Day 46: Weraroa Track to Hauhungaroa Hut
Distance Covered: 20 km
The trend of cold nights continued last night. We weren’t quite freezing. It was just that special cold where everything you’re not directly touching gets cold so that when you move onto it, it wakes you up. Brrr. It was also drizzling and raining so that we were hesitant to get out of our beds. I think we would have stayed there longer except that we had the hiker’s tent and we were sure he’d want the peace of mind of having it back as soon as possible.
The hut was about 8 km away, which we figured would take a couple of hours. The trail was decent yesterday and so, even though it rained, we figured we’d be able to make decent time. Four hours later, we finally made it.
But you already know why we went 2 km an hour. It’s a New Zealand forest trail. Muddy, filled with roots, steeply up and down. More of the same. There were a couple of things different: some of the descents from a ridge to the stream and the ensuing ascents were so steep you could not see 5 meters ahead. On the ascents, we would throw our trekking poles onto a ledge above our head and then grab roots to climb the wall. When we pulled ourselves up to the shelf, we would repeat the process to the next shelf until we made it up 150 meters or so. The descents worked kind of the same… grab roots and lower ourselves a few meters at a time. Not great stuff to be doing in the cold rain. Here’s a mild part of the trail:
But! We did pass a big milestone in that area: 1,000 km of hiked trail. This is a big number for us, of course, and it also represents (about) the 1/3 point of the whole trail. Crazy.
At long last, we turned a corner to find the hut. And we could see smoke coming from the chimney. Very inviting looking! We approached the door and the hiker whose tent we had threw open the door to welcome us. We didn’t keep him waiting… we told him immediately that we had the tent. He was through the roof with relief and happiness. He was practically jumping around.
He told us that he had got to the camp we stayed at around 7:30 and realized almost right away that he was missing it. He knew that he was in trouble. He decided (rightly) that he couldn’t count on someone both finding the tent and bringing it all the way there that evening so he knew he had to push. He made it to the hut in about 2.5 hours (that took us 4). He was running as the light was fading. He used his smartphone to light the way when the sun set. (Almost no one carries a flashlight because you’re hiking in summer and camp before dark here.) He just tore through the trail and made it, but was so amped from the experience that he laid awake until midnight. He decided to stay at the cabin and wait and hope and it worked out for him. He wanted to pay us in some way, but we told him the story of our umbrella and how he just needs to pay it forward.
Then it was decision time. It was around 1 or so and the next hut was supposed to be about 12 km and 7 hours away. Any time they estimate less than 2 km per hour, you know something is challenging. It was raining and cold outside. Inside, there was a fire going, and it was dry. The trail we had just come from was a mess and took longer than the estimate. It would be so nice to stay. But we needed to get the kilometers in order to make the post office and it was too early to stop. We decided to just go for it and maybe we would make it and maybe we would have to camp in the mud. The hiker whose tent we brought was waffling as well, but decided to go for it when we did. The sun even came out while we prepared our bags after eating lunch.
Of course, the very moment we stepped outside it started to pour. The trail just knows somehow and tests you. Onward and forward!
We chugged along as fast as practical, half to try not to get to the hut at 9 PM and half to stay warm. We were making pretty good time, actually. At halfway, we had taken just over 2.5 hours. This great performance actually made our danger sense tingle! We’ve seen this before! You think you’re doing awesome, significantly beating the estimated time on the sign and then the trail ramps up quickly at the end. We were doing so great and we went over the estimate in the morning so we were felt certain we would be in trouble soon. But it never happened. There were some muddy uphill sections, but nothing like the cliffs we had done earlier in the day. We had our podcasts on and were able to chew through the 7 hour estimate in about 5 hours. We arrived just after 7 PM.
The other hiker was already waiting for us. No fire this time, but it is a smaller hut and so three people inside warm it nicely.
A little bit after we got here, the weather closed in solid after having been a little dry towards the middle of our afternoon. Not so now. We can’t see more than about 30 meters, it’s raining, and it’s windy. And cold… maybe low 50’s. It feels great to be in the hut and protected from these elements!
Tomorrow we will head out of this mountain range and get close to Taumarunui. It looks like we will easily make it to the post office so all of our hard work has paid off.