Day 5 - Colac Bay to Martin's Hut, 28km, 8 hours

St Martin's Hut, my first hut on trail.  Most walkers were very disparaging of this hut, but apart from the lack of water I didn't mind it.

With the day promising to be hot, I got away to an early(ish) start, just after 7.  

I really enjoyed the cooler morning walking, taking advantage of the early morning light to go full tourist and take photos of sheep.



Despite a full water load to deal with an expected shortage, the pack felt really good. I had spent some time reconfiguring it slightly to be able to store more heavy gear low, on my hips, rather than on my shoulders.

To date I've been heading west, along the coast, but today I was hanging a right and starting to head north for the first time.
Having heard about a recently opened shortcut through a dairy farm from a SOBO, I left the official trail and rather nervously ventured down a side road, searching for the promised orange triangle. I was approaching Ardoyne farm, where the shortcut is, when a cockie came roaring up on his quad.  My visions of having to backtrack 3km evaporated as he enthusiastically pointed out the route to take through his farm. Top bloke! With profuse thanks for allowing access I made my way up through the farm to the bushline of Longwood forest.
It was here that I had my first decent view of Stewart island, no longer obscured by haze, as I stopped to don gaiters. My first bit of proper tramping since I had started awaited!

Entering the bush I first had some energy sapping bush bashing trying to pick (and sometimes make a new) path of least resistance though the forest.  I had a renewed sense of admiration for Maori and the early European explorers as I collapsed exhausted and drenched in sweat only a kilometer (as the bird flies at least) from where I left the farm, but on the track at least.  

There has been a lot written by other walkers about how muddy the Longwood track is and how washed out the route is along the water race.  At first I found it easy going, but it was to become progressively more difficult as the day went on.

Not long into the forest, I passed my first major milestone. Te Araroa, South Island is 1300km long (well 1297km, but I thought I'd take the last 3 for free), and I had just passed my first 100km marker. Queue celebratory thumbs up.

The forest was beautiful; mixed podocarp of Rimu and Matai, with kamahi and rata with an understory of tree ferns and lancewood.  To my mind rather reminiscent of West coast forest.  I love walking through forest like this, such a contrast to the Canterbury mountain beech forest mono-flora I am used to.

There were sections where I pushed through Fern groves so dense it was impossible to have any sense of where the trail went.  In these sections I proceeded very deliberately, careful to not lose my way, and breaking off fronds as I went to make the way more obvious. Nevertheless, at one point I managed to lose the trail, but was close to a stream which allowed me to re-orientate and bush bash back to the track.

The trail could best be described as makeshift, with many bridges consisting of a single log, many half rotten, and of the "I'm not entirely comfortable with someone of your weight crossing me" variety.


One particularly dodgy bit had a 1.5 meter gap, 2 meter drop to the water race, and slippery take off and landing points; fortunately safely negotiated.

Being finally into some bush I revelled in being able to have a shady stop whenever I wished, and settled into my normal tramping rythym of packs off every hour.

I enjoyed walking beside the water race, you can guarantee that they'll be flat tracks, so Karen and I often used them for walks before she had her heart op. I have fantastic memories of walking along the still functioning one in Naseby playing Pooh sticks with Karen and the boys for kilometers, so a water race walk always evokes happy memories for me. I prefer not to consider the back breaking labor that must have going into constructing them.

After about 5 hours of walking I came upon some of the old paraphernalia the race had been dug for. Gold workings!
An old boiler in the bush, I presume to drive a stamping battery.

It was as good a place as any, so I sat down for some lunch here.
As I drained the last of my water (I still had a bottle of raro made up), I suddenly realised that I was going to need it to boil up my soup. Not wanting to find out what rich tomato and orange soup tastes like, I contented myself with banana chips and cashew nuts.   Sigh.

A sting was waiting in the trail towards the end of the day. A 300 meter climb over 1.5km. here my insufficient lunch caught up with me, having to stop every 5 or so minutes as I hauled up the hill. It was a curious thing I don't know I've felt before - with each step my pack literally felt like it was getting heavier.

