Day 134 - mice

Birchwood station —-> Merriview hut

24km + 6km hitch

The day started with a wonderful sunrise over the station. The hut had been pretty chilly overnight but there were no signs of mouse activity - thankfully as in my slumber after the pub I’d forgotten to properly pack all my food away.

John and I were the first ones out this morning - John’s makeshift sock gloves on his hands to make the chilly air half bearable. 5 days to go.

As the sun tipped over the surrounding hills we started on the Woodlaw track, crossing forestry and farmland, the station beaming with life all around us.

As we reached the bottom of a hill, I looked up to see one of the steepest hills I’d seen all trail. Not since Waiau pass had I looked upwards and gulped. Head down, I plodded on up. Maybe I was just burnt out, maybe it was last nights pizza, but I felt slower than ever, stopping every few minutes to get my breath - how did the trail wait until five days out to give me the hardest challenge of the trail!? Phoarrrr did getting to the top of that hill feel good. The views back over the station were something to marvel at too.

The trail turned into the forest at the top of the hill and Ian came galloping up behind us. We walked and talked for an hour or so before he sped off ahead and John and I perched on some logs for morning tea. Our food routine had become quite regimented with snack breaks in the morning and afternoon around main meals and I found myself getting hangry if we missed them.

The rest of the walking day was fairly easy - more forestry, more farmland, a walk along the road around a forest detour. I really had come full circle, back where I started in Northland - walking through farms avoiding forest closures.

We hit the main road and keen to avoid another 6km of road walking, we hitched a ride with a young guy out in NZ on a working holiday visa. He had that morning been visiting Bluff, and he had taken a couple of TA finishers into Invercargill… I knew a bunch of the guys I’d met on the Whanganui river were finishing about now so I asked him if he got their names - yes, they were Peter from Germany and Yuki from Japan! I’d been at the Shed in Tauruamanui and then on the river with Peter, and Yuki had been a part of the group that had skipped ahead save waiting any more for the river levels to go down.  There had been a bunch of them all finishing on the same day so it was awesome to hear how they’d got on. We were chatting in the car so much that we drove right past where we were meant to get out…! John and I walked a km back along the road and turned up at Merriview hut around 3.

Merriview was a private hut built by the landowner for trail users to use - it was wonderfully boujie by normal DOC hut standards. Running mains water and real mattresses!

The wind picked up so we could properly dry and air out all our gear on the wonderful deck outside. Ian turned up an hour later - he’d walked the whole way along the road so we’d overtaken him in the car. Leon arrived a couple of hours after that - he’d also walked the whole way along the road but had had an unfortunate incident with a stock truck… it had overtaken him at speed going round the corner and with the high winds, Leon had been subjected to a rather unwanted golden shower. He understandably wanted to wash, so he filled his water bottles and carried on up the track to camp by a stream. Ian had a friend in the area so he was picked up just after dark so it was just John and I in the hut.

Well John, me and the many many mice that  also called that hut home. We caught five in the mouse traps - we for sure would have caught more if we (slash John - I was going no where near them) could have been bothered to get out of bed more often to change the traps.