Days 156-157: BLUFF!

Our feelings in Riverton, as depicted by my sister

Well, we've made it. We arrived at the much-anticipated signpost in Bluff yesterday, marking the end of our journey on the Te Araroa.


Our second to last day on the trail was an easy beach and road walk into Invercargill, a relatively large city. We saw lots of interesting things washed up on shore, and had some beautiful lighting the whole way - the clouds were arranged such that it sort of looked like sunset on the horizon for most of the day. We cruised into town early, checked into our hostel, rubbed our aching feet, did a bit of shopping for the next day, and went to bed early.

The wifi at our shady hostel in Riverton only worked from the end of the hallway

A paua (abalone) shell we found on the beach

A Christmas shell

Dramatic clouds over the beach all day

A log completely covered with weird worm things with shell hats

I'd been sort of dreading the walk to Bluff. It is mostly highway, and has a reputation for being fairly busy with big trucks. Not the way I'd choose to finish up! While it was a long road walk, I think we were lucky that we hit it on a Sunday - we saw very few trucks, and traffic was light in the morning. On the way, we got bored and decided to try jogging parts of the road. Our knees quickly reminded us that they've put up with a lot of crap over the last five months, and that if we didn't quit it, they'd turn this car right around.

The walkway leaving Invercargill

Those odours are authorized

That's where we're going!

The last 7 km of the trail that curve around the Bluff hill were quite nice. We reminisced a bit, and Liz contemplated all the different poses she wanted with the signpost at the end.

Around 3:30, we rounded a corner and got our first glimpse of Stirling Point. I told Liz it was our last chance to turn around and rethink this "finishing" thing, but she just laughed and kept walking. A few minutes later, we touched the signpost, got a few pictures, then headed into town for a celebratory ice cream cone. After that, we caught a ride back to Invercargill, and had a meat pie and litre of ginger beer for dinner.

Lookout Point, actually further south than the official end of the trail

Our first glimpse of the sign. I wanted to turn around, but Liz made me finish

The Sign

I love sign

Liz spent the entire day thinking up pictures to take with the sign.

We made it!

Celebratory ice cream

Tomorrow, we catch a ferry to Stewart Island, where we'll spend 7 or 8 days on the Northwest Circuit - a track famous for the occasional presence of daytime kiwi birds and the permanent presence of lots of mud. We'll take it easy and hopefully use it as way to wind down before heading back up towards Auckland. We'll be meeting up with Mark, Liz's dad, and his wife Margaret for a few days. It will be great to see some familiar faces and have a chance to swap some travel stories. It sounds like Mark already has quite the "big fish" tale from his time at Lake Taupo! After that it's back to the real world, although we'll be doing our best to bring some unreality back with us.

Meanwhile, near Lake Taupo - Mark caught a serious brown trout!

It feels strange to think that we're "finished." It doesn't really feel like it's over. I don't have the feeling of finality I expected to have. I don't think either of us found arriving at Bluff to be nearly as emotional as we expected it to be.

This isn't a bad thing though. I don't feel empty or disappointed - quite the opposite. I feel accomplished, but only about 33 km more accomplished than I felt the day before Bluff. A journey like this is not defined or validated by any single day, kilometer, or destination. It is defined by each one of the five million steps it took to get here, and all of the thousands of amazing and not-so-amazing experiences we had along the way. I don't think you can "finish" something like this, you can only move on and do something different. It will always be a part of me, and I hope it will be a very long time until a day goes by where I don't think of our time on the trail.

To everyone that helped us, supported us, sent us emails, or followed the blog along the way - thanks! We truly would not have made it without you.