The Heaphy Track

the heaphy track was the most succesfull and fun of all of my hikes. although it did not have the views of the milford track or the rob roy and it was long [82 kms vs. the 58 of the milford track over four days] it was the pleasant one of them all.

i was prepared for pain and suffering [i had a 27km days just a couple of days before the heaphy track], blisters, sandflies and boring scenery. instead i had lovely weather, clear sky and no sandflies for the first three days.

day i

i had to wake up at 5am to catch a Southern Link crappy shuttle to the track head. after changing three shuttles, freezing my ass of and not being able to sleep i reached the trailhead at ten o’clock. i was worried – i had 25kms to go. 17 uphill. and only 8 hours before dark. i was surprised by the gradual slope of the track. i met some people going the other way and they confirmed that the track does not get any steeper all the way to the top. i was relieved to hear that, and with a little less haste i continued walking. on the way i met the people who caused me to walk 25kms to a stove-less hut – turns out a big group of kiwi families booked up the entire first hut a year in advance. their hut was nice and warm. the couple of wardens who live there keep the fire going 24/7. i had to walk another 8kms to the next hut, leaving the boring bush behind me and ascending into open downs [where you can spot the hut from a distance :”) ] . as i reached the hut i was in for a disappointment – no fire! no warmth! we only had one room with cooking bench, the sitting benches, eight bunks a fire place. i strategically chose the bunk opposite the fire place and prepared dinner. the rules of hiking are – breakfast is when you get out of your sleeping bag, lunch is two hours after you start walking and dinner is when you get to the hut [my dietician would support the dinner timing – the sooner you eat, the quicker your body recovers.]

the only other tourist on the track was a japanese guy. other than the two of us it was pure kiwis. a father who took his three daughters to the track. the poor kids had to walk 25kms.

as night set and it became cold, i realized why they say that the gouland flats hut is a jut with lots of atmosphere. half of the smoke from the fireplace was going into the hut. i woke up around midnight, choking on the smoke and asked the japanese guy who was tending the fire to open the door. a couple of hours later i woke up again, soaked in sweat. and in the morning everything i brought with me, especially my bag and sleeping bag, had a “nice” smoky aroma which holds on up till now.

day ii

after breakfast an “easy” day on 19kms followed. i walked along flats, open downs and shoe trees to the next hut. there were two wobbly wire bridges, they type they make out of garden wire fence. there was some australia like landscape. and since the internet costs money but word does not i cannot go back to my pictures and remember what else happened on the second day of the walk. it was almost a month ago. i just remember the open downs and flats, walking along the bush on gravel trail and reaching a hut full of two hyper active sugar loaded kids. lucky for them, some guy was snoring during the night and i had to use my earplugs, otherwise the mayhem they did the next morning would tempt me to roast one of them for breakfast.

so, basically, not a lot of peace and quite the second day. i again met the weird habit of kiwis to jump into the coldest water they can find for a “swim” or a “dip”, when they’re perfectly nice and dry.

the hut warden in the hut was an ex social worker and she spent some time with us. i made a few remarks about the lack of washing machine and speculated that they do not wash their clothes too often. the hut warden responded that she, unlike some other people *ahem*, had her shower that day. i chose to remain stinky, but dry and warm.

day iii

you could see the location of my third hut, the heaphy hut, [there are lots of huts and a few of possibilities to hike the heaphy] from the second hut. it looked far away. i did not believe i was acvtually going to walk all the way to the west coast. but i had my hut pass, my blisters were doing pretty well, and a 21km pursued, with a stopover at Lewis Hut to watch crazy kiwis ford a river with their kid when a perfectly good bridge is no more than two minutes away. wet boots and wet feet are a hiking nightmare, and bare feet also mean sandfly bait, and we got to meet lots of sandflies in the hut. the secret of the sandflies is that as long as you’re moving [in theory] they don’t bite [although the amount of bites i have on my legs might indicate otherwise]. they go to bed when it gets dark. and you’re ok if you cover up.

well, i covered up real well when i got to the hut for the night. on the way i walked under some rainforesty cliffs, by river deltas, crossed a couple of big and safer [note the safer. i do not believe they’re safe] swing bridges and reached a hut standing on a patch of green grass. one hundred meters from the hut was a sandy beach and a lagoon which was salty on high tide and fresh on low tide. a really nice place for a hut.

the initial cover up did not work. they can bite you through the poly-something thermals they make here. you have to deet yourself first, then put of your thermals. i hate deet. after the first 6 or 7 bites i just stayed inside. and much fun it was – the hyperactive kids went the other way, but some nice kiwi families were hiking the same hike and the day was spent away chatting.

