the Heaphy Track
Jan. 22nd, 2009 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaHello from Karamea, where I am drinking a beer and sitting at an Internet kiosk in The Last Resort, which is a nice and not-too-expensive lodge complex, pretty near at the north end of the road on the west side of the South Island. (That should help you find it on Google Earth!)
So, when we left Motueka (rather abruptly, if you read the last entry, because I was running out of time on the net and had spent all my coins, so as not to carry any extra weight on the trail) we caught the bus to the start of the Heaphy Track, some distance west of Collingwood and a couple of hours from Motueka. It had started raining the afternoon before (while we were hiking out of Abel Tasman) and had rained off and on, sometimes hard, during the night while we were at the Motueka hostel, and it looked like it was going to rain some more. The bus driver told us that if the rivers were high, he would not be able to take us all the way to the trailhead but would have to drop us at the first of three fords, 6km from the start, but fortunately the rivers were fine and we made Brown Hut, the start of the Heaphy Track, around 10:30am.
We let the other 6 hikers go ahead of us; we only had a 3-hour tramp ahead of us, to the Aorere Campsite, and sure enough it started pouring rain and we were happy to be having lunch in the hut. Then it cleared up. Then it started raining again. It probably rained four or five separate times, with blue sky and sunshine in between, before we set out, finally, around 1 pm. (Then it started raining again.)
But it wasn't too bad, really; it rained hard, and then it rained lightly, and then it drizzled, and then it quit, and then it drizzled again, over and over, and the forest was really lovely even though we couldn't see much other than mist in the Aorere valley. The campsite was small but we were alone, and there was a shelter, and even though you aren't supposed to we set up our sleeping gear under the roof, because, POURING. The rainwater collection system was plumb full and spilling out, and we collected all the water we needed for dinner and breakfast and drinking just by holding out our bottles to the roof overflow.
The next day...it rained. We hiked over Perry Saddle (where the hut was that the other hikers with us had probably spent the night; we had lunch there with a couple from Alaska who were heading the other way) and down into open meadows, misty with rain, to Gouland Downs Hut. This is one of the smallest, oldest huts and so Britt had booked us into it rather than camping, just because it seemed nifty, and that turned out to be a great idea because 1) it was raining, and 2) we had it to ourselves. In fact, other than the couple from Alaska and one other hiker coming in the opposite direction, we saw nobody all day. Yay.
The hut had bunks for 8, and a smoky fireplace (all our clothes now smell of smoke, and I swear, I will NEVER get it out of my hair), and a family of weka birds living somewhere nearby - we watched the fluffy chicks run around the yard, totally made of adorable. The next morning, it drizzled a bit, misted, then finally turned to mere overcast, and we shouted hurrah and headed out without putting our jackets and rain covers on, for a whole HALF HOUR before it started to rain again.
But actually, even in the mist it was still very cool. The open meadows gave way to a seriously enchanted faery forest, with moss-covered limestone gargoyles and dripping ferns and moss and caves, like something out of Narnia, before turning back into meadow and then into NZ high-country bush, beech trees and mosses. That was where we got our first one-man swing bridge, which is a truly exciting way to hike, believe you me. The one-man swing bridge is clearly the pedestrian equivalent of a one-way road bridge: imagine four cables two inches apart spanning a river, held by narrow struts at 12-inch intervals, the whole "floored" with sometimes rusty chain-link fencing and suspended by cables from towers, with a cable at each side holding up netting to serve as a side barrier. Imagine the whole thing twisting and swaying and bouncing with every footstep, canting sideways in the wind. Imagine the warning sign ONE PERSON AT A TIME. Imagine having to cross a half-dozen of these, each longer and springier than the previous one. Now you can imagine what I felt like - a bit like I wanted to throw up! (Or don't imagine, and wait for the photos.)
We also saw, on the trail, a giant weta, a bug kind of like an overgrown grasshopper. Very overgrown. Britt picked it up (it was very close to dead) and said it had the heft of a mouse. Also, a Powellephantia which is a giant carnivorous land snail, and that sounds rather scary but it was really only about the size of a half-dollar (or $2NZ coin!) and it retracted into its shell when we looked at it. At several huts/camps we heard spotted kiwi, although we never, er, spotted one. Lots of common NZ birds, though, fantails and tui (who have a remarkable song) and of course, those ubiquitous weka.
We had lunch at Saxon Hut and continued to Mackay Hut, where the DOC ranger (who had short pink hair and interesting piercings) had baked date bread and left it on the table for all, hoorah! We had the campsite there to ourselves, although there were people in the hut. This was where we could look down for the first time and see the Heaphy River spilling into the Tasman Sea. The next day we hiked down, through different sorts of rainforest, mossy wet stuff and cool ferny forest, and hey, what's that blue stuff in the sky? What's that warm yellow ball? We came out on the river with palms and sand and blue sky, although alas we had to share the Heaphy Campsite with a noisy bunch of Scouts and an epic swarm of sandflies (like mosquitoes, but worse, at least for those of us who have not been immunized by repeated bites - the bites swell up huge and they itch like crazy for a week!). And then today we hiked out, along the verge of the ocean, big gray-green waves crashing on the beaches.
This has been my favorite hike of all so far, I think. Just the variety of different forest, scenery, rocks, cliffs, caves, and so on. As well as the fewer people, and we got rid of some stuff in Nelson and actually bought instant backpacking food, so as to carry lighter loads - much more comfy than last time. I hope the photos came out!
