After feeding you all that crap about becoming a morning person just days ago, I woke up on Sunday really angry at my alarm. The stupid thing was going off and it wasn’t even 7AM. And did I mention it was Sunday? I was exhausted and woke up with a sore throat and a headache. And it was Sunday. I may have mentioned that. I really wanted to sleep. Until midday. Possibly 4pm. Instead, I dragged myself out of bed, put the bread slice in the toaster, turned the coffee machine on and proceeded to hate life and everything it comprised.

S. was also already up and we were getting ready to finally head north and run the Okura Bush Walkway, a run we had been talking about doing for months. We were both cranky for most of the way there, questioning why we were even doing it, if it was putting us in such a bad mood.

But then we got there and had these views and we weren’t so cranky anymore. Amazing what some nice scenery can do for you.

I had walked the 16k of the Okura Bush a couple of years ago but failed to remember that it included a stream crossing if you are running/walking the entire length of the walkway.

From Haighs Access Road, the Department of Conservation says walkers/runners have two options: 4.8k to Dacre Cottage (9.6k return) or 8k to Stillwater (16k return).

The spring tide this weekend meant that high tide was really high, and, being the organised little runners we are, we forgot to check the tides and managed to hit the stream just an hour before high tide. We crossed, with water already up to our knees, but after realising that we would not have time to run the 8k on the other side and loop back in time to avoid high tide, we decided to run back and make it a shorter run.

On a scale of “really dense confusing bush with tracks going off in every direction” to “are you kidding me? Not even Vera could get lost here”, this track is definitely an easy one. It is, however, far from flat. Note the description on the DOC site includes words such as “20 minute hill climb”, “the track drops down”, “then climbs”, “dropping quite steeply”… I think you get the point. It’s hard work for someone who loves nice flat courses like Lindsay Lohan loves Jagermeister – which is why I was more than happy to turn around at the stream crossing and only make it an 8k run. It may have been a short distance but it was definitely a good workout and the amazing scenery made it worth bitching about life before 7AM, proof that there’s nothing a good run and some beautiful scenery can’t fix.

Next time, though, I’ll try to do the whole responsible trail runner thing and check for tides and stuff. If I remember correctly, there is a whole lot more prettiness on the other side of that stream.