This morning I had the most vivid dream. I could smell the smoke of fat from a pig. My mouth began to water. I could here the grease pop off the pan. Only it wasn't a dream. I woke to 4 Kiwis cooking breakfast. Last night they had steak! Packs loaded down they marched 3 days to the hut. Two bottles of wine and I had had enough. I can't take it! After five days out of town, I was ready to attack that crispy bacon like a wild animal. But I didn't. I sat quietly eating my Cheerios with powdered milk out of a zip lock bag. Shadow and I stared at each other while the other hikers in the hut tried to smother the smell from inside their sleeping bags. In NZ they call it Streaky Bacon and it's $11 a pack. For us, it's simply a necessity for every town stop. We will sit down for breakfast on our day off and eat 3 eggs each, a whole pack of bacon, and as much butter as we can smear on a half of loaf of bread. The whole time saying things like, "That bacon is good and crispy." or "That's some of the best butter we have ever had". With 2 more days before town I need to stop talking about food. Before 10am I was talking to Shadow about how I hoped St. Arnaud had a Chinese restaurant. Needless to say, it didn't take much before he said, "Yeah, I could eat some hot and spicy fried rice!"
Enough about food...
We descended into the tree line and had a pleasant hike down to West Sabine Hut. The trail followed the Sabine River that follows from Blue Lake and through many avalanche zones.
We stopped in the W. Sabine Hut for a quick break and as usual I snooped around. Usually you find outdated newspapers, crime novels, maps from the local area. On one of the shelves I found food. Snickers and Mars candy bars! I grabbed them like a wild animal then stopped and looked around the hut to make sure someone wasn't doing a day hike and left their food. Shadow checked the place out and no one was around. It's safe to say that this was Te Araroa Trail Magic. I grabbed a bag of chocolate chip cookies and Shadow took a can of sardines before we were on our way. As the Kiwi's say "Good as Gold".
After lunch the map showed us crossing a river, but when we arrived it was a bridge covering a deep gorge. The water was 60ft down this skinny opening. We decided to make today short after finding a great camp spot by the water. Between our workout yesterday and our climb up Travers Saddle tomorrow, we needed some extra rest.
Country Mouse and Shadow
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