Kepler day 4 - The Great Walk Out

Well we made it. About 80km and a mile up and down, but it was a lot of fun, and we never reached the emotional lows of the 1st day of the Cass-Lagoon Saddle tramp.

There must be something about the water in Lake Manapouri that we were drinking, as even though there was no alcohol, the evening card games of 'shithead' played until the wee hours (well 10pm ... we had early starts) caused major hilarity. We suspect the people who were already trying to sleep weren't enjoying it quite so much... Maybe this is the origin of the name.

A number of people who do the Kepler, skip the final day, and instead add 2 hours to day 3, and arrange a pickup from an early exit point. We now understand why. Day 4, was pretty much like day 3, but not as pretty, and more full of 'DayWalkers'. These are not vampire hunters, but people on our track carrying less than 10 kilos and smelling nice.

Whilst each day of the tramp has presented it's challenges, and overall, it has been pretty tiring, each day's tramp was somewhat easier than we were expecting, and as a consequence, we have been arriving at the huts by 2 at the latest. This has introduced a problem that we didn't expect.. A lack of tea bags! For weight reasons, we rationed our quota, but didn't expect to be sat around all afternoon.

That said, we still ended up bringing one back... Perhaps we didn't want to be in the unfortunate state of having 'no tea'.

This will be remedied for future tramps.

Next stop.. The pub!