Lake Tekapo to Wanaka

From Tekapo we hitched out to Twizel and walked out to Lake Ohau to the start of the next leg to Wanaka. Lake Ohau is a beautiful lake that is popular for water sports so saw a few boats and skiers.
We tramped about 12km in on the track and camped beside the stream. Again lots of tussock and river crossings. The weather was really hot and sunny. After that we had a huge day in the hot dry exposed plains of Canterbury with a big river crossing of the Ahuriri River. We walked across farmland that had a few bits of tussock a million rabbit holes and dry barren dirt. We didn't even see rabbits. We then started the Breast Hill Track which climbs up to the Mt Martha Saddle on an old 4 wheel drive track.  This was the first time we have had difficulty getting water. We have always had a rule of not collecting water anywhere there are cattle or sheep and we had to walk 10 km in the hot hot sun before we could safely take water from the streams. Wayno ' s heel was playing up again so we made camp about 2km from the top of the saddle at the best spot we could find as there weren't many flat spots up there. The next day we walked only 10 km to Top Timaru Hut to give Wayne's heel a rest and from all accounts the following day was pretty tough. The trail from here to Stodys Hut was good for most parts except the last 2km was straight up and hard work. I kept thinking I wonder at what point your heart goes that's enough! Then Wayno who was leading lost the track and took me up some vertical scree and I got stuck and couldn't move. He had to drop his pack and come back for me. I survived lol! We made it to Stodys Hut for lunch and carried on to Pakituhi Hut for the night. Wayno's heel still was hurting him and he needing to take regular pain relief to get through the days.
Lo and behold who else arrives at Pakituhi Hut from the other direction but David Hobbs who we had met twice before. NZ is definitely a small place. That night at Pakituhi Hut we had a small earthquake which woke me up. The next day was a 4 km descent to Lake Hawea and it was 950mtres virtually straight down. It was very steep and narley in other words steep and scary. Downhill is my weakness and am pretty slow but we made it ok and had a lovely swim in Lake Hawea at the bottom. We walked into Lake Hawea and stopped at the coffee shop there for lunch. Great place great food nice staff and anyone on the Trail can easily refuel there. They have just about everything you need. We got a ride into Wanaka from a lovely lady Judy whose husband is doing the Trail in sections and she was biding time while he was on the Motatapu Alpine track.
We booked into a backpackers at Wanaka across the road from an Irish Bar which was dumb as they partied all night.  We hired mountain bikes the next day and biked back out to Lake Hawea and then cycled the TA Trail to Wanaka along the river banks and lakeshore which was lovely.
We then met up with Judy again and met her husband Geoff who had enjoyed the Motatapu Alpine track which was where we were going next. These lovely people dropped us at the entrance to the track at 530 that evening.