Since we'd been going quite fast and skipped a few huts, we decided we had plenty of time to add the Southern Circuit onto the North Western Circuit we were doing. Plenty of food, and lots of time before panic date would see helicopters coming to find us.

The first part today was a long stretch of beach, made unpleasant by the wind pushing against us. After a while of pushing through prickly makuka bushes and ferns we arrived in the forest and were able to walk more peacefully.

But then we reached the swampy summit. Cue nearly 2 hours of picking our way through bog and mid (it had rained through the night). A mix of knee deep mud, puddles of unknown depth (at least knee deep), and boggy ground with deceptive green tops to sink into.

Even once we left the worst part of the summit, we were climbing down steps of knee deep mud bracketed by slippery tree roots ready to trip you up. Morale was rather low at times.

We arrived at the hut only to be greeted by 5 hunters already in a small 8 bunk hut. With another couple who had been helicoptered in to spend 5 peaceful days at this bay, we weren't anticipating our night sharing one mattress to be great.

But we couldn't even begin to guess how bad. One of the hunters snored. Not your ordinary loud, wake everybody up snoring. No. Someone has a chainsaw next to me and is trying to start the chainsaw and kill us all snoring. We contemplated leaving in the middle of the night with torches but managed to snatch a few minutes here and there.