By Ruth
Distance: 14 km
Excited to execute our latest plan for navigating the weather through the Tararuas, we woke up nice and early this morning. And so did Donna to drive us up to the trailhead at 7 am. What an angel.
Our new plan is to walk the first day of the Tararuas today, when it was supposed to be a bit rainy and windy, but not too bad. Then wait out Sunday in Te Matawai hut, when some severe gale force winds are predicted to be pounding the mountains. Then, Monday and Tuesday, we continue through the rest of the range, with the hopefully beautiful sunny weather that is forecast for those days.
So, despite knowing that it would be a wet day with low visibility, we waved goodbye to Donna at the trailhead and headed up into the mountains. The first twenty minutes or so were through farmland, easy. Then we reached the forest. The first thing that hit us was the darkness. It wasn’t a particularly bright morning because of the thick clouds, but in the trees it was positively dim. We half-joked about getting our headlamps out, but soon enough our eyes adjusted to the gloom.
The first few hours of the day were a steady uphill on the kind of track we are by now used to: wet, with lots of big muddy patches. It was just over four hours up to our first stop of the day, the Waiopehu hut where we had lunch. On the way up we encountered a day hiker heading up to the hut and back, and an older kiwi couple heading down from a five-day tramp through the Tararuas. More people than we expected!
For the last few hundred metres before our lunch hut we popped out of the tree line. You could tell there would be amazing views from there on a clear day, but for us all it meant was being exposed to the wind and the pure white cloud that covered everything. It was so great to get into the hut and have a dry place to eat and relax for an hour before heading out again (which was tough to do).
After leaving Waiopehu we went over a couple peaks and along a ridge for quite some time. We had thought almost all of today would be in trees, so we were a bit sad that we were missing the views from the cool mountain ridge we were on. Another thing about the ridge was the mud became relentless. At some points it was less a muddy path and more a small stream we were expected to walk in. It was very slippery too, so it was a tough four hours until the next hut, Te Matawai, where we plan to stay for the next two nights.
As we were finishing up our supper, two unexpected things happened. One, someone else arrived at the hut! We are sharing the bunk room with Jamie, a friendly Australian with lots of NZ hiking experience. So it ended up being a social evening for us. And second, the clouds began to clear! We thought we’d be completely socked in all day, so we were blown away when some views began to open up from the hut. We even got some sun for thirty seconds or so! It was magical. Overall it was a tough day but very rewarding.
