As we got closer to the very end of the south island, we walked straight through town, keen to get it over with as soon as possible as opposed to taking the longer scenic route over the hill. The last few kilometres were slow. ‘I feel like it’s getting a bit difficult now,’ I said, and it cracked us up a lot more than it should. Then we rested, sat on the stoop even though Bluff was just moments away. When we finally walked up to the signpost, I teared up. I’d made it to Bluff.

My little world collapsed around me. I’d struggled for weeks with the exhaustion, the trailburn that crippled me physically and emotionally. I was running behind on everyone I knew, already fighting and utterly failing to catch up, and now I’d hurt myself. I wasn’t going to be able to finish the TA with my trail family. Everything I was holding onto had broken into a million pieces.

I hadn’t stopped walking since that morning, more than eleven hours earlier. I was just standing outside of a window, fumbling with my sudden shoes, when suddenly the door opened and someone shrieked my name, ‘Cosmo!’

Something was different. I felt as though something was slowly defeating me, and I couldn’t go back to being myself anymore. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to feel like I was going to fall apart every time I looked at the slightest upward trail, or a rock on the ground I’d have to manoeuvre around. It wasn’t normal.

There was one other obstacle I’d have to face that day. It was the last big river crossing, and the widest crossing on the TA. One more river, at the end of this very trail. After all the rivers I had forded in the previous sections, I finally hoped to put them behind me…

I quickly moved on from the hut, turned around the corner and found myself face to face with Hakatere River, which had become a terrifyingly raging torrent. I didn’t know much about rivers, but I knew that this wasn’t what it was supposed to look like…

I was expecting another Richmond Range or Waiau Pass, something similar but entirely different at the same time. I had no idea that the next stretch would be nothing like that, that no stretch would ever be anything like those behind me again, and that out of the entire TA, the leg between Boyle Village and Arthur’s Pass would become the section I resented the most.

Each step afforded a small but significant difference in the view of the lake behind. It was a marvellous sight, the blue alpine lake surrounded by mountains. It was the best single view I’d had so far. In fact, the single best view I would have along the entire TA…

I set off just as the sun hit the top of the ridge I was headed to, an orange glow that intensified and grew. I had never started hiking this early, and this was the first time I’d ever seen the layers of mountain colour grey in the distance with the sky lighting up in the back, and everything around me blossoming and warm. I bathed in the glow of rising sun, a morning of simple beauty…

Once I found the sea the grey sky was everywhere, and it began to rain. I walked along the shore and saw the small park. That was it. It was distinctly unimpressive and desolate, the TA’s stone memorial tucked into the back of a playground…

I followed the ridge into the fog that thickened and lifted again, while I continued to take pictures of every angle around me. Gina soon sped past, agile and fearless, while I carefully placed every single step in front of me. At this rate, this mountain range was going to take me all week to get through…

This was the start of our river journey. Huddled underneath the trees in our life jackets, sheltering from the rain as it unceremoniously poured down on us, while our barrels sat unloaded on the dirt track. We were in a queue of trucks launching canoes and tourists down the river and we were in the back. Everything was grey and murky and the river looked dull and cold…

Tongariro! By the time we reached this section, everyone was quite excited. It felt like the real trail was starting, and Tongariro was, for many, the TA’s first highlight…

After Hamilton, the TA made its first strides towards the sort of trail I’d been waiting for. There were more forests and mountains, littered with just a few sections of frustrating farmland to ensure the typical North Island TA experience.

Out of the entire 3,000 kilometre TA, I was about to hit its most unpopular section. Everyone who was already cherry-picking and skipping sections, was definitely going to skip this. And those who hadn’t, were considering it.