Wellington and the Tararuas, Part 2

I trekked out from Nichols Hut with new energy - refueled by two sausage and cheese wraps and revitalized by an hour off my feet. The wind had abated somewhat and somehow the cloud I was walking through felt less wet. So, spirits lifted, I tramped on towards the summit of Nichols Peak.

On the half k walk up to the summit, I followed a clearly defined trail. Visibility was still poor - I could see well for maybe 10 meters and then everything just got grey - but I could see well enough to find my way. As the trail approached the small, rounded summit of Nichols Peak though, the trail dispersed. Presumably walkers would spread out to all edges of the rounded top to take in views on sunny days, so there was no clear track over the peak. I looked around for a bit before spotting something that was close enouch to a track and seemed to take the indicated lefthand, northward turn that I was looking for, so I decided to follow and see where it led.

The track seemed to pick up depth and clarity as it sloped down the mountain and a few cairns led me to believe that I had found my track. It was by no means easy to pick my way down the path, but in the scree and low-lying scrub that marked the mountainside, I thought I could see my path picking it's way down. Truthfully, I wasn't all that confident in my route, but Wampler had warned that at times the trail on the Te Araroa would all but disappear. That knowledge, coupled with the cairns that would pop up every 10-20 meters, kept me feeling like I was probably headed in the right direction.

Soon, the track became much steeper and descended into tall snowgrass. "This is fine," I thought, "I should be back in the bush soon anyway." And, just as predicted, the snowgrass very quickly gave way to the thick, deep green of the bush. The only problem though, was that the bush was impenetrable. The slope of the mountain had increased significantly so that the bushes that marked the bushline ran directly into the mountainside above their roots, creating a barrier to and easy human entry. In some places, it looked like it may be possible to follow snowgrass into the bush, but these slopes were misleading: the only reason there was snowgrass instead of a plant or a bush was because the slope of the mountain was too steep for anything other than grass - including bush, tree or human - to find a hold.

And so I searched for a way into the bush. Many times I climbed back up the mountain and double checked my track, looking for a trail that I may have missed. But every time I ended up following the same track, past the same cairns, down to the impenetrable bush. After 2.5 hours of searching, I was ready to call it quits. I would have to stay at Nichols Hut tonight and double back to Waitewaewae and then Otaki tomorrow. The Tararuas, in all their rugeddness, had bested me.

And so, defeated but not unhappy, I started the walk back to Nichols Hut. My mind quickly wandered as I walked, and just as I was recalling the time in Scrubs where Dr. Cox's son Jack calls a lady a "fatty fat fatty fatty fatty" I realized that I should have arrived at Nichols Hut by now. I was definitely on a trail, but it wasn't familiar. I continued to venture forward, a little worried that now I was really lost, but more excited that I had found my trail.

Soon enough, the path soon entered the bush and I saw once again the orange triangles that indicated that I was on the track. In the two hours I had been lost, I had always known where I was. Funny, then, that as soon as I stopped thinking, I lost where I was but found where I was going. But no matter, I was on the right track again and as I tramped through the bush I began whistling a tune as I raced towards my next shelter.

Within a half an hour, I ran into people...for the first time in 36 hours! It was Robbie and Brittany, part of the American group that I was hoping to join up with in Wellington. The rest of their group had passed me when I was stomping around on the abandoned track near Nichols Peak. They told me I had 2.5 hours to Dracophyllum Hut. That would put me there right at sunset. Perfect. Things were looking up.

As I tramped on, I continued to be in high spirits and just before I reached the hut, the weather finally started to be on my side again. As I crested a hill, I noticed that I could see all the way across the valley to my west - the clouds were lifting! I continued towards my hut, slower now as I stopped to take pictures of the landscape that had been hidden by the clouds for the last 12 hours, and finally arrived right at that time when the cones in your eyes are passing the guard over to the rods.

The hut had a little clearing next to it where I took some pictures of the mountains around me (on the big camera, so no blog photos :/) before making a quick dinner and heading to bed.

I had another lousy nights sleep - feeling more like I was waiting for morning than like I was resting and recovering - so I decided to just get up early. That decision rewarded me with a great sunrise over the steep, green Tararuas that slowly gave me my first real views of the range

Over the course of the day, I stopped often to take pictures of the range. It was a beautiful day, but also a hot, muggy, exhausting one, as you can see from the "I'm exhausted" selfies.

Eventually I made to my hut for the night. It was an amazing hut, tucked some 100 meters below my final summit with views of the coast to the west and the mountains to the east.

The next morning, I got up early, raced through the bush, and found myself at the pasture that marked the end of the trail. The pasture looked like it could have come straight from California.

