tramping new zealand

What a difference a day made.

One moment, I was injured in a hut that had taken about 35 hours of energy expenditure to get to, and 17 minutes thereafter, I was at my car.

Early on, before dawn, it was the nicest day to date, with the stars on show.

I came to the conclusion that there were diminishing returns for staying another day and night.

I was thinking that it might be possible to return to Waitutu Hut if I set off early enough. Six or eight hours would be okay.

There’s a big except here.

If I damage my leg again in the forest, the difficulty of rescue would be massively higher. I’d need to be winched through the canopy, as there were no clearings on the way. I’d be harder to locate.

And the reality was that I wouldn’t be any closer to getting out, because there was no way for me to make it between Waitutu and Wairaurāhiri Hut in daylight hours. Furthermore, my head torch batteries were at low tide, and it was most likely that they would all run out.

So, reality meant I might as well call for a pick up at Slaughterburn Hut where there was a compact helicopter landing area, which I could enhance with some pruning.

At 6 30 am, it was still dark, but it was clear it was going to be a fine, calm day.

I decided to use the emergency call feature of my iPhone, one of the reasons I upgraded. This uses satellite messaging that connects with an international search and rescue coordinating service.

The system works by pointing your phone at a moving satellite and following its path across the sky as shown by the app. Due to the remote location, there’s not a huge number of satellites around, and they popped over the horizon and scuttled adjacent for a few minutes before disappearing. Sometimes I needed to wait a few minutes for the next.

It took more than an hour to finally hear that the rescue helicopter had been notified. Maybe not dispatched, as it was another hour and a half before the noise of the big chopper disturbed the native bird life.

Three people dressed in fluoro clothing dropped out, with a fourth keeping the blades whirring. After a few questions, they took my pack and walking pole to keep me safe.

17 minutes.

That’s what it took to fly over Hump Ridge and drop me at the Rarakua car park, where my car was still waiting. They carried my pack over, me hobbling slowly behind. Actually, they waited to ensure my car could be started, and then they were off back to Te Anau.

It wasn’t even 10 am.

They didn’t seem to be concerned by the minimal nature of my injury. On the other hand, someone was picked up with a broken wrist a few days before, not far away. The philosophy is that it’s better to pluck someone out early than let the situation escalate.

Rather than just head back to Tuatapere, I decided to go directly to Invercargill Hospital to have my knee checked out in the emergency department. After three hours, I was struggling with some pain in my knee, so I bailed to some accommodation to be able to elevate my leg.

The next morning, I was back at the ED, but now it was clear. I was Low Priority. After waiting a total of six hours, I finally gave up.

Instead, I made an appointment at a sports physio for the afternoon. By this stage, it was pretty clear that nothing was broken.

The physio’s opinion, after all his tests, was that it was something in the back of my knee that had occurred when I had overextended it, and hobbling around would do it some good.

[As it turned out, once I saw a more experienced physio when I returned to Nelson, I had dislocated my kneecap and torn the muscles holding it in place. Sort of the same prognosis and rehab. The swelling had complicated the diagnosis, which probably required an ultrasound early on.]

It had now been almost a week since my injury, and he thought it would take two weeks to see improvement, with a return to normal after six weeks.

On the other hand, it seemed that immediately driving back to Nelson would be difficult with the stress of my right foot on the accelerator for hours.

Why not spend more time in the Deep South?

With that good news, I booked a ticket on the ferry to Rakiura. I’d head down there and maybe get a water taxi to a hut that didn’t require much in the way of walking.

No two-week hike through the swamps, just some easy ambling around without a pack.

Seemed the way to go.