Day 8 | out to Murchison

When the sun goes down at 5 30 pm, and it’s fully dark half an hour later, it’s normal to have an early dinner. By 6 30 pm, that’s all done, and you might as well slip into your sleeping bag to warm up.

You can sense an issue here. At 3 am, having already been in bed for 7½ hours, I spent a lot of time lying in bed, just shivering modestly for the next three hours before I decided it was time to get up and make breakfast. Then I could leisurely eat my porridge back in my sleeping bag.

This was often when I wrote my blogs.

Once again it was cold, but I realised the next morning I’d wake up in warm surroundings after seven nights chilling out.

Again it was another cloudless day, at least to start. The frost was thick, but after a while the sun would be up.

In the meantime, I decided that as I’d certainly get my feet wet, I might as well avoid the DOC track with its two slips to get around, and just go back on the other side of the Matakitaki River.

I did that on the way up in the dark; why not see it on the way back?

The water looked quite shallow, and it was quite low considering the recent day of rain. It was knee-deep for much of its way, but on the other side it got close to the crutch area.

No worries, it was flowing slowly.

And now, having shuffled across the tundra and permafrost, the sun was out. Life was good.

I had been on that side of the river a few years before and just followed a quad bike track then. Might as well take the same path.

If I turned around, I had the view up to Faerie Queene with its snow. Cool, indeed.

I crossed the Matakitaki just below the confluence with Mackellar Stream, but the quad bike track was much better, so I postponed crossing back until Downie Clearing was behind. I had grown sick of some considerable bogs on the track.

So, I was back with the more familiar long stretches of greasy deep puddles on the other side.

I had an early lunch around 11 am, but despite my cutting out the slow forest walking, I’d only come 40% of my way back to the car park. At that rate, I’d reach the car in the dark.

Pace was increased on the quad bike track on the river flat, and there wasn’t much in the way of climbing to be done. Just a few fallen trees to get around, so I pressed the accelerator.

After the previous day’s efforts, I was feeling tired but keen to get through the hops and take my pack off.

Just as my car was spotted, two hop vine workers stopped to ask some questions. Yes, it had been stationary for eight days, and I hadn’t seen or spoken with anyone for a week. They were concerned about my abandoned car.

I learned about the hops. There were still a few more to go in, but they were reaching the area’s planting capacity. The next project was hundreds of solar panels, but Meridian needed to upgrade the transmission line into the area first because it didn’t have enough capacity.

We chatted for 20 minutes. I’m interested in what’s going on in the vicinity; then finally my pack was off, and I was comfortably seated.

One thing: when I rolled into Murchison, a rear tyre was flat. I had checked when I got to the car, but somehow I must’ve got a puncture on the gravel road.

The manager at the motor camp immediately volunteered to get his jack, drill, and sockets to take the lugs out. Thanks, man.

It felt good to find myself horizontal in a warm, dry room, eating fresh food, and having had a shower that removed most of my suntan.

A bloke can appreciate these aspects of life.