Eventually I came to Martin's hut, the first DOC hut on te Araroa. It's probably the first built hut on te Araroa as well. Let's just say that wall ventilation (and mice) come for free. Unfortunately lighting doesn't. It has a small window, which seemed ineffectual even mid afternoon, so I wedged the door open to provide some light.


I'd just taken my boots off when an English SOBO couple popped in. We spent the next 30 minutes looking around for a water source, before finding a trickle of a stream 200 meters from the hut, and worse yet 60 meters down! I'll try to restrain myself to only needing to fill the bottles once, but tomorrow is a dry day's walking, so I'll need to be careful. I gave myself the best chance of not needing to go back by drinking about 2 liters of water while I was there. Any way, it turns out the English couple had in the last day booked into the district Court in Dunedin to get married when they were off the trail. Congrats to them! I guess 6 months of walking will give you a fair idea about whether you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.

Late in the day Neil, the Tasmanian I met the previous day turned up, to make a full hut.

Day 4 - Colac Bay - 0km

Not much to report today.  A day lazing around at Colac Bay.
While eating my porridge and sipping my coffee over breakfast, I eyed up the Longwood forest just to my North, and where the trail would be heading next.  It was an attractive proposition, a densely forested hill, rising slowly to the North.  I was looking forward to the shade to give my sunburn a break, and the easier footfall to be found in the forest would be welcome too. 


Walking down to the beach this morning my feet had felt much improved, the biggest issue the bruise under my right heel, rather than the blister on my left.  It was a cool, overcast morning, with mist sitting in the Longwood forest - perfect conditions for walking.  I was tempted to pass up the chance for a rest day and forge on, but decided on a day at the beach (maybe not so concerned by sunburn after all!) and hoping another day of rest would put paid to the worst of the bruise.  What I'm doing is a marathon, not a sprint, and as long as I'm in Te Anau by the first of February to meet Stephen and Eli off the bus, I'm good.


Too much sitting around with nothing to do but think and reflect can be dangerous though.  I was really missing Caleb today.  I'm not sure if bringing the montage Stephen and his mate put together for his funeral was a good idea or not.  On balance I think it probably is, it's important to acknowledge and deal with what you are going through rather than just bottle it up and ignore it in an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of way.

I had 2 swims at Colac Bay during the day, the second had some decent surf and I got some fair body surfing in. Swimming in Foveaux Strait, I was amazed at how warm the water was, much warmer than I am used to back on Canterbury beaches.
I retired to the bar for the afternoon to watch Pakistan get pulverised in the cricket, but didn't see much of the second innings because two te araroa walkers came in and we struck up an earnest and entertaining conversation. One, Neil, a Tasmanian, is heading north, so I'm likely to see a bit of him in the near future. Seemed a nice sort of bloke.
I met another couple of walkers during the day, including another NOBO who is planning to return to Invercargill tomorrow to sort out her too heavy pack. I have been doing likewise by busily eating any excess food I have, quite happy to take one for the team on that score.

Right now I'm sitting by the beach with a clear, dark sky hoping for a sight of the fabled Aurora Australis. Unfortunately for me the Aurora forecast turned out to be correct and there is nothing to be seen, nor is likely to be for the next few days.

PostScript. I've had beautiful weather along the south coast, but it isn't always the case.

Day 3 - Riverton to Colac Bay, 14km, 4 hours 40 minutes

I started the day having a leisurely breakfast, chatting with a fascinating couple who were sharing the backpackers with me.
They'd had a custom 4 person recumbent tandem built for them, and used it to tour the South Island. We chatted about this a fair bit, got into their tramps down on Stewart island, and some epic sea kayaking adventures around the Marlborough Sounds. Pretty cool, but whole other level given that the guy is totally blind. An inspiring couple it was a pleasure to spend time with.


