Twenty-twenty had really thrown some punches and it was only March. Fiordland had been well and truly fucked by apocalyptic rain. This being followed by a worldwide pandemic. It was to this biblical backdrop that we found ourselves immersed in a plague of sandflies on the shores of Mavora Lakes. I had convinced my punters (and Luke) that a tent fly would be all good for everyone. However in the dark it was rather difficult to erect and so my group had to put up with a droopy wet blanket hovering just above their faces.
The morning brought welcome improvements, notably daylight. At least it did when we finally mustered up the motivation to peel the tent fly off our faces and slither out of our sleeping bags. The cooker was fired up for porridge whilst my punters faffed around getting themselves sorted. Most of the bus was awake by the time we hit the track, not quite the early start we had been aiming for. The first 10km of track was a rough 4WD track that snaked along the shore of the Northern lake. This was uneventful, unless you count 2 hours of ABBA karaoke as an event. At Carey’s Hut we broke out the snacks before making our way down to the ford on the Mararoa river.
