Yesterday, while climbing over Mt Martha Saddle, I downloaded the latest weather report. There forvast predicted about 30mm of rain, mostly in the afternoon. As the next hut is 7-8h away, I would have to leave early.

Upon waking up at 6am with my alarm though, I could already hear the heavy rain tapping on the roof of the hut, supported by gusts of wind. I therefore made the decision to stay the day at the hut and wait out the weather. I’ve got enough food with me anyways. I therefore turned around and continued sleeping a bit longer.

I finally for up at 9am, being very lazy about doing so. But nature was calling and so I made my way up through the rain towards the dunny. The toilet seat was wet, as the door doesn’t close and wind must have come from an unfortunate direction. I hope this doesn’t happen while I’m inside as I would prefer to be sheltered from the rain. Then I went to go and brush my teeth before eating breakfast.

As this will be a zero day I rationed out my snacks to a lower number than what I usually consume while tramping. There is no point in me eating all day long when I need the food more during the next day of strenuous up and down.

After breakfast I went through the books left behind in the hut. There was the bushmans bible, which seems to be present in every hut. I thought it would be an outdoor guide, but no, it is a book concerning religion. Not of interest for me. The other book to be found was eat pray love. Having already seen the movie I know the story but sat about reading it anyways.

All the talk of food in Italy made me crave some quality pizza and pasta.

Around noon I was joined by the two Canadians who went over the saddle today. They were indecisive if they should continue on or stay for the night. While they had lunch, the UK runner, who I had met previously at Cameron Hut also joined us, as well as a German girl I had previously met briefly at Anne hut and one the section towards Arthur’s Pass. Lastly, the guy from the UK who was with the Canadians and me on the two thumb track joined our merry group, filling the last bunk in the Hut. All of them had decided at this point to stay here for the night.

So now, after a single occupant night the hut is fully occupied. Due to the heavy rain though, the Timaru river had become milky with sediment and therefore unusable with our filters. Someone had to go cross the river to fetch water from the creek on the other side, which was still clear. Both Canadians made a trip during the afternoons the second filling up the big bucket that was at the hut and lugging it up from the river. At least we now had as much water as we needed.

The rest of the evening was spent talking and reading. We for caught up with what happened to each of us over the last few days on trail. All of us settled down after nightfall at around 9:30pm for an early day the next day.