Somehow we got onto the topic of skinny dipping. I brought out my best tale in this respect - swimming with Karen for 30 minutes at the base of the Maruia falls (I know, I know; it's dangerous - we were young, stupid, and a lot skinnier back then!). In any case we had a great time having the river to ourselves for such a long time... until we eventually realised there was a viewing platform at the top of the falls, with a bus load of tourists on it!
My new friends promptly trumped this story with an even better one. They were skinny dipping down on Stewart island and had hopped out to dry off, when they were surprised by an angry bull seal who came steaming out of the water then promptly settled down on their discarded clothing, and would not be moved. An already dire situation deteriorated further when a tourist launch pulled up at their little beach. Truly a tale even Crumpy would have been proud of!

In any case, back to the walking.
I had a nasty shock in the morning while examining my foot taping, to discover a 10 cent sized blister on my left heel.


Managing my feet was always going to be one of the most challenging aspects of this adventure, but it was quite perturbing to have such a nasty blister so early. In fact after 80km of very hot road and beach walking, my feet were in a bit of a sorry state, with a bruise forming under the heel of my right foot too.

In any case, with some careful plastering and taping, the heel blister didn't bother me unduly throughout the day, although the bruise became worse.

The walking started with a mostly easy climb of 200m up to and through Mores reserve. This is another heavily trapped and consequently stunning reserve on the outskirts of Riverton, with views over much of my trail for the past couple of days and bird life rarely seen on the mainland. Having only a lazy 14km to do on the day, I took time out to enjoy the view before carrying on.

The path down to Colac Bay was exceedingly overgrown with hen Fern and gorse, though fortunately recently thwacked.
It was on my way down here that I bumped into my first SOBO. We spent 5 minutes chatting, with lots of good tips exchanged about the upcoming track. I was told to be careful of electric fences strong enough to bring down a horse, and put in the know about a recently opened section of track that will benefit me in a few days, along with a warning about a lack of water throughout pretty much the rest of Southland.

Continuing on, I dropped down to some truly spectacular coastline, with never ending sets of huge southern ocean breakers rolling into the shore. Truly a surfers paradise!



I carried on up and over numerous headlands, with a bit of basic route finding over the cliffs to spice up an already interesting route. Some of the headlands required pushing through thick flax thickets, a difficult job resulting in a couple of tumbles, my feet not being visible.


In one bay there was a fascinating meter square cave, with breakers literally blowing through it to wash up at my feet. It made for some great video.

Eventually I dropped down to the Colac Bay beach, surely one of the best surf beaches in the country.



I'm going to hang around here tomorrow to enjoy the surf, my last view of the sea for awhile, and to allow my sorry feet to recover somewhat.

PostScript for the day. It's 11pm. There's a very drunk, obnoxious guy outside my room asking his wife to roll a smoke for him, coz he's too far gone to do it. His wife is refusing. His mates are trying to convince him to go to bed, doing the right thing by everyone else in the camp.
Mate: Markus, go to bed.
Markus: (unintelligible) whoop, rrrrrrrrr
Mate: Markus, you have a beautiful woman in there, go have sex with her.
Markus: I'm too drunk to get it up.
Mate: Sorry mate, I can't help you with that.
Markus: Why not?

Stay classy Markus!

Day 2 - Invercargill to Riverton - 34km, 7 hours.

The day started with more road walking - 10km of it from Invercargill to Oreti Beach. But with a wide runoff and no trucks, this was a much more enjoyable experience than yesterday, especially with an ice cream shop half way along.

Towards the end of the road I passed Terotonga raceway, where there was a round of the NZ V8 championship in progress. It sure sounded good, and I was more than half tempted to stop and watch for a couple of hours, but with the beach calling, and time and tide famously waiting for no man, I pressed on.