ETA: Pictures!
So, when we left Motueka (rather abruptly, if you read the last entry, because I was running out of time on the net and had spent all my coins, so as not to carry any extra weight on the trail) we caught the bus to the start of the Heaphy Track, some distance west of Collingwood and a couple of hours from Motueka. It had started raining the afternoon before (while we were hiking out of Abel Tasman) and had rained off and on, sometimes hard, during the night while we were at the Motueka hostel, and it looked like it was going to rain some more. The bus driver told us that if the rivers were high, he would not be able to take us all the way to the trailhead but would have to drop us at the first of three fords, 6km from the start, but fortunately the rivers were fine and we made Brown Hut, the start of the Heaphy Track, around 10:30am.
We let the other 6 hikers go ahead of us; we only had a 3-hour tramp ahead of us, to the Aorere Campsite, and sure enough it started pouring rain and we were happy to be having lunch in the hut. Then it cleared up. Then it started raining again. It probably rained four or five separate times, with blue sky and sunshine in between, before we set out, finally, around 1 pm. (Then it started raining again.)
But it wasn't too bad, really; it rained hard, and then it rained lightly, and then it drizzled, and then it quit, and then it drizzled again, over and over, and the forest was really lovely even though we couldn't see much other than mist in the Aorere valley. The campsite was small but we were alone, and there was a shelter, and even though you aren't supposed to we set up our sleeping gear under the roof, because, POURING. The rainwater collection system was plumb full and spilling out, and we collected all the water we needed for dinner and breakfast and drinking just by holding out our bottles to the roof overflow.
The next day...it rained. We hiked over Perry Saddle (where the hut was that the other hikers with us had probably spent the night; we had lunch there with a couple from Alaska who were heading the other way) and down into open meadows, misty with rain, to Gouland Downs Hut. This is one of the smallest, oldest huts and so Britt had booked us into it rather than camping, just because it seemed nifty, and that turned out to be a great idea because 1) it was raining, and 2) we had it to ourselves. In fact, other than the couple from Alaska and one other hiker coming in the opposite direction, we saw nobody all day. Yay.
The hut had bunks for 8, and a smoky fireplace (all our clothes now smell of smoke, and I swear, I will NEVER get it out of my hair), and a family of weka birds living somewhere nearby - we watched the fluffy chicks run around the yard, totally made of adorable. The next morning, it drizzled a bit, misted, then finally turned to mere overcast, and we shouted hurrah and headed out without putting our jackets and rain covers on, for a whole HALF HOUR before it started to rain again.
But actually, even in the mist it was still very cool. The open meadows gave way to a seriously enchanted faery forest, with moss-covered limestone gargoyles and dripping ferns and moss and caves, like something out of Narnia, before turning back into meadow and then into NZ high-country bush, beech trees and mosses. That was where we got our first one-man swing bridge, which is a truly exciting way to hike, believe you me. The one-man swing bridge is clearly the pedestrian equivalent of a one-way road bridge: imagine four cables two inches apart spanning a river, held by narrow struts at 12-inch intervals, the whole "floored" with sometimes rusty chain-link fencing and suspended by cables from towers, with a cable at each side holding up netting to serve as a side barrier. Imagine the whole thing twisting and swaying and bouncing with every footstep, canting sideways in the wind. Imagine the warning sign ONE PERSON AT A TIME. Imagine having to cross a half-dozen of these, each longer and springier than the previous one. Now you can imagine what I felt like - a bit like I wanted to throw up! (Or don't imagine, and wait for the photos.)
We also saw, on the trail, a giant weta, a bug kind of like an overgrown grasshopper. Very overgrown. Britt picked it up (it was very close to dead) and said it had the heft of a mouse. Also, a Powellephantia which is a giant carnivorous land snail, and that sounds rather scary but it was really only about the size of a half-dollar (or $2NZ coin!) and it retracted into its shell when we looked at it. At several huts/camps we heard spotted kiwi, although we never, er, spotted one. Lots of common NZ birds, though, fantails and tui (who have a remarkable song) and of course, those ubiquitous weka.
We had lunch at Saxon Hut and continued to Mackay Hut, where the DOC ranger (who had short pink hair and interesting piercings) had baked date bread and left it on the table for all, hoorah! We had the campsite there to ourselves, although there were people in the hut. This was where we could look down for the first time and see the Heaphy River spilling into the Tasman Sea. The next day we hiked down, through different sorts of rainforest, mossy wet stuff and cool ferny forest, and hey, what's that blue stuff in the sky? What's that warm yellow ball? We came out on the river with palms and sand and blue sky, although alas we had to share the Heaphy Campsite with a noisy bunch of Scouts and an epic swarm of sandflies (like mosquitoes, but worse, at least for those of us who have not been immunized by repeated bites - the bites swell up huge and they itch like crazy for a week!). And then today we hiked out, along the verge of the ocean, big gray-green waves crashing on the beaches.
This has been my favorite hike of all so far, I think. Just the variety of different forest, scenery, rocks, cliffs, caves, and so on. As well as the fewer people, and we got rid of some stuff in Nelson and actually bought instant backpacking food, so as to carry lighter loads - much more comfy than last time. I hope the photos came out!
ETA: Pictures!