tramping new zealand

Mission accomplished yesterday, it was time to head back to civilisation.

I’ve really been putting in the kilometres in the last week. After today’s effort, it will be about 180,000 steps or 120 km, much of it with a heavy pack, and including a rest day in Methven, where I just wandered around town in the rain.

It’s now a surprise when I get back to the Internet to find out what’s happened with the world. My issue is petrol availability due to the disruption caused by the Iran war.

I can only control what I do, such as intending to leave this morning at or before 8 am. That would be a first.

It’s just getting light at that time, and there’s no particular reason to attempt to leave earlier.

I packed up and failed to procrastinate as I usually do. Away at 7 59 am.

A lovely morning in an extraordinarily beautiful valley. Steep mountains around with jagged peaks and a few old snow patches visible.

It’s a long way back down the valley, so I plugged into the last of an audiobook for a while, but eventually I let silence reign. Just the sound of my boots on the ground and the creaking of my very creaky pack.

Being the fifth time along the valley (once I had a four-wheel-drive ride to Alma Stream with a hunter, which is almost halfway), I’ve learned to keep to the old sheep and cattle tracks close to the hillside.

Dealing with boredom is a useful skill, and having another seven-hour day with a pack on my back might be a major meditation.

I took the climbing option once again on a four-wheel-drive track after Black Mountain Hut, which slowed me down, but there was no particular hurry.

I stared at the confluence of the Havelock and Clyde Rivers opposite Erewhon Station from on high for a while, but once I was down on the flat, monotony really set in, and even some lively music failed to break through.

Back to the sound of my breathing.

Solo hiking is a learned occupation in which you have no human interaction to occupy your mind. If you’re with someone else, you can tell stories, etc, but solo, well, you are deprived of that.

No Internet connectivity, but it was a choice not to indulge in the vast repository of podcasts, audiobooks, and music I stored on my phone for such situations.

Despite the tedium, all too soon I was taking my boots and pack off at the car and heading back the 30 km of dirt road, or whatever the distance is. Camping at Peel Forest again in DOC’s most lovely appointed campsite with hot showers, a decent kitchen, picnic tables, and charging ports.

Sounds like civilisation to me.