Ok, so this is a bit of a minging one! Have a good old look at my blister ;) Apparently this is the best way to sort them out - pull a needle and thread through it, and the thread acts like a wick and sucks out all the bad-ness… Or so Cookie said… but he was so busy filming it that he neglected to point out at you’re supposed to leave the thread in not pull it straight through! Haha … So you’ve got the full close-up footage to look forward to as well… Yey ;)
Seems to have worked though. It’s a day later now, and nothing hurts, and no holes in me foot. So, top tip there hikers!
We’ve both ended up with blisters on the our little pinkies, and both on our right foot? I’m thinking perhaps the gradient of the beach down to the sea is the culprit, always putting more pressure on the right hand side. A days rest in Ahipara should sort them out, then the next section we’re on to more varied terrain.
What’s big, blue and Swedish, and lives in the mountains? 
After all our death-defying stream jumping over the past few days, the ironic thing was Nico sprained his ankle doing the simplest of things - stepping over a log!
So close, and yet so far… The last chunk of road walking is going to take more days than we’ve got. This is bad. We have to start making some ‘trimming decisions’. It’s gutting as it basically means that I’m not going to get to walk the last chunk of trail on foot :( As much as I want to. And as much time as we’ve spent faffing about doing our own alternative sections of trail, it still feels weird to be missing out a bit on what is essentially supposed to be a continuous line route. But I guess we’ve done some hardcore stuff to replace it. It takes a little edge off the excitement, but even so, we’ve done our 6th months of walking and adventuring North to South I guess, which is pretty satisfying! I don’t mind road walking that much. But we’re out of time and that’s the bugger.
I’ve been trying to ignore my increasingly painful toothache since Mt Cook, but it doesn’t seem to be going away.. We’re having a couple of days off in Queenstown to catch up on bloggin’, so I thought it’d be best to pay a visit to the dentist. As I had expected my poor tooth had died and needed root canal treatment :( When the dentist drilled into it he said - “Erghh, this is a smelly one!” Not exactly comforting to hear, I think the root was in a advanced state to decay..
