We had one more big day left in New Zealand (visiting from the USA) and we wanted to make it a great one! We spent the afternoon before near the hot springs to get fully recovered, then hit the trailhead at the crack of dawn. Conditions were excellent, hovering in the 40s (fahrenheit) throughout, with low wind. We started out pretty conservative with our pacing, but weren't stopping much or messing around. Mostly we were testing out the legs after having done at least five big days and tons of climbing in the ten days prior. But we also had nothing left to save for, so we ended up picking it up and feeling alright to just go for it.
We each wore running vests with filter flasks and a ton of sugar in various forms. Phil particularly liked the sour gummies from the bulk aisle at New World. The weather looked steady so we didn't bring much for layers and were quite comfortable throughout.
The climbs were not bad at all, but the earth was a bit soft and the second half had significant mud and puddles. But for the most part this was incredibly runnable compared to some of the routes we had been on, so it felt great to let the legs churn. There were some moments in the middle ten miles that really took our breath away, when the high mountains had beautiful frostings of seemingly fresh snow, but the green meadows around us were in full bloom. We maybe only saw 10 to 15 people the whole time, so for the most part we had this whole garden of eden to ourselves. The Waiau Valley just past Christopher Hut was particularly cool because of how broadly it opened up before us. You could imagine this being full of towns and people, but for some reason it is left to the horses to enjoy, and that seems for the better.
As we got down to the last 10 miles we started getting serious about breaking 10 hours. We needed a slight dip in pace and a little mistaken visit to the Boyle Flat didn't help, but we were able to change gears and get under 10. It got warm at the end and a little tricky to navigate as they do some trail work, but then pretty soon we were in more populated territory and the signs started guiding us in.
End to end this was a very cool trail, and it is such a great length for one long day run. We immediately got a hitch back to our car (thank you Mark!), which was just the final reinforcement of how welcoming folks are down here in New Zealand. What an awesome end to our journey around the South Island!