tramping new zealand

On this trip, I’ve given up on my own dehydrated food and instead taken Real Meals commercial freeze-dried food for my dinner sustenance. After 65 days down south earlier in the summer, although not eating my home-cooked dinners every night, I was sure sick of it and had bought some cheap packets of the Real Deal when on sale over the year.

I’d also dehydrated some cooked brown rice and put 65 g in Ziploc bags, adding to half a packet of the delicious freeze-dried dinner, 55 g.

That filled me up relatively cheaply, but even at $17 for a bag, split into two dinners, it would have been getting up to $1000 for just one meal over the summer.

My self-dehydrated meals are around four dollars each, including the Ziploc bags.

The gloominess created a sense it was earlier than it was, but I still managed to leave the hut about 8 30 am. No particular hurry as I knew I’d got to the hut around 4 pm after leaving my campsite before 10 am on the way down.

Knowing where the best route was would save some time on my return. For instance, I’d avoid crossing the river and getting seriously into the sphagnum-covered boulders in the forest.

That had slowed me down, big time, but as it turned out, it was almost exactly the same time on my return.

Instead of the boulders/river crossing, I had moss-covered boulders and climbed much higher up the hill in the forest.

Strangely, I came across a random pink ribbon in the middle of nowhere and some Permolat markers on the old New Zealand Forest Service track on the map, now completely overgrown. So there was still quite a bit of head scratching about which way to go, despite having made notes on the GPS recording of my track each way.

The main thing was that the sun came out, and it warmed up. I was happy enough plodding on, with odd bits of cross-country thrown in.

At one stage, I found myself just bashing up the river as I got close to the old campsite, with the water deeper than it looked.

The campsite I stayed at on the way down the river was in full sunlight and lasted for a couple of hours. I decided to stay rather than get back into the damp and gloomy forest and bash on to the small campsite the DOC contractor had told me about.

A word of caution about the valley: there are very few campsites. It’s very bouldery, or at least rocky, with tussock in the clearings and few places that are unlumpy, dry, and flat to be had. That Little Fugel Stream campsite is the best on offer.

Despite my poor sleep, it was a great day, but I’ll need an earlier start tomorrow as it will be a longer day to get back to Belltown and my abandoned supplies.