January 18 – Day 1 of Rakiura Track

We woke up feeling refreshed and relaxed, and had a lovely 30 mins to drink coffee and chat with our host. Then the reality of having to catch our plane to Stewart Island set in and off we went! A shortish drive brought us to the Invercargill airport. When I was setting up our trip I found that the Stewart Island flights were the same price as the ferry and only took 20 mins to travel there. The check in counter was closed due to all staff out flying when we arrived so we had another coffee and chatted with some locals. We have run into just the loveliest of people so far on our trip! Everyone who asks why we are here and learns about the race is just super curious and wants to learn more. I feel like I should make cards to hand out! 😂 Flight check in was super chill and then the 10 of us walked over plane for boarding. I think the same guy who checked us in also refueled the plane, loaded the baggage, and was the pilot!

We landed and were shuttled to Oban, the main town on the island. We had to get some stove gas and find lunch before setting out. We had hopes of getting some fresh fish from the Kai Kart but it didn’t open until noon. The Snuggery cafe had a decent selection of sandwiches and some delicious kombucha. Due to the restaurant being on tank water, they advised us to head to the visitors center to fill our water bladders, so back across town we went (the whole town is like 3 blocks). One last stop for toilet paper, on the advisement of the visitor center folks, and we finally hit the road around noon. I had opted to just trek along the road to the trailhead instead of getting a taxi, this only added about 3 miles to our journey. I swear my pack has to be every bit of 35 lbs! Thank goodness I’ve been putting in time rucking over the past few months, so while it was freaking heavy, we still maintained a good pace.

The trailhead Lee Bay is where the track begins for the counter clockwise almost loop. The trail is well maintained and super easy to follow, no need to constantly check locations or maps. We walked through ancient feeling forests and across beautiful beaches, arriving at our campsite around 3:30 pm. The drizzle that accompanied us for the hike was quite nice, as the day was warm and muggy.

As soon as we stopped moving the sand flies descended so we rushed to get our tent up for refuge from rain and flies! We had a quick dip in the ocean to clean off the hiking grime and then it was siesta time. The time difference is still affecting us a bit, with the 4 pm local time feeling like the 10 pm back home. I woke up around 9 pm and decided dinner should probably happen, if for no other reason than it would lighten our packs! The campsite has a nice cooking shelter and with the cooler temps the sand flies were not as bad. The Jetboil once again wouldn’t ignite from the push button so I had to borrow a lighter. Hopefully we can keep finding nice people to borrow from or can fix the dang stove! While the food was “cooking” (more like soaking since it was freeze dried), I took a short wander down to the jetty. What I thought was a log washed up by the trailhead turned out to be a sea lion that was soundly asleep! We had dinner in the tent and drifted off to the sounds of waves crashing on shore.