Te Araroa Day 67, Aorere (first campsite on the Heaphy Track) to Heaphy Hut

Starting km: (1812)
Finishing km: (1862)
km covered today: 50

As mentioned in the previous entry, the Heaphy track was one of the first Kiwi tramps I did, back in 2004. As such, this day was full of memories of that first walk. Almost all of them, in fact, as it covered 50 of the Heaphy's 78.5km

For such a long day I was up not bright and early. As in the stars were out and the sun not even a glow in the eastern sky when I woke at 04:30.

The morning started with a gentle climb through beech forest, lit by my headlamp for the first hour.  As I walked I thought about how cool it was that I was almost certainly the only person walking on this ~80km trail. Just shortly after sunrise I arrived at the Perry Saddle hut. I'd stayed here in 2004, climbing nearby Mt. Perry as the weather as the weather rapidly deteriorated, but the hut had since been replaced with a new, very fancy construction. I departed just as the very first trampers were getting out of bed and stumbling into the kitchen.

Following the hut, it was a descent through small but dense manuka scrub with occasional views emerging of the mountains above and the tussock (and mist!) covered Gouland Downs below.

One of my fondest memories of the Downs (in fact, along with four men tramping in business suits, my only memories as it was so rainy and foggy I couldn't see more than a few metres away) was the Boot Pole.

About 25km from the start of the track is a pole hung with dozens of pairs of old tramping boots. I'd already planned to walk the Heaphy before I remembered about it and connected it with a pair of shoes I had to retire: the ones I'd worn for the North Island part of Te Araroa.  I felt very happy and excited as I strung them up on the pole in a fitting resting place.

At the next hut, Gouland Downs I chatted with a commercial tour operator who gave me directions to the nearby caves where I spent a wrr while poking around with my headlamp on. He also answered a question that had been on my mind: who clears the boots off the Boot Pole and how often do they do it? The answers are "officially no one" and "whenever someone walking past needs a pair of boots and sees one that suits his/her fancy." I guess I wouldn't mind if my boots find a new home with someone who needs them :-)

The walk through the Downs that occupied the rest of the brilliantly sunny morning was a stark contrast to my 2004 walk. That one was marked by pouring rain, sodden trails and roaring creeks.  Indeed, I love telling people about standing on a small footbridge, holding the handrail while water flowed past up to my knees.

Lunchtime was spent at the James McKay hut. The sun was shining and breeze blowing enough to keep me cool and to keep the sandflies away. And the views stretching out down to the mouth of the Heaphy River and the Tasman Sea far below. I have to admit taking pleasure at the reactions of some of the folks also lunching there when they asked where I'd come from and where I was headed that day. Immediately before they'd been complaining of how their poor planning had led to them having to walk just over half that.

And far below was where I was headed.  It was a long, slow descent to match the previous day's climb. But instead of the cool, clammy beech forest on the east side of the saddle, it was a warm, humid forest of punga (tree ferns) and scarlet flowered rata.

Down at the bottom were the Lewis Hut, the looong swing bridge across the Heaphy River and one of my other clear memories of 2004: Big Daddy Rata (as one of my fellow trampers had called it back then.)
This tree was truly massive. Probably not quite as tall, but seemingly of equal girth to Tane Mahuta, the largest of the kauris, and equally covered in its own ecosystem of epiphytes. I've included some photos, but they really don't do it justice.

The ratas kept the show going as the trail followed the river, with many more big ones, including several perched on top of huge, eroded blocks of limestone their roots seeming to almost spill down the sides.

I have to admit that I was getting a bit tired by this point, so it was a relief when I smelled the sea for the first time and even more of one when I heard it.

This meant I was arriving at the Heaphy Hut. It too had been replaced since my last visit. But it was still in one of the best locations of any hut in NZ, with a huge green lawn fronting onto a great swimming spot in the river.

I was ever so slightly peeved at the signs making it very clear that not only were campers not allowed to use the bunks, cookers, etc. in the flashy new hut, they weren't even to enter it (which I had been doing and did anyway to fill in the intentions book, but left grumpily right after as I would have liked to stay longer to escape the biting sandflies.)

But really there weren't even that many sandflies. And I still had a nice swim in the river, a lay and read in the sun. And a nice early bedtime when I got sick of swatting.  I stared at the dozens of flies collecting on the outside of the tent, but not for long as, unsurprisingly after such an early rise and long day, I fell asleep pretty quickly.