It’s the end of an era as I passed the last of the huts. From now on it’s the tent for accommodation.

There’s also the last of the real forest and standard narrow up-and-down track, a couple of goats chased ahead, then a piglet spotted.

The Pelorus is down to a low level despite recent rain, doesn’t appear to have been much, the colour is a glass green, like in the Goulter last week but there’s a difference here, large pools with the river has cut down into the bedrock, deeper than it looks I suppose, a few 400 mm trout swishing their tails languidly.

I’m happy enough, just concentrating on where I’m putting my feet, there’s a large windfall to get around but after lunch I pop out in a gravel road and the Richmond Ranges section is all over.

Was I really on Mt Fell this time yesterday?

There’s the Mangatapu Road, actually just a 4WD track that even been closed to 4WDs, over to Nelson, I popped up there with my bike and excessive luggage on my trailer last January on my way to setting up a life in Nelson. At the junction is my campsite where I had a night in my other, larger, tent, seems a while ago, plenty happened since then.

Won’t be long before I’m back in town, Nelson, trying to figure out what to do next.

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