My phone timer rang and I hobbled to the guest laundry building out back, blisters nearly split. I opened the door to the (inhale) dryer. All of my clothes, warm and clean, sat there waiting to be folded.

Today I used a dryer for the first time in 7ish months.

Today was my hardest day on trail.

After 10 days and 200ish kilometers, today I have stayed put

Relatively

(I have walked to and from the shops 3 times, my brain and body maybe just as confused as the health app on my phone, which keeps notifying me that my “average total distance increased over the last 7 days”)

So yes

A zero day

Zero kilometers covered today and I expected to be able to rest but just as an off day after a team travel, on this day I found myself making lists and shopping around and doing various cleaning and, worst of all, reading the trail notes in far too much detail and messaging in the WhatsApp chat???????

Today, I cannot fathom doing the things that this next section will require of me.

Today I don’t have to do those things.

Today’s Affirmation: Worrying about it now will not save me later.

Being in Te Anau, a tourist’s town, teeming with rented campers and 8-person Kathmandu tents and motels with the “no” alight before the “vacancy” sign outside, has granted me a sort of freedom that did not exist in my first 10 days. Yesterday, I knew I was on the trail. I knew that I had to get up and walk in order to resupply in town. Now that I am in town, I see that there are other travelers here, doing different tracks and driving places and drinking beer.

It’s the curse of choice maybe?

I’m not sure I align with the people I have met on the trail —

I am not after a thrill as much as I am after time in nature.

I haven’t quite figured out if I am meant to be a through-hiker or a backpacker or neither or both.

Will update you.

I am off on the day’s fourth walk into town, hoping to, along the way, find some place to exhale my fears into the great big sky, hanging high above this great big lake.

Hoping to also find a pizza.

xx