From the pasture, I caught a few hitches to Wanganui - including one in a convertible...sweet - and arrived back just in time to see Ben off to the hospital for his surgery. I showered quickly at our hostel and then followed to the hospital. Ben's surgery was a success and now we're just hanging out, using free wifi and figuring out the best way to celebrate the big guy's birthday.

Happy 25th, Ben!

Until next time,
G

Wellington and the Tararuas, Part 1

Well I am back in Wanganui after a weekend in Wellington and then 4 days in the Tararua Mountains that run from Palmerston North to Wellington. Lots happened, so this is going to be a two-parter. Part one is below, part two comes tomorrow.

Tired and hungry, Ben and I arrived in Wellington late on Friday night and then slogged through the city looking for Charlotte. Charlotte was an Overland leader this past summer and graciously offered to put us up for a few nights while we were there. She was a breath of fresh air and energy as soon as we saw her and she quickly brought us to a bar where we met her boyfriend, Cody, as well as Alex, another Overland leader, and Alex's two friends, Emma and Clare. Ben and I held off on beer and conversation for a while in favor of running down the street to grab a kebab from Abrakebabra. If you're ever in Wellington, you have to go there - delicious. Anyways, once we finished up dinner, we had a beer with everyone back at the bar and then went back to Charlotte and Cody's place.

The next morning, we were greeted with a stupid amazing view of Wellington from Charlotte and Cody's back porch.

We hung out there for a while and then headed off to Homegrown Music Festival in Wellington. It was all Kiwi bands and the highlight was, without a doubt, Fat Freddy's Drop. Good vibes, good energy, great time.

We spent some time at the EDM stage too, but it wasn't as good as I was hoping. Unfortunately, the acts there tended to ruin what may have been good music by cranking the volume up too high (how old do I sound?). The concert ended around midnight and, being old, I was ready to head straight to bed so we grabbed a cab and went back up the hill to Charlotte and Cody's.

There, I found myself completely unable to sleep and stayed up all night. At times I would read, at times I would try to close my eyes and fall asleep, but mostly I just embraced the insomnia and allowed my mind to work.

I thought a lot about why I was in New Zealand and why I had chosen to leave everything for 3.5 months. I was not second guessing anything, but simply wanted to answer for myself the question of why. I came to two answers, but I'm saving that for another blog and choosing to use this one as a narrative of the past few days.

Answering that question sufficiently was one benefit to being up all night. The other was the opportunity to see the sun rise from that same view. I sat out in their yard, had a cup of tea, and took in the sun coming up over the mountains. It was actually a really nice way to spend the night and early morning.

Ben and I spent all of Sunday in Wellington and then on Monday we headed up and out in the same direction but to different destinations. We both headed north, but where I got off in Otaki, Ben stayed on and headed further up to Wanganui to rest and get ready for his wrist surgery.

In Otaki, I caught a lift from a guy that had hiked the AT in 1981 and now offers a free shuttle for Te Araroa walkers. His name is Beni and he is quite a traveller. In fact, he is planning on coming to the states next year and drive through Oregon. Mom and Dad, I told him he should shoot me an email and we may be able to put him and his wife up at the beach for a night :)

As we made the 16k drive from Otaki to the trail head, Beni asked me where I was headed for the night. When I told him my goal was Nichols Hut, he looked a bit taken aback. Then, quickly composing himself, he said, "I have no idea how in shape you are, but Nichols is quite a hike...you can probably make it." I couldn't.

The hike started out easy enough. First with a swing bridge crossing that I wasn't super ecstatic about and then across a grassy plain. As soon as I entered the bush, though, I knew it was going to get harder. The bush here was jungle. Not like a jungle, it was just a jungle. Vines hung down everywhere, ferns scraped at my ankles and towered over my head, green growths of all kinds covered everything and trees climbed up to create a ceiling that kept all of the heat and humidity of a sauna pressing down upon me.

Upon entering the jungle, I began to sweat, immediately and profusely, and felt my energy quickly draining. But I trudged on, foot by foot, climbing up and away from the valley I had started in, deeper and deeper into the bush.

Around 2:30 is when I knew I wasn't going to make it to Nichols Hut. Fortunately, Waitewaewae Hut was close and I knew I could bunk up there. So I trudged on with a new goal. After another hour and a half that felt like it could have been 4 or 5, I finally arrived at Waitewaewae.

It was a gorgeous hut tucked alongside the Otaki River. When I arrived, I dumped my stuff and immediately headed down to the river for a quick dip of the skinny variety - when you're the only human around for miles, there's no need for modesty. After that I tried to hang out on a rocky beach for a while, but the swarms of sandflies were thick and forced me back to the sanctity of the hut.

