We left St. Arnaud the next morning and hiked an easy walking path down to a hut. There were about six people inside the 24 person hut so our group made 11 and we set up for the evening. I took a nap and when I awoke the hut was buzzing. A group of 12 plus two guides had come in and the place was getting crowded. We shifted around each other and were settling in when a man came to the door and announced that he had 24 high schoolers on their way to the hut and only tents enough for half of them. We jumped at the chance to get out of the chaos and set up our tents outside just as the rain began to start up again. It rained all night long and the field began to flood underneath us. The next morning we walked up the trail that had become a river overnight. We cut the day short and dried our gear out at the next hut. We had a large climb the next morning to get up to a saddle with some of the most magnificent views I have seen so far. The whole day felt like I was back on the Pacific Crest trail, tramping through the Sierra. That night we made it to blue lake, rumored to be the clearest lake in NZ. Unfortunately, after the rain, the lake wasn't clear at all. We had another big climb up to a saddle the next day and hiked down a river into the valley on the otherside. I got to camp early and took a dip in the cold river to combat the intense sun. The next day we finished walking out of the valley and decided to do some night hiking to save on sun exposure. We got to a hut late that night and slept outside in order to not wake up the rest of the people inside. Around 6:00am the next morning, I felt four tiny pricks on my face. When I opened my eyes we were all swarming with sand flies, more than I had ever seen. We scrambled inside to sleep a bit more away from the pests. We got up a bit later and hiked out to a road that would take us to our next resupply point. A friend I was hiking with knew a guy in a town nearby who had recently triple crowned (hiked all 3 long distance trails on the US) so we hitch hiked 230km to the beach town of Kaikoura. He fed us tons of veggies from his garden and let us camp outside. This morning we went down to the ocean, where he went diving for crayfish and abalone for dinner this evening. We'll take another day off here and then head back to the trail for a seven day section. And at over 2/3rds of the way done! 2057km.