Finishing km: 1600
km covered today: 31
I'd set myself up for (at least the possibility of) a long day headed into the Tararua Mountains. As such, I departed at 06:15, leaving a thank-you note for my fine hosts at the Makahika Outdoor Pursuits Centre (it was soooo nice not having to pack up a tent in the morning!) before leaving.
The day began with a short road walk to the start of the track into the Tararuas (complete with a sign from the local Rotary club warning walkers of the need to be well prepared, leave their intentions with someone reliable and to travel in groups of at least four [two out of three ain't bad.]) The toilets were, interestingly, over a stile in a field full of bulls. I'm pretty sure they were more curious than aggressive, but I still walked with a mix of slow, quiet patience and quick scrambling towards the end when visiting them.
Following a short section along the river, I met Yvonne and Leigh (who had left earlier than I) before starting up the Gable End track. Up indeed! And up and up and up. 800 vertical metres of climbing later, Yvonne and I were above the bush line.
This was, rather irritatingly, followed almost immediately by 300m of steep descent (which felt like a lot more), giving back way too much of the climbing we'd just done. Then by 200m of climbing (which, unusually, felt like considerably less) to regain much of that.
Lunch at the Te Matawai Hut was followed by another looong climb up to the 1432m summit of Pukematawai.
And things only got tougher from there. The next section of track included lots of steep (if not terribly long) ups and downs on rough, sometimes loose trail. This wasn't anything terribly surprising for the Tararuas, which are full of this sort of track. But it was nice to have absolutely beautiful weather (almost no wind and just a bit of cloud, which was surprising for the Tararuas, which probably average 60km/h and have 200 days a year with rain) and Yvonne nearby, just in case something unexpected and unpleasant happened.
It was something of a relief to get back into the bush, but the tough walking didn't end, with more steep, bumpy track. The forest was also often thin enough to leave you exposed to long falls if you slipped at the wrong time. But I still felt good, strong and, though it had already been 9 hours of walking, not too tired on arriving at the Dracophyllum Hut. I'd been looking at this Hut on maps of the Tararuas for years, amused by its 2-bunk size, so I was really happy to have an opportunity to get my photo with the cute little structure.
The final leg of the day's walk was actually the shortest, and probably the prettiest. Most of it returned to thicker forest instead of the wide expanses of the open ridge tops, but it was the moss-covered, gnarled and twisted stuff that's known as "Goblin Forest" in the Tararuas. I think some of the sections on Dracophyllum Ridge give the area around Hell's Gate, further south in the Tararuas, a run for their money as my pick for loveliest forest in New Zealand. The trail continued with its ups and downs through another 5km of this forest along the ridgetop, sucking more energy out of me (and Yvonne, who had been nearby for most of the day's walk) and continuing to abuse my knees, which had already taken a good pounding on the earlier sections of the walk.
The final 300m of climbing up to the summit of Nicholls was getting pretty tiring, but I also knew that it meant we were nearing the Nicholls Hut. When we arrived at the trail junction sign, I was tired enough and my knees sore enough to remark to Yvonne that the steep descent down to the hut below, listed as 5 minutes on the sign, might be one of the very rare occasions when a walk would take me longer than listed on the DOC signage.
When we arrived we found (as expected from entries at the intentions book in previous huts) five people already at the six bunk hut. Not that it really mattered. Everyone was friendly (and suitably impressed by the long, hard, 11h55m of walking Yvonne and I had done), the weather was nice enough for many of the occupants to be spread out on the tussock around the hut, and there was still plenty of water in the tank and daylight to cook dinner. And though I ended up being the one to sleep on the hut floor, the day's hard, but satisfying walking (plus my earplugs... essential hut gear!) ensured that I got a sound night's sleep, the hardest day of the hardest section of the north island behind me.
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