Te Araroa: in the teeth of the gale

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Blissful Hiker learns what she plans to do with her one wild and precious life by heading into the mountains when weather moves in.

In this episode:

1. Blissful is told by the experts at DOC to keep moving up into the mountains since the bad weather is not a storm but more "squally showers" and very big wind.
2. She gets a late start as she heads into Nelson Lakes National Park around Lake Rotoiti thinking of poet Mary Oliver who died the day before and asked in her most famous poem, Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
3. On Travers Saddle she braves the wild gale-force wind to cross over.
4. On the descent, she wipes out on mud and tumbles down, hardly hurting herself but bending her trekking pole, but finding it's still useable. 
5. Walking over avalanche zones, waterfalls, root-filled trails and up steep climbs, she meets a ranger who calculates because of her age, she can't handle Waiau Pass the next day. 
6. But at the hut at Blue Lake/Rotomairewhenua, her friends convince her to continue to the pass the next day, if they all go together. 

MUSIC: Suite Argentina by Horacio Salgán as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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