Day 85 - ice pool
Rintoul hut —-> Mid Wairoa hut 15km
It was a chilly morning as we packed up the tent. It was quite refreshing to be cooking brekkie in the cold, the freshness of the air waking us up quicker than had we been in the hut.
The sun hadn’t quite hit us yet as we set off so for the first time on trail we both kept our beanies on.
We meandered through a dense beech forest, occasionally feeling a glimpse of the warm sun as it broke through the tree tops.
Then began a climb up to Purple Top. We were feeling a little invincible, knowing nothing should be as hard as the climbs up the Rintouls yesterday. The sky was impossibly clear save for the moon who was still hanging around even at 9.30am.
When we reached Purple Top, it wasn’t really a peak or even a saddle, more just a high point of the trail so the view was fairly obscured. There were also a group of other hikers huddled together who weren’t particularly welcoming so we pushed on up the hill to get a better view. This was something new, we were walking further, climbing higher out of choice, not because an orange marker led us there!
Beautifully calm at the top, we sat for a while admiring the 360 degree views once again.
Looking across we could see the orangy bare peaks of Mt Ellis and Red Hill. All going to plan we’d be there in a couple of days - they looked impossibly distant.
The descent off the top took us down into the forest. We were currently at over 1500m, our lunch spot at Tarn hut would be at 1031m, and camp at Mid Wairoa hut right down at 395m - our knees were in for another grilling.
Tarn hut was in a lovely clearing on the edge of unsurprisingly, a tarn - a little alpine lake that was a rather murky green colour. The lake meant sandflies, the clearing meant bumblebees, so we ate a speedy lunch and set back out into the forest.
The afternoon was spent pushing up and down through the trees, spotting goats, and slowly getting lower and lower back down towards the forest floor and river.
At 5pm, just as our knees were about to pack in, we reached a swing bridge over to Mid Wairoa hut.
We were met by a very chill goat, and Kat, a human, who we’d met briefly at Rintoul hut the night before.
There was a glorious swimming hole just by the hut, so we headed on down and thought to follow Kat’s suit who was gently floating around, swimming about the rocks like she was in the kiddie’s pool at a leisure centre.
Oh my word. It was the coldest water I had ever touched. I screamed so loudly when I dunked in I thought a helicopter would come to rescue me. I attempted to wash my hair (desperately needed) but it ended up grosser than it went in; I couldn’t stay in the water long enough to rinse the shampoo out.
Kat was used to cold water and had put herself in some kind of meditative state - she was in there for almost half an hour, going numb in the process. I was very embarrassed of my pathetic attempt.
Josh opted for the tent again tonight so once we’d made dinner, and swatted away the endless rotation of sandflies that managed to squirm their way into the hut, Kat and I snuggled down into our sleeping bags with the hut all to ourselves.
