Summer 2024–25

It was good to have a relatively easy day to test my leg.

In retrospect, a choice of hut with Mount in the name was possibly not the best option for my first overnighter at the end of my year-long rehab from two Achilles tendon tears.

Finding myself in a hut after a long year’s break was a great feeling. My previous hut had been Nardoo Bivvy, and that felt an age away.

Almost at the bottom, I ran into a couple who had two weeks in New Zealand and had decided that a walk in the woods behind Woods Point was the exact place they wanted to be.

I discovered this was my fifth longest day in seven years of measuring my steps, a big 41,000 of them, or 28 km.

I staggered in to find the hut taken over by two 16-year-olds, off to climb to Bob’s Camp Bivvy. Every horizontal surface inside the hut was covered with something.

I guess my body was silently complaining.

Time for a change of scene for a few days in Christchurch.

Having overexercised the previous week, it seemed like Christchurch would be a good place to sort out my gear and resupply on some fresh food.

I crossed the Rakaia River on my South Island Te Araroa expedition a long time ago, and later explored the Wilberforce River, and it was about time I had a look at the lower reaches.

Option 2 was to postpone the return aspect and enjoy a second night at Tribulation Hut.

I concentrated on where my feet were going on the old sheep trail through the tussock, rather than looking up at the house-sized rocks that perched precariously 400 m up the Mount Hutt foothills.

I remember Gorilla Hut had some graffiti from famous New Zealand climbers, including Ed Hillary, and Frida du Flaur who had just made a first ascent of a nearby mountain in 1909. I foolishly added my name to the wall of mountaineering luminaries, what’s more, in a ballpoint pen, something I was relentlessly teased about by a friend who noticed it for years to come.

Climbing 1100 m in one straight hit can go on a bit, particularly while carrying an overnight pack that includes a tent and sleeping mat, so let’s say I’m feeling well-exercised.

My steps counter claimed 26 km for the day, which may be about right. I’d walked for most of the 10 hours since I left the hut.

Not a cloud above, but I picked out a tiny one on the horizon.

Suddenly, I was cold, so I persevered up the hill at some haste.

Just as I locked the car, a four-wheel-drive vehicle cruised up, and Jack and Pedro asked if I needed a lift to the top.

Yesterday, all cloud, snow imminent. Today, not a cloud all day and an early morning frost.

If the previous days had been solitary, today was more social.

This was my mountain range, and I was enjoying my exhilarating day, looking down into the Clutha River Valley in one direction and over to where I had walked the day before, along another ridge.

Around 6 30 am, half a dozen 18-year-old women who hadn’t yet gone to bed came down to the lake and freshened up by stripping off and going for a swim, about 50 m from where I was conspicuously located.

There’s something about being up in the tussock areas with the natural stone sculptures all around, with blue skies above and not too much wind.

I could confirm the cold aspect had arrived, and I spent much of the day in my sleeping bag with my puffer jacket on with the hood up, as well as my beanie.

I was running out of jokes, such as, If you’re lost, I can’t help you. Is this the right way to Queenstown? I answered the question of whether there was anything I needed. Yes, a scone and a hug from my mum.

I soon realised my folly. There was no place to turn back, and I came to the conclusion that I had made a huge mistake. No chance of getting to the camping site at the old Skippers township, where I anticipated going.

As it turned out, most of the stress was in anticipation. Okay, there was the 12 minutes it took to drive back up the perilous road.

Queenstown is a zoo, and not really for the likes of me.

The first car stopped and asked if I wanted a ride even before I’d fully locked up my car.

I failed to count the crossings, but it was getting near 50 of them. At times, I ploughed straight up the river.

One of the most enjoyable tramping days of the summer.

Don’t tell me I smell like a goat! Maybe they recognise their own kind, albeit in human form.

The first four-wheel-drive vehicle that came along picked me up, but it took almost two hours for that to happen.

I was thinking how lucky I was to have walked Te Araroa before people started ripping through it, just to impress someone with their accomplishment, rather than experiencing chance encounters with strangers, which were my main memories.

A ‘Bring Back the Omelette’ campaign may be in order.

The mice were something out of a horror movie.

It was a lovely walk in the rain in the lower valley with massive silver beach trees. The dampness brought out the green hues. Vivid.

I saw a few cyclists on the Around the Mountain Bike Trail chewing some dust, but it seems to me they were going to enjoy it more in retrospect.

The views over the Oreti Valley and to the South Mavora Lake and beyond were great, and I’m glad I took the option.

Despite the forecast, I put Forks Hut on my to-do list, although it meant another long day.

The uninsulated corrugated steel hut was like being inside a large drum, with rain pouring down on the roof.

Oh well, I was trying to get plenty of exercise in for the summer. I think I overachieved today.

It was familiar territory, and I even spent an hour and a half back on Te Araroa after a ten-year absence.

It turned out to be the third-longest day in terms of steps I’d cracked out in the last eight years since I acquired a smartphone that counts such things—42 km.

Not to say I was finishing my tramping summer just yet, but soon I’d be back to orange triangular DOC markers, SF 70 DOC huts, and familiar beech trees.