December 26 2023, Arthur’s Pass to Bealey Hut:
I woke up to the sound of Lenses snapping a photo of me sleeping. I quickly sat up feeling confused, my beanie still covering my eyes. I lifted it up to find her waving and smiling at me. I returned the gesture back at her. Ikra peeked her head out from in between the aisle seats, Orange rustled awake near the back door.
It was by far one of the best sleeps I ever had on trail. The energy of the chapel felt invoked with God. I had dreamt that I deleted my OnlyFans which was an inspiring perception to receive. I felt I was being gifted with the Holy Spirit’s sight in the dream. He showed me that I would be okay without it and that it was silly to think otherwise. I was shown a timeline of what it would be like letting go of it and received help in understanding that it wasn’t the source of true wealth. At one point, I wanted to use it as a tool to express myself, but lately I’ve been wondering what that even means. I’ve been getting drawn away from feeling as if I needed to use my body to get money.
We packed up before anyone got a chance to show up, then went to eat breakfast but ended up loitering around for several hours. We ran into all of the people from yesterday who had kicked us out since they all worked at the cafe. The guy who was previously energetically aggressive felt extremely bad for how he apparently reacted. The others felt just as remorseful and commented on how they couldn’t sleep properly knowing they kicked us back out into the cold. They brought us out a whole tray of tea, said if anyone asked, that we paid for it. They kept apologizing each time they saw us saying it was all miscommunication and fear of getting in trouble with their boss.
We told them we had no hard feelings, but thanked them for communicating. I had never been one to fight with people or try to get them to see my side of things. Normally if people expressed their discomfort with my space I wouldn’t push back, instead I would just find myself leaving. I really only desired to be around people that felt safe and secure in my presence, otherwise why would I want to be hanging around them?
Before we left I had the intention to go change my clothes in the bathroom then realized I had to pee as well. Naturally, I removed my pants and started peeing but realized the toilet lid was down and that I did not pee in the bowl whatsoever. I was already halfway done and couldn’t stop my stream. Hiker brain at its finest.
Loads of people gathered in the cafe every 30 minutes or so, filling the whole store and restaurant, assuming it was some sort of tourist attraction town. A line would form all the way outside the door. A beautiful woman was standing in the line beside us, dressed as some sort of anime character. Orange said it was meant for cosplay.
“I love when people dress up like that,” I said.
The second that came out of my mouth I saw it was just patterning because I didn’t really feel that way. I actually never enjoyed cosplay nor the perception of women dressing up immodestly.
Then Orange says, “I don’t. I’m not into that at all. I neva understood it. It’s like why can’t ya just be your authentic self? Why do ya have to dress up as some sort of character.”
I loved how comfortable he was with expressing his opinions. I could see how I still subconsciously tested men on their perception. Realistically, I wanted a man to say stuff like that rather than sexualize women and say how hot they were. It taught me that there were men out there that didn’t think just with their cocks.
We started hitchhiking and two cars pulled over simultaneously. Orange and I got a ride by a kiwi guy while the girls got a ride by a man who lived in Patagonia, one of their favorite hiking spots. We got dropped off at the Bealey Hotel since the girls needed to pick up their packages. We grew fond of the coziness so decided to hang out there, eat some more food and call our families from back home.
I taught the girls the word for a flying bat in Lithuanian which was “šikšnosparnis.” They pulled out their notepad and began writing it out phonetically.
All you could hear was them saying, “Shik, shno” over and over again to the point where people all throughout the restaurant were turning around trying to figure out if we were mad. I couldn’t stop laughing. The laughter was returned to me when I tried to pronounce pinecone in their language.
We started our road walk to Bealey Hut for the night, figuring it would be a good place to reside. Orange was adamant about hitching after eating a bunch of food, however the girls and I wanted to walk.
“You sound like me today,” I said to Orange, “trying to convince everyone to hitch.”
I found it funny when roles were reversed. Then, he started leading the group and I knew he was doing it so he could force us to walk slow.
“I wanna lead!” I shouted as I hopped in front.
I was feeling extremely energetic and inspired to walk. The weather was perfectly cool and the peaks in the distance were invitingly covered in snow. We stopped to take many pictures. There was one point where Lenses had us stand in a single file line so she could snap a photo of us walking. We had to stand there until she gave us the go to and it was the most hysterical thing to watch the people driving by giving us double takes.
“Natural,” she would say, implying for a candid photo.
I broke out in laughter because the cars kept slowing down to look at us confusingly. They must’ve been like what the fuck are these people doing just standing there like psychopaths.
She snapped her action shot, then I started walking fast and leading the group.
Orange caught up to me out of breath and said, “Ya do realize we’re runnin’ to keep up with ya?”
I was laughing to the point of tears running down my cheeks.
Then, Lenses hopped in front of me and yelled, “I lead!”
We came across a bridge and took some more ‘natural’ pics. Then we walked beside a giant pine hedge and I told everyone I wanted to make a ‘natural’ video of them. Orange was over our shit. It was adorable. The video turned out really cool however, with the tall pine branches swaying in the wind. Afterwards, we took pictures of all the sheep as we fed them fresh grass that they couldn’t reach beyond the fence.
“I love how ya guys are takin’ mo pictures here than we did on the mountain passes,” Orange said, “actin’ as if we did a long ass road walk.”
We made it to the hut and walked in on a guy eating some noodles, probably assuming he was going to have a quiet night to himself. His name was Conrad, a SOBO TA hiker from Germany.
Ikra was still hungry so she made herself noodles as well. Orange found a deck of cards that had images drawn on them, similar to tarot cards however there were no words or descriptions.
He pulled one out then looked at me.
“Astronaut, that one’s for you. You’re definitely in space a lot.” Another one. “Clown, this one’s definitely for you, too. I’m sensin’ a lawt of stupidity,” he said sarcastically. Next. “Brick building. Nemo, you’re buildin’ your life togetha.” Pulled another. “Ballerina.” Points at Ikra. “Are ya gettin’ into dancin’?” Last one. “Oo, someone here likes animals.”