Country Mouse and Shadow's Travels: Down but Not Out

January 19th & 20th
Day 11&12
Today the Te Araroa showed her teeth. It was a flat out butt kicking day. The trail itself is made up of old trails, new trails, a combination of both and usually connected by a road walk of some kind. Maybe a busy highway (two lane road) or a gravel farm road. Today we hiked a section that was completed in 2011. The key word in that sentence was 2011. Based on our rough calculations, approximately 40 people have passes through since then. 50 people at the most and all but maybe 5 of those people went through before 2013. Basically what i am saying is that it sucked. We were bushwhacking and not hiking. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it needed trail maintenance because there was no trail. The section was also through a station (ranch) which also is code for lots of animal poop and deer parts from hunters.
Basically a person on a horse went through the area with metal post with orange tops and planted them randomly. We crawled over fallen trees, slogged through ankle deep spongey moss, karate chopped miles of 5 foot tall tussock grass, and slid down mud slides. At one point we were in an open marshland field and Shadow stepped into a creek thigh deep because the tall monkey grass hide it. I was walking behind him. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. I had my fair share of missteps. One include an mudslide into a shin deep substance we have been calling muddy quicksand. I also broke down and cried so hard and laughed and laughed so hard I cried. But the fall that takes the cake happened 6 miles from the end of the day, going down hill. Shadow took a tumble and broke both hiking poles. One broke in 2 spots and the other is bent. Luckily he is ok. Those poles thru-hikeed the AT and up Mt. Rainier, but they couldn't take the wrath of the Te Araroa. With all this complaining you may get the impression that the landscape wasn't beautiful, but it was breathtaking. I kept expecting to see a dinosaur from Jurassic Park. We survived the day and high-tailed it 3.5 miles on a farm road to Hwy 94. From there we hitched 19 miles into Te Anau with a fungus biologist from Auckland.
We quickly checked into the hostel where for $74 you got a 7x10 foot room with one night stand and one set of kid bunk beds with Japanese cartoon comforters. The place is clean and booked solid. Next stop was a restaurant we passed on the way in with venison burgers.
The town of Te Anau is the "Gateway to Fiordland". Similar to Gatlinburg without the pancake joints, crappy tourist shops, and all the people. This town is small, but has everything you need. The large glacial lake in town butts up to the Fiordland Mountains.
January 20th Day 12
We felt right at home in Te Anau running errands like on the Appalachian Trail. So far, these towns have been very pedestrian friendly and easily walkable (distance wise). Our grocery shopping took longer than usual because we are still exploring differences in camping food. Although most everything is similar. Hard candy like Jolly Ranchers and sun flowerseeds are hard to find. I don't know if this is a New Zealand drink or not, but it's called MILO. The jar says it's a malted barley drink. I don't taste the barley, but it's not as sweet as our chocolate milk. We've been adding Blue or whole powdered milk to it at night. For lunch I ordered Shadow a cup of coffee. Trying to sound like a local I asked for a Long Drop Coffee. The lady smirked which made me realize that long drop is a port-a-potty here and what I meant to say was Black Long.
Dinner tonight will be mutton pie. We'll see, people recommend it.
5 days to Queenstown, our next stop and where we hope to receive a personal locator beacon. The last week was more remote than we expected so for safely measures we ordered one. Have a great week everyone.