i could not get to sleep that night. i was starving. as usual, i did not carry enough bread and i was reading LOTR. merry and pippin were escaping from the orcs and eating their lambas. i had a snickers bar. it was the best snickers bar i had in my life, but it was tomorrow’s ration. i knew the last day will be tough.

day iv – or how i discovered modern day lambas

well, hazy with hunger i got some breakfast down. not even a couple of hours into my hike for the day i ate my lunch. i was out of chocolate, trail mix, chocolate bars, tortillas, cheese. i only had my stove, pasta and another 10kms to walk before the shuttle pick up point.

the last days had quite a lot of uphill and downhill. not very steep, but unexpected. and 16kms are a lot of walking after walking 66kms in 3 days. nonetheless, i managed to enjoy the last day. i did feel triumph when i reached the parking lot and the heaphy track sign – 135km of walking in eight days were quite an achievement for me. i then proceeded to start cooking the pasta. the kiwi family offered me a One Square Meal. they are basically two heavy duty granola bars, with no sugar, some protein powder and three of these a day, in theory, supply all of your nutrition. well, OSM only come in apricot flavour. but after three and a half days of being hungry i was ready to eat anything while waiting for my 20-minutes-pasta to cook.

i think that you need to starve for three and a half days [ok, not starve. be peckish] to like OSM. but once it’s in your system you’re theirs forever. OSM are now integral part of my hiking diet [can you really call something which is 25% chocolate a diet?]. you can live on them, they keep you going, help your spirits and they keep you fed. just like lambas [maybe, just maybe, i should not have picked up the Fellowship of the Ring in that book exchange. on the other hand, i’m not going to join the Tolkien community when i come back. some hazy talk has done no one no harm]. and $12 a day for food is cheap. i wonder if i could really just live on them.

a shuttle showed out of the horizon and took us to another expensive resort to reach tourists. i got a towel and shampoo, had a shower and re-wore my stinky tramping gear and felt sorry for myself. i was all alone in the backpackers’ section, another cold and draughty room and i was not very clean. i had to sleep in my stinky sleeping bag. i went to the bar, where it was nice and warm, and the kiwi family invited me over to dinner. the cook put beets in my burger. beets?? what the hell? that’s even weirder than fresh cucumbers. the beets had to go. i entertained them with stories, got a free meal and a good night’s sleep before spending about nine hours on different Southern Link busses the next day.

nothing good can happen on a day you spend nine hours on busses, and this one was no exception. you could it was even worse than usual. it was about 2pm, the second bus for the day, after i got on the first one at 7:45 in the morning. there were about seven of us on a thrifty Southern Link bus. the bus was only, falling apart and extremely uncomfortable. it was the second time i was driving to nelson via the buller gorge and it was not as exciting as the first time. we had a lunch stop in some beat down cafe in a beat up town just outside the gorge. i looked at my watch, figured out i had enough time and went to the toilets. i got out of the toilets, looked at the watch, realized it was very late [no, i did not spend that much in the toilets. my brain was not working the first time i looked at the watch] and no one else was around. i ran outside. there was no bus. my backpack was somewhere on the way to nelson. i ran back inside. no one was there. i ran outside again and made sure the bus was not hiding anywhere. nope. it was gone. some people were pulling out of the parking lot, but they were going the other way.

well.

the cafe ladies called the bus company who radioed the bus driver to come back and get me. she was not surprised she had left me behind at all. there were only seven of us on the bus. i think she could count very well. after waiting for nerve wrecking 15 minutes the bus pulled over. “you were late”, she said. “everyone else got back here on time”. i mumbled i was sorry. i sat at the back of the bus [some asshole took over my seat] and was very very quite for half an hour.

she knew she left me behind. she wanted to teach me a lesson. i thought that after a month and a half of being on time for busses she could give me a break. she wasted half an hour for eight people and had to do extra driving. but i got a good story out of it.

i’m approaching the end of the south island travels back logging – only the abel tasman left to write about. i have a tale of bravery and selflessness to tell before i can unfold my north island travels [in short, i got on a 14 seats place the size of a minivan to fly from wellington to taupo] which so far encompass taupo, tongariro AKA mt doom, rotorua and my free trip to the bay of islands. it’s 1 am, way past my bed time [10pm on a good day, i’m on hiking sleep cycles] and i just wrote three and a half pages on the heaphy track, which contain a lot of LOTR musings. and i did not even watch the movies.