A happy-go-lucky English rambler dude goes to New Zealand for a year. Here he interfaces with some of those he left behind and details his nefarious activities. Or summat.
Recently clicked on MP3s - 7th June 2005 The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners
Jens Lekman - When i said i wanted to be your dog
The Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Eels - Blinking Lights
Thursday, April 18, 2002
So no-one gets too excited, and i don't have to do too much typing in one go, my rollicking account of the Heaphy track is now going to be serialised in two parts. This first part appearing today is entitled "We walked a long way". The exciting conclusion, to be published 'later' is called, "And then we walked a bit further".
Enjoy the hot rambling action........
Day One
Before even starting the Heaphy track we had a couple of days of getting to, and messing about in the Nelson area. I won't bore you with the details, but they included 8 hour drives, top organic tucker in a Murchison cafe, a night spent in a rickety caravan in a hippy retreat (Pit toilets & Buddha shrines a go-go!) and one and half hours in Takaka Tourist information, spent booking endless buses to and from the track, with a lovely if rather doddery old lady called Colleen.
The first day of the track started off in Nelson itself, catching the bus at 7am (nngh!). We reached the track at around midday, after driving through 4 reasonably deep rivers, and crossing a bridge that was rickety enough to require all us passengers to get out of the bus first and walk across, as it couldn't take the weight of the bus and us at the same time!
The actual walk for the day was fairly uneventful, apart from meeting some of our fellow trampers. Firstly a sweet looking, old, English lady, who in fact turned out to be the biggest moaner in the entire world. I don't recall her saying a positive thing about anyone or anything for the entire time we were with her. There were also more kiwi's present than on the other famous walks i've done, including one tough looking Mum, with three kids, who despite being surprisingly boisterous after a 16k walk, were completely un-irritating and hardly moaned about anything at all. I dread to think what I would have been like at their age, "Mum, I'm KNACKERED! I wanna go 'ome and watch telly! Not carry on walking for another 3 days WahWahWah!!!!".
At lunchtime Alex and Jo stopped to knock up a tasty looking little feast, consisting of all sorts of fresh food, wheras i picked out a couple of muesli bars, from the dozens i brought along. They may not be the most inspiring of foodstuffs, but while yomping around NZ, i've discovered that you can happily keep going all day long on Muesli bars alone. This removes the need to try to find a shop that sells veggie pasties/sarnies, to make your own food, or to carry around lots of heavy, squashable ingredients for 4 days. So the fact that my rucksack was twice as heavy as theirs seemed slightly unfair.
The climb to the Perry Saddle Hut was 910 metres, but was so gradual that it hardly felt as if you were climbing at any point, it just seemed to drag on all day. As usual on tramps, the first sight of the hut was very welcome, and although busy, was quite cosy. There's not that much to do in huts of an evening, so after you've had dinner, met your fellow hutters for the evening and done some star gazing (Which is amazing down here due to the almost complete absence of cities) you normally go to bed fairly early (at 8pm!). It would have been even earlier, but i was attempting to befriend two kiwi blokes who'd had the "sense" to bring a bottle of Jamesons with them, but my staring at the bottle and drooling gave my game away slightly, and i went to bed whiskeyless :o(
Day 2
The one drawback of the Heaphy, and most big Kiwi tramps, is that they avoid the summits of perfectly good mountains they pass by. So, unlike everyone else in the hut, i decided to start the longest section of the walk (27k's) by nipping up to the summit of Mount Perry, a few 100 metres above the hut. From the summit i had great views along the track in both directions, and spent a good half hour on the top enjoying them, the sunshine, as well as mulling life over in general, and as usual not really coming to any conclusions. By the time i had got back down, and had a chat to the Hut warden i was miles behind everyone, so spent the day walking on my own. Fairly enjoyable for a while, but after 27k's of it i was glad to catch up with Alex & Jo and the rest of the trampers at the Mackay hut for a bit of socialising.
Oh, did i mention the the weather was gorgeous all day, and the track wound it's way over the Gouland downs between lots of hills covered in rusty brown, tussocky grass, crossed lots of crystal clear rivers, the intricate songs of rare NZ birds filled the air, and the day ended with a really mellow orangey sunset over the Tasman sea? I didn't? Well it did.
My photos from the walk are here, and someone else's photos are here, including a pic from the Perry Saddle Hut kitchen, ooh!
