Day 64 - into the Tararuas

Makahika Outdoor Centre —-> Te Matawai hut 19km

I knew from John at Makahika that Ollie and Peter were two days ahead of me. I didn’t think it realistic for anyone to be pushing up behind me, and if they were, they were doing such big days that I wouldn’t see them for very long! So unless someone else was just ahead of me and for some reason chose not to stay at Makahika, which I thought again, pretty unlikely, I was heading into the Tararuas alone. I didn’t mind walking on my own, but I just hoped they’d be at least some other people in the huts at night. It had been seven days since I last had anyone else in my campsite to chat to - that was getting old pretty quick.

I woke up on the coldest morning I’d had yet. I snoozed my alarm three times before I could face getting out of my sleeping bag.

When I set off at 8.30am I was wearing my fleece and trousers, but by 9am I had the sun on me and I was back to regular programming in shorts and tshirt. A man caught me up shortly after I’d changed, he was out on his morning walk around the valley - was nice to chat to someone whilst I walked. I had to pace very fast to keep up with him. He noted this but I pretended I was walking this fast to keep warm…!

I crossed over a river and turned off towards the Poads Road car park - the proper start of the Tararuas. I signed the intentions book at the information board, climbed over a stile and walked towards the ominous looking mountains ahead of me. They were dense with trees, I’d envisioned mountains with open tops and rocky faces - this range was nothing like this.

When I reached the forest, I first followed a track above the river bed for a few hours, crossing multiple sketchy slips in the trail before reaching the Gable Ridge End track. The TA notes mentioned that there was no water available from the start of this track until the hut, so I’d planned to fill my water bottles up at the river here, but I was so high above the river that there was no way I could climb down to refill. I had a litre of water which I knew wouldn’t really be enough but I didn’t have time to go back a few km to the last stream I crossed.

I started the climb up the Gable Ridge track, a climb that did not stop for four hours…. Four hours of terrain that was formed only of roots, moss and leaves. I followed the little orange triangles up and up and up leaving a trail of sweat mixed in with the mud I’d trudged through.

When I eventually popped out of the forest into the open scrub I was almost in the clouds. They were hovering ahead of me almost touching the peaks of all the hill tops but not quite.

I knew the next few days were going to be a never ending cycle of ups and downs and the mountain range wasted no time launching me into that. As soon as I was out into the open, I was back down into the forest scrambling down through the trees before a final climb up again when I finally saw the glimpse of wooden structure through the bush ahead of me - Te Matawai hut. I’d never been more grateful to see my camp/home for the night as then. I was absolutely shattered with not a drop more water left.

I came up onto the deck hoping to find someone or someones inside but with no sign of boots or poles outside I knew it was empty. My heart sank a little bit, was I really going to have to go through all of today three times over on my own!?

The sun was on its last legs by now and it was getting pretty chilly, so I rugged up and headed out to the helipad next to the hut to get a better view of the mountains around me. At 888m in elevation, I was well below the rest of the peaks - but knew in the coming days I’d defiantly be looking down on them.

Just as I was about to head back to the hut I heard voices coming along the track, and then two faces poked their noses out through the trees. Yay! This was Lucy and Andy, a pair of Kiwi friends who’d met tramping in the Tararuas just a couple of weeks before. Lucy has been hiking the TA in sections over the past few years, and this Tararua section was her final one to tick off. They were following the same route as me so wonderfully I would have some company for the next few days.

We all ate dinner in the hut and then headed back up to the helipad to watch the sunset. The mountains had completely changed colour. With the sun fading, they now appeared almost rusty, the pink clouds again hovering just over the top.

As I snuggled down deep into my sleeping bag, I tried to ignore the throbbing in my legs and hoped neither Lucy nor Andy snored.