25km Day : 947km Total
16 February 2015
-42.703745, 172.096141

I got up early and packed up my tent and was off by 7:15 this morning.  I reached Hope Shelter at 7:30 to find 2 trampers from Israel making their breakfast.  After a brief discussion with them and signing the hut book I was back on the trail.

The morning walk was a good mixture of forest trails along the Hope River followed grassy plains on the way to Lake Sumner. 

I reached Hope Kiwi Hut before 10am and stopped for a brief rest and a snack inside away from the sandflies.  I saw from the hut log book that no one stayed there last night.  Which somewhat explained the mess on the countertops.  It appeared as if the mice having no backpacks to rummage through resorted to chewing up the candles.  There were bits of wax and mouse droppings all around the candle holders.  I did my best to clean up the mess before moving on.

A Unique Bridge

Beech Forest Trail

At noon I followed a side trail to a lookout point above Lake Sumner where I stopped to have lunch.  Unfortunately the trees blocked most of the view of the lake.  While I was there I was joined by a NOBO TA hiker from San Diego named Andrew.  We gave each other descriptions and recommendations for the trails ahead since we were traveling in opposite directions.

Lake Sumner from the Lookout

Lake Sumner from Western End

Natural Bridge

I reached Hurunui Hut a little after 4pm and decided to make an early day of it.  I took my time setting up my bunk and making dinner of ramen noodles with dehydrated peas and real bacon bits.  After I finished eating, Ollie from Germany arrived at the hut followed soon afterward by the 2 Israeli hikers, whose names escape me at the moment.  After some discussion about gear (the Israelis are ultralight at about 6kg base weight) we all made an early night of it.