East to West

so, how was the weather ???

As you predicted. Fine till the 30th at which pount a system of bad wx stalled over the fiordland alps where it's been ever since. Thankfully West Cape was far enough west to be out of it so since I got there (New Years Eve) I've been sharing sunshine (& occasional drizzle) with 5bn sandflies whilst I waited for the ranges to clear enough for a chopper to get through! Currently just glad to be out.

Yeah, wouldn't want to be anywhere on the westcoast in the next few days. 5bn sandflies :))

I was spooning the dead ones out of my tent with a dessertspoon each time I got back in & had a cull of those that sneaked in with me in the 5 secs the door was partially open. Avg of 3 dessertspoons of em each time door was opened at West Cape. 5 was the record at Edwardson Sound.

Spooning sandflies - the mind boggles !

Something that helps against Fiordland sandflies is to sew about 30 - 40 cm of light insect netting all the way around the tent fly and a wedge of the same in the door. Then once you're in and have all the sandflies killed, you can leave the inner door open and have some sandfly free space in the vestibule to cook in peace.

That's great, I've been dreaming of something similar as a more interesting alternative to Te Araroa. Are you working up a trip report, or did you keep a diary going?

@dreambroom [EDIT] Corrected day count [/EDIT] 125 days of tramping from East Cape to West Cape - but it took me from 2007 to 2021 to complete the trip! Certainly much more interesting than Te Araroa. And many times more challenging. The fiordland traverse in particular was the hardest bit of tramping I will ever do. I have diaries for all of the trip. The whole trip has been written up as a route guide. Only bits have been written up as a trip report. The diaries vary from the emotive/descriptive to the very dry, dependent on my frame of mind whilst tramping & writing them. So for some bits would be very hard to recapture the feeling of being there in the way required for a trip report or book - which is what it would end up being for a writeup of a trip of that length. Links to what has been written up so far are online here: https://tramper.nz/10244/walking-the-length-of-nzs-main-divide/

A very long term commitment! Thanks for that link, I'll surely be referencing that while making some plans for later this year.