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The Rakiura Track

-- 37 km over three days --
Well, we found that are legs were in decent shape after all this walking, so we decided to try out one of these oft-touted New Zealand "Great Walks," those highly-travelled multi-day hikes that real hikers do. We hoped it wouldn't kill us.
We bought a small camp stove and lots of trail mix (they call it "scroggin" here, which is way better), picked up our hut passes (there are huts along the way, with running water and bunks, but you have to pay in advance for them) and set out. We'd gotten the impression somewhere that the Rakiura was one of the easier walks, but that turned out not to be true -- at least according to the "real" hikers we met en route. Or if it is, we don't want to touch the harder ones!
It was awfully muddy, and the bush was very thick in a lot of places, but it was a really good few days. On the second day we climbed 300m to a lookout point from which we could see most of Stewart Island. We saw a lot of possums outside the huts. The Department of Conservation encourages people to kill possums, which are huge pests in New Zealand, but we just left them alone and they sniffed our boots and wandered off. There weren't that many people on the track, and there were no buildings anywhere or lights visible from the beaches at night; it felt like we were the only people in the world sometimes. Carrying all our stuff for three days on our backs didn't seem like it would be a difficult task, but food is heavier than you think it is (particularly when Matt is one of the hikers). It was a fairly challenging three days, but the bush was beautiful and we met some interesting folk. Plus, now maybe we can pretend like we're "real" hikers.

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