Also famous, in New Zealand at least, is Oreti beach itself. Home to national land speed records, including of course those of Burt Munro (since immortalised in the film The World's Fastest Indian), I had been wanting to check it out for some time. No so much for the land speed record stuff, but it holds another claim to fame. It's the best place to see Aurora Australis from mainland New Zealand, something that is definitely on my bucket list to do. To be honest, I'm hopeful I might catch a glimpse over the next two nights. The Aurora forecast isn't too promising - I can but hope.

As I approached the beach my enthusiasm dimmed somewhat.  Sand whipped across the road towards me and I had visions of 20+km of sand blasting.



My concerns were not realised however. What makes the beach good for land speed records saved me; hard packed sand with good, if windy walking and lots of beach to be had at dead low tide when I arrived on the beach.


Oreti beach is one long curve, and throughout the day I experienced a curious optical illusion where it appeared I was walking on a straight stretch, with a sharp curve in the beach a couple of kilometers ahead, a curve that would never be reached. 

After several hours of this, and a quick lunch with minimal shelter from the blasting winds (which had come around and were now directly in my face) up in the dunes, I realized that the tide was on its way back in. I wasn't too concerned, high tide at Bluff was 5pm, still 2 hours away. However I kept getting pushed higher up the beach into the soft stuff, and by 3.30 there was no beach left, at least any that could be navigated at any kind of pace.



It seems I had made a mistake, well actually 2 mistakes.
1. I had assumed Bluff's tide times would hold true for Riverton.
2. I should have come on the beach at mid tide while it was going out. This would have given me enough time to walk the length without being affected.


Fortunately there was a paper road just back from the beach, and after hacking my way through dune grass, a fair amount of gorse, a very effective wind break, and jumping over 3 electric fences (nervous times with my big, heavy pack) I started making progress again.


Coming back to the beach before Riverton, I eventually found an exit and hobbled into town, my feet somewhat the worse for wear after two very long days.  It's fair to say that I was pleased to see the back of the beach.

There was a somewhat embarrassing epilogue to the day. I went across to get (an excellent) pizza for dinner, came back to my room for a lie down, when I realised after some time that I had walked out of the restaurant without paying! Queue embarrassed scramble back across the road with profuse apologies.

Day 1 - Bluff to Invercargill - 39km, 7.5 hours

I'm a night owl, a habit that was reinforced by years of studying late at night, and has been hard to break out of.
So enforced early morning rises with the dawn light streaming through the tent walls or through hut windows will be interesting.  To be truthful I'm quite looking forward to the opportunity to break out of not feeling the need to sleep until the small hours.  Certainly I'm expecting to be tired enough much of the time to have no issues getting to sleep earlier.
In any case today I had an opportunity to preview how that might all go with a 5.45am alarm call to catch a 6.30 bus to Bluff. Alas, this was all to no avail, with the bus company forgetting to actually pick me up, then promising me a bus close to lunch time, which would have me trudging back into Invercargill about 9pm. Some scrambling around was done, alternative plans put in place, and I wound up in Bluff an hour or two later than anticipated.

On the upside, while waiting for the bus I discovered my hotel abuts Pork Pie Lane. I know that movie finished down here, but I'm wondering if that actual lane is featured in the movie, or it's just Tim Shadbolt with some of his clever marketing. [Edit. The new pork pie movie ended with the car being burnt out here]

Having made Stirling Point I set off West around the bottom of Bluff Hill. Within 200 meters there was a track haring off up the hill, which I gave serious consideration to, before deciding it wouldn't do to go off the trail literally within a couple of minutes of starting.

Bluff Hill is gorgeous! It's a volcanic isthmus jutting out from the mainland, and as such can be easily blocked off to predators. There has been an extensive trapping program to support this, with spectacular results. Bird life such as rarely seen on the mainland, most especially tui, one of my favourite birds.

I had been surprised to see the bush, given the exposure to southerlies that must occur on such a promonentry, and sure enough the bush soon gave way to scrub to sea level - the hill itself must have been sheltering the bush further east.

The tide was ripping out of Bluff harbour spectacularly close to the shore and, given I will shortly be leaving the sea behind for 1200km, I stopped to watch - not the place for a swim though!

