Day 38: Km922 to Tiroa Station

Distance today: 36km

Distance total: 1089.3km 

Time hiked: 10h 34min

Time total: 321h 10min

The rain continues until past midnight. A lot of rain. By the time I get up it's luckily only some last drops falling from the pines.

I start my day under a blue sky. Still, the slopes are all wet and I struggle to find enough grip. I pull my self up the slope using trees and sometimes even grass. Hard work already after 100 meters.

Then everything happens very fast: the soil under my feet starts slipping. Before I realize what just happened I'm tumbling down a nearly vertical slope towards the river. I totally loose the orientation. The scrubs - mostly blackberries - catch me after 5 meters, 1 meter above the river.

So I'm lying there, head first, in the scrubs, slowly starting to realize what just happened. 

Arms, legs, neck,... Everything seems more or less okay. Just the prickles of the scrubs have left their marks. Somehow I can free myself from the awkward position I'm in. The adrenaline helps me to climb back up the slope. It seems that I caused a small landslide while walking there along the slope. Probably all the rain made it unstable.

With my knees still shaking from this incident I carry on (not much else I can do...). Some parts still steep but also some lovely parts over pasture, shining green the bright morning sun.

By 10:30 I reach the end of the trail. Happy I made it through.

The rest of the day is (gravel) road bashing - again walking till I drop. My plan: hiking another 25km. This would bring me into a good position to reach Bog Inn hut tomorrow.

The extremely quiet road is gradually climbing, leaving me plenty of time to recap what happened there in the forest. Hell, that was scary. I've been really lucky. Beside the more than 100 cuts (mostly on my hands, arms and belly, as well as some in my face) everything is fine and I'm actually feeling surprisingly good.

Could I have prevented it if I had been more careful? Maybe yes, maybe not. I think what happwnd was mostly out of my control.

20km in the road walk, it's already close to 5, I stop to talk to a farmer. He tells me, I'm the 5th hiker he's seen this year. And what really catches my attention: They have accommodation for the workers with a kitchen and shower. If I wanted, I could sleep there in the lounge. No one else around anyway on a Saturday night. Wow, that's unexpected - and simply great! Even though I wanted to continue a little further, I gladly accept this offer. 

A little more walk tomorrow, but right know, I couldn't care less ;)