A Dangerous Business

Date: 10th February 2024

Comfy beds must have some added gravitational attraction. How else am I supposed to explain the difficulty it takes to get out of one? Granted there are other things with an equally strong pull, namely the promise of a hot breakfast in the lodge. It turned out to be somewhat underwhelming, or perhaps setting the buffet at the Skotel as my benchmark is too high a bar. There was indeed a buffet… of cereals. The hot brekkie was a plate of poached eggs, a tomato, a bit of bacon, and one small sausage. Tasty, but small. Still much better than a sachet coffee and an OSM bar.

Now to business after breakfast. First up, a round of disc golf. That should be fairly stress-free. Then I stepped up to the first tee.

That is a lot of long grass. I’ve thrown my fair share of discs into long grass, they don’t always come back. Not today however, I kept all my plastic in my bag. What I didn’t keep in check was my score. Now, granted it was very windy (remember how I said it’s common to have strong winds come roaring over the alps and down the lake?), but on a par 3 course where most holes are under 80 m long, I really should do better than +19. I’m very much out of practice. Still good fun though, I’m excited to get playing with my friends back home.

Next bit of admin was laundry… You really think I’m going to describe me doing my laundry in detail? Yeah, I’ll save you the boredom of that. Whilst I waited I just chilled out in the lodge, writing past blog posts or catching up on social media. Along with the blog, I’m also posting to a YouTube channel of the same name (see the YouTube icon at the bottom of the page) and to my personal Instagram. What I really should be doing whenever I get mobile reception/wifi at a place like this is upload stuff to these accounts. What I normally end up doing instead is doomscrolling these platforms. Today however, I did manage to get stuff posted. Good job me!

Right, that’s done, laundry’s done, what now? Well, I could go play another round of plastic throwing. Not right this moment, as the forecasted rain that motivated us to take this rest day in the first place had arrived. Then Matt turned up with more pressing matters. Namely, two platters piled high with nachos.

Was I concerned I wouldn’t have room for dinner later? Yes. Did that stop me? Nope. Why? Because nachos, that’s why. There’s always room for nachos. Right, now I can go play. Good news, I scored better than round 1… I shot +17. Oli came out to see what the fuss was all about and decided to join me for a couple holes. Only he didn’t throw any discs. His projectile of choice was a pine cone. Or as he calls them, kiwi eggs (it’s a whole thing, I don’t have time to get into it or how his mind works).

Now for dinner number two, and yes, as I expected I was still pretty full from the nachos I had 2 hours ago. Doesn’t matter, I’m gonna eat everything. I really wish I hadn’t, as after I finished my main course of venison I was already stuffed. I prayed dessert would come late. It did not, and I soon had a bowl of chocolate mousse sitting in front of me. This was turning into a challenge on par with the Tararuas. Slowly I polished it off, quickly heading back to my room to lie down for a few minutes. Once I felt a bit better, I came back to find Matt sewing up the holes in Melly’s shoes. He’s pretty handy at sewing as it turns out and he soon had everything patched up. To finish up the night, the three of us shared a drink together, Matt and I going for whiskey and Melly for a white wine.

With that, our rest day was over. A shame that regardless of whether we walk or rest, 24 hours takes the same amount of time. Still, I was glad to sit out that rain that came through earlier. The next few days promise to be much nicer. This trail isn’t going to walk itself, and now I’ve got just over 500 km to go.