Shortly hereafter was my second rude surprise for the day, with the coastal route closed (it was listed as such on the TA website, but I had forgotten). I wasn't particularly displeased by this, it gave me the opportunity to climb Bluff Hill after all, a short, sharp climb of 250m. As I suspected spectacular views were to be had at the top, along with a family of Sydney-siders arguing over which way North was (for the record, the dad was 180 degrees in the wrong direction).


Dropping down over the other side of the hill, I stopped in Bluff itself for an iceblock, before motoring (not literally I should stress!) off along the dreaded SH1, trying to make up the extra 3km the detour over the hill had added to an already long day.

I ended up spending most of the day walking SH1. Every minute or two a logging truck would whiz past within meters at 100km/h.  Although there was often a makeshift trail beside the road, I was pleased I had brought a highvis vest specifically for this section.

After 10km I started developing hotspots on my feet, more of the blister kind than the wireless internet kind (sorry - dad joke) so stopped to strap my feet. It was here that I had a pleasant surprise when another NOBO (te araroa northbound Walker, a SOBO is of course southbound) sauntered up. We chatted while I strapped. It turns out she had been on the 6:30 bus that had missed me, along with another NOBO who had disappeared up the road and was presumably half way back to Invercargill by now (Post walk note: I subsequently found out this person was Neil, of whom you will read much more on this blog - we ended up walking at least half of the South Island together). Valuable information, as it gives some indication as to how busy the huts may be further on.
Continuing on we walked together for awhile. I obliged by taking photos of her with sheep (She was  Cornish, I thought they had sheep there?). In any case we split after awhile as she took photos of yet more sheep, and I was soon well up the road ahead.

The whole Bluff to Invercargill section didn't provide a lot of shade. Actually scratch that. Provided no shade, and with the day heating up I was forced to soldier on with no breaks. This resulted in good progress, and when I was eventually forced to stop for lunch I had covered 18km in 4 hours walking, including over Bluff Hill.

There was little else of interest along the state highway, apart from one exceedingly narrow rail overbridge, which I reccied carefully before running over, grateful of my small day pack.

Eventually all bad things must come to an end, and I ducked off onto an estuary walkway close to Invercargill, where at least I was off the road, but at this point the day really started heating up, and probably got close to 30.


Coming into the outskirts of Invercargill I found my first tree since Bluff Hill and collapsed gratefully into its shade for some R&R.
At this point Karen called - I really enjoyed the normality of chatting like I was home and made a mental note to always have my cell off flight mode when in coverage. She presented the excellent idea of going back to my hotel via the Invercargill pool.

Post swim a 1km jaunt saw me back where I started the day, at the Grand.

Back home the boys and I often go dirt kart racing. This is awesome fun, but every time we go the fastest lap always comes in the first lap or two because they haven't had a chance to turn the water on yet which sends the karts into sideways powerslides.  My first day on TA has been rather the same. No pack, road walking and sand shoes had seen me cover an amazing 39km in 7.5 hours, a rate unlikely to be repeated for the remainder of my walk, given a good tramping speed is 3km/h.


Interesting facts for the day:
Road kill count 7
Discarded fishing gloves on roadside count 5.

Day 0 - Christchurch to Invercargill

I've never been good at goodbyes.
When I used to travel to Mexico there were always a few tears, and it's the same this time around.  Don't get me wrong, I'm really looking forward to it, but the goodbye this time has been harder with emotions already at very raw edge from Caleb's death.



Plus side.  I see Elijah and Stephen in two weeks, and it will be awesome walking a section with them.  Also it's only 6 weeks until I get back to the Rakaia River and get back home for a few days, which is only 2 weeks longer than my longest work trips to Mexico when the kids were younger.

