel road.

It was a lot less exciting than the previous canal as it was nowhere near as blue and we spent a lot of time walking just out of sight of it. We had to take a lot more breaks today as we were feeling the gravel and boredom and our packs were much heavier than before given our five day carry we’re starting.

The day was cloudy and not to windy so we at least had that on our side. We stopped for lunch along here and saw two cyclists go by looking miserable. Eventually after a quick climb through some pine we hit the end of this track and came into view of the lake.

The track didn’t actually end here but continued to follow the lake around. This portion of the track however was much better gravel and had amazing views all the way around of the lake and surrounding mountains.

While easy it felt like this section took awhile to get around. We seemed to making good time but I think we’re both just very sore and tired at this point. Certainly in need of another pair of shoes which we have waiting in Wanaka. We exited the trail and road walked into and past the town of Lake Ohau.

At this point we’d finished with the track for the day but decided to continue on into the next section a bit to knock out a little more distance and find a good spot to camp. We ended up having a nearly 40km day so certainly are tired tonight. The last but if track was a nice way to end the day and provided some great views over the lake. We found a good spot to camp right next to a stream and next to the start of tomorrow’s track. There was a little piece of trail art we saw near here as well. It was an interesting choice of art work for the middle of the forest.