One slice of cheese, atop one multigrain cracker and beneath one pitted green olive

One each

I watch Arlene prepare a hut snack for herself and her partner, my mouth watering.

Cheese and crackers

a luxury that reminds me of home

and of some pretend Mediterranean vacation I could be on.

*I would, in fact, go on to purchase and practically inhale a box of crackers, a tub of hummus, and a packet of olives as soon as I got to town*

Arlene and Shane “have over one hundred years of risk assessment experience between the two of (them),” Shane said to me this morning, at Tin Hut, just before I set off on what would be a most uncomfortable —

Oh, YUCK

*delete delete delete*

What is this gross obsession I have with writing about how hard this is ?!

I heroically emerged from what felt like near-death, swung open the doors to the café in a rural town called Omarama and expected

applause,

I think?

I at least expected a free pantry item!

The audacity!

I selected (and paid full-price for) a butter chicken pie from the hot cabinet and sat myself at a table and, hands still numb to the bone, appeared something like a 6-year-old child new to the world of cutlery, onlookers certainly amused by my troubled state. I hastily shoveled food into my mouth.

Another TA Walker sat with me and we commiserated in our respective mornings, her heading South from the other side of the Ahuriri, myself heading North.

Cheers

And the applause I never received settled in; it occurred to me that there existed no flying fucks in the building. No one cared that I had found my way here! And not for a lack of compassion but rather a clean and simple lack of knowledge!

That’s almost the worst part! No one had any idea! They see rain? They get in their cars in drive here!

OR

WORSE

Each of them ALSO walked 25km in the pouring rain to get here! And I did not think to applaud them!

That’s probably why I keep Trying To write about how hard this is — I want my pat on the back.

I keep going from place to place and peak to peak and as soon as I pass the thing, my footsteps dissolve behind me unless I take the time to turn and look and breathe and feel and remember.

My oh-so-sweet sugarcoated lessons from the Ahuriri:

Congratulate yourself on your long-hauls and high-climbs. Everyone in the café is blinded by their own journey.

There could be two whole days of blissful sunshine just the other side of the storm. And you bet your bottom dollar that’ll be the sweetest smelling sun you’ve ever in your whole life seen.