I've written this first bit sitting in the airport waiting lounge.  Right on queue they've just started playing, "can't live if living is without you" on the canned music system.  Thanks Christchurch airport; perfect going away music.  I'm surprised there aren't people jumping off the roofs.
Anyway after the dreaded, "please see an Air New Zealand representative" on checking in (queue visions of cancelled flights; it turns out they were just trying to fit me in on an earlier flight which turned around when unable to land in Invercargill anyway - I hope my flight has better luck), I have a seat booked on the right hand side of the plane.  This should give good views towards the route of the trail.  I'm particularly looking forward to checking out the Longwood forest and the Takitimus, two areas I am totally unfamiliar with and will be tackling early on.

My spirits started lifting as the flight rolled out.  This is the culmination of a year's planning and preparation, and a lot of hard work.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Low cloud in Southland meant there were no views of the early trail to be seen, but at least my flight got in, unlike the previous one, and I'll get a good enough look at everything in the coming days!

Having successfully completed my first navigational challenge of finding my way out of the airport carpark, I was left with a quick 4km jaunt to the Grand Hotel.  This indeed has a rather grand exterior, but conversely is equally tired internally.  Nevertheless, a fine place to lay my head for the next two nights, being directly downtown.  The walk was a fine opportunity to feel the pack on my back before the real deal starts in two days time - the first day being packless from Bluff back to Invercargill.  The pack was comfortable, but certainly wasn't light.  I'm not too concerned by this though - it was loaded up with heavy tramping boots and stuff I'll be leaving behind after day 1.

Gear, gear, gear

Tomorrow is Day 0 (travelling to Invercargill, but not walking from Bluff until the next day).

So what gear do I have? 

That's pretty much all of it.

It's a mix of tried and tested, and new gear bought because it's a better fit for a long walk.
Originally I had intended to tramp with a pack which when fully loaded would have touched 30kg.  Having bumped into and talked to numerous people on my trial walks who have walked te araroa, there was one piece of advice every single one of them gave me:

Every gram counts!

So I have recently undergone a process of whinnying down what I am taking, and replacing heavy over-specced equipment with lighter weight options.  This has got me down to a base weight (without food and water) of ~16kg, with ~6kg in food for 12-14 days, and a couple of kilos for those dry sections where I'll need to carry a lot of water.  Not accounting for damp and wet gear (which quickly adds to the weight), this gives a tramping weight of 23-24kg maximum - noting that I won't always need to tramp with the maximum allocation of food and water.  Given I'm used to tramping with kids, this will feel featherweight to my shoulders - although perhaps not after a couple of weeks!

So here's a (rough) list.