There, I wrote for a while, ate some dinner, and was down before the sun.

After a lousy night of sleep, I woke up at about 8 and got ready for the day. Clouds had moved in over night, so I headed out from Waitewaewae into cooler, greyer landscape. I crossed another, even more terrifying swing bridge

and then I climbed. And climbed. And kept climbing, straight up - a 1,000 meter elevation gain in 3 k. In imperial: more than 3,000 feet in less than 2 miles. It was STEEP and unrelenting.

But I climbed on, sometimes literally crawling on all fours, and hand over hand, foot over foot, finally made it up above treeline to a view of dull grey clouds that surrounded me in every direction. No matter though, because at least the gale force winds quickly whipped away all the sweat that had poured out of me during the climb and cooled me down instantly.

Once above treeline, I moved quickly up another few hundred meters to the summit of Mt Crawford and then raced (safely! of course) across a ridgeline to Nichols Hut. I made it to Nichols at 2, a full 5 hours into the day but only 5 kilometers from where I had started. The Tararuas are not for the weak of will.

At Nichols, I scarfed down a few sausage and cheese wraps and then got ready to head back into the wet and wind and cold and continue to Dracophyllum, the planned accommodation for the night. As I was on my way out, I took a look at the map hanging in the hut and saw that in about half a kilometer I was going to come to a junction - one trail led towards my hut and the other was an abandoned track that led deeper into the mountains. With a smirk, I thought to myself, "I'll have to make sure I don't take the abandoned track." And then I headed out into the clouds to do just that...

A week in Wanganui

Well, our week in Wanganui is finally coming to a close. We arrived here on Sunday night and are taking a bus to Wellington in a few hours. I must admit that my journalling has come to a bit of a halt since we've been here because we've really just been in a holding pattern. My days tended to be filled with long sleeps, book reading, wandering around the small one street downtown (though it does far surpass the size of Williamstown's downtown) and hanging out at the hostel. In that time I have managed to do a few productive things - the most productive of which was probably getting a New Zealand phone. Now I'll be able to get in touch with Ben, trail shuttles, the states and other friends.

The phone is particularly useful because I am about to be without Big Ben for the next month. The whole reason for stopping in Wanganui was so that he could get his broken wrist looked at and it turns out he's going to need surgery on it :/ That surgery will keep him off the trail for 3 weeks and happens a week from now. I'll be sad to be without him, but it will also be good to do some solo hiking and figure this trail out for myself. I might, however, not even really be solo...

Within an hour of finding out that Ben would be off the trail for a while, we ran into some American friends he had made way up in the Northland. I got their contact info and am planning on joining up with them when the get to Wellington.

My plan for now though, is to head to Wellington today with Ben, go to the Jim Beam Homegrown music festival tomorrow, and then hike and hitch back up to Wanaganui to meet Ben for his surgery on Thursday. That's enough about future plans for now.

Over this past week, Ben and I have been hanging out with two girls that work at the hostel right now: Venus, a girl from Florida, and Esther, a girl from Germany. It's actually been really nice to stay in one place for a while and make some new friends. Yesterday, the four of us went to Castlecliff beach at the base of the Whanganui River. It was an awesome black sand beach with some awesome dunes.

Unfortunately, that's really the only adventure we've had. The rest of the time has been some pretty carefree relaxing. It's liberating to be able to take a whole day to do nothing and really not be worried
at all about what I could or should be doing. In the last few years, I've certainly felt the current of the rat race trying to drag me along with it and me struggling, seemingly in vain, against it. I think when I get back I will be happy to jump back into the "real world" and travel downstream on a more traditional path, but for now, these carefree days are exactly what I need.

Parents, I'll post a selfie in the next blog. Here a couple pictures I like.

Until next time,
G

The first few days

Well im currently hanging out in Wanganui atbour hostel waiting for Ben to get back from the doctor (he hurt his wrist) and i figured i ahould update this blog. There is much to be sqid and many different ways to go with this blog, but for now I'm just gping to give you the overview of events from the last week.

I arrived in Auckland on February 5th and headed off to the Base Backpackers hostel in the city center. The hostel was exactly what one would expect a hostel in a city to be like - loud with lots of booze and debauchery. I was more intent to grab some sleep than join in with that, so after a short walk around the city I passed out. I must say that I felt a little bit like I was missing out by not joining in with everything that was going on at the hostel, but I also feel like that's not why I'm here. I want to hike and I absolutely want to meet people from all over the world but I also don't really want to do it in that way. I'd prefer to meet people on the trail and be able to remember their names and stories. Now don't get me wrong, I definitely will be throwing back a few beers on this trip, but I'm not so interested in the party scene.

On