15/1/22, Day 85, 34km, Total 2140km
Elevation Gain: 715, Loss: 1135
An amazing day of bush, road and beach walking with an excellent pub lunch.
Before we left the hut this morning a lady, who knew everything there is to know about hiking, showed me her boots and assured me we couldn’t get to the road end without getting our boots fully covered in mud. She was wrong. There was some mud patches but nothing like what she would be walking through today – that we got through yesterday with relatively clean shoes. Longwood Forest has the reputation for the worst mud on the whole TA. Yes there was quite a bit but with a bit of effort it was possible to avoid it all. Sure the muddy patches made for slower going so we got to Colac Bay a little later than expected but in time for lunch at midday.
After lunch was a very pleasant beach walk to Riverton.
A big but very pleasant day. Two days to Bluff. Invercargill tomorrow night.
Today we met a French guy walking NOBO who was barefoot. A cool way to cope with the mud.
Gully near Turnballs hut 
Turnballs Hut 
Clean shoes. Wasn’t so hard. 
Road walking into Colac Bay 
Colac Bay pub 
Colac Bay bus shelter 
Beach walking 
Colac Bay 
Stewart Island 
Wind blown trees 
Geese on the beach 
Riverton 
Riverton River 