• 90 litre pack.  An old Kathmandu unit - there aren't many packs around this big, and a pack breakage is the last thing you want.  So this is a big, old, heavy unit I've used for years and can trust implicitly.
• 2 man Macpac tunnel tent.  This was one of the first things I upgraded for the track - my old tent is a 3 man, weighing 4kg+; this new one comes in about 2kg.  I could have saved a lot of weight here by going with a 'coffin' tent or bivvy bag, but I want to be comfortable while waiting for rivers to go down so I'm not tempted to cross prematurely, so have upsized.
• Inflatable half length ground mat
• 2 x walking poles.  A bit of thought was given to only taking one, but I find they help to prevent jarring of my back while descending hills.
• Electronics.  Ironic given this trip is a break from IT, I'm taking a lot - it'll all be stored in dry bags.
• Cellphone - also acting as my mapping system and GPS (I'm not taking any maps)
• Suunto watch - to track my walking and also to provide emergency GPS location if something happens to my phone
• Kindle - contains backups of route descriptions, again in case something happens to the phone, and lots of books!
• Satellite phone - I'll be using this to report my location every evening so Karen can see I'm OK.  Jakob will also be posting these locations to my facebook in case you want to see where I am.
• Waterproof camera.  I'll generally be using my phone as a camera - this is more a backup than anything.
• USB Rechargeable head torch
• 10000mah battery as a powerpack to charge everything off
• 7w solar charger that will sit on the top/outside of my pack and recharge the powerpack as I walk on fine days.
• Recharging cables
• 240v USB adapter for when I'm in a town
• PLB (personal locator beacon)
• Clothes
• Gortex jacket
• 2 x merino top base layers.
• 1 x full length merino top
• 1 x collared merino t-shirt
• 1 x windproof vest
• 1 x lightweight down jacket (for hut/tent use, pillow at night, auxiliary sleeping bag warmth when cold)
• 1 x long sleeved shirt (to keep the sandflies/mozzies off at night
• 1 x pair tramping shorts
• 1 x togs (I'm planning to swim a lot)
• 1 x long lightweight trousers (again to keep the insects off)
• 3 x underwear (technical, moisture wicking etc)
• 1 x thermal leggings
• 2 x pairs technical tramping socks (merino mix)
• knee length gaiters
• tramping boots.  These are fairly heavy duty - lots of te araroa walkers use trail shoes, but I think that's nuts given some of the terrain
• Lightweight gloves
• Warm hat
• Lightweight teva sandles.  Hut/tent footwear.  Again a recent purchase - I was going to go with crocs, but at 300 grams these are almost as light, and can also function as auxillary walking footwear if I have an issue with my boots.
• Expedition sunhat (one of those one's with a flap to protect my neck)
• Net hat (It makes me look like a total dweeb, but sure keeps the insects out)
• High-vis vest (for the day one walk Bluff to Invercargill - will biff it after that)
• Old shoes (again only for day one, Bluff to Invercargill)
• Really old day pack (again, only for day one. I'm leaving my large pack in Invercargill).
• Pack liner.  Also can function as emergency bivvy bag
• 3 season sleeping bag.  Recently bought to take instead of my ~2kg 4 season bag.  This one is ~700 grams and is using newly developed waterproof down (it'll give warmth even if it gets wet).  The 4 season bag is too warm to use 95% of the time in summer.  If it gets cold, I'll use my down jacket as an auxiliary second bag.
• Silk sleeping bag liner.  This is to either sleep on top of using my bag as a duvet, or to sleep inside using my bag as a mattress, depending on temperature.
• Pillow case.  I'm soft.  So shoot me.  I'll be filling this with my spare clothing at night.  A down jacket makes a fabulously soft pillow!
• Smallish pot
• Cup.   Note, no plate - I'll be using the pot for this.
• Titanium spork.   (plus a plastic backup in case I lose it)
• Lightweight knife (thanks Eli!)
• Titanium propane burner
• 2 x 250gram propane cannisters (for what I'm doing this should last 2 weeks.)  If I'm not happy with my gas usage I'll put in a third before I get to the really long sections.
• 2 x 1.5 liter bottles
• 1 x filtered 500ml bottle (so I can use water from doubtful sources)
• 1 x hip belt - will store the 500ml bottle and some food as I walk so I can drink/snack without having to stop
• Food
• Porridge for breakfast
• Soup/noodles/dehydrated/pasta for lunch
• Dehydrated for dinner
• Salami
• Carrot
• 300ml cream (this'll only last a few days but will be great for porridge, coffee)
• Hot drinks assortment
• Brown sugar, salt, pepper
• Raro sachets (if I'm having a low energy day and feel like a pep up)
• Museli bars
• Cashews.  Lots of cashews.
• Banana chips
• Biscuits
• Dehydrated loo paper (it's a thing, look it up).  Thanks Anna!
• Soap slivers
• Pot scrub
• Quick-dry towel
• Sunglasses
• Sunscreen lotion
• Dimp
• Monoscope (for spotting track markers)
• First aid kit (recently greatly augmented, thanks Colleen!)
• Medicine.  Largely to keep my back going (anti-inflammatories, along with acid neutralising tablets, because voltaren is terrible for your stomach), panadol, anti-histamines, anti-biotics. 
• Tape for protecting my feet from blisters
• Emergency repair stuff.  Sewing needles, twine, boot laces, spare straps

Man that's a lot of stuff when you write it all down!