After 150 days on the trail, I was exhausted.
Last week, CareFree and I worked out a plan to take a day off, and then travel to Stewart Island, about 40 km south of the southern tip of the South Island, as a capstone Te Araroa. But, partially thanks to the cold I had over the past few days, I was so tired after finishing the trail yesterday that I couldn’t find the energy to do even the “easy” three-day loop on the island. The upcoming weather forecast wasn’t very inspiring either, calling for a lot of rain. After talking the better part of three days to make it through the Longwood Forest, I was too mentally exhausted and done with mud to contemplate more days walking through more muddy forest.
This was disappointing. Both CareFree and I were looking forward to Stewart Island. It’s said to be very easy to actually see kiwis there, and, so far, I haven’t actually seen any of those birds at all so far. Instead, CareFree and I booked a flight back to Auckland for tomorrow, and had a relatively lazy day in Invercargil.
After sunset, we ventured back out to the estuary to look for the southern lights, which were supposed to be (relatively) bright. It was a nice evening out, but unfortunately, we didn’t see anything.
The next morning, after a last breakfast at the Tuatara Lodge, we got a ride to the airport, which was a lot closer than I realized it was — we could easily have walked there.
The flight back to Auckland was a bit bumpy, but it wasn’t a long flight. Only a few hours later, we were back in Auckland, and on a shuttle back to CareFree’s apartment. We wrapped up the day with butter chicken, just as we had the evening before we started the trail, a nice closing of the loop we’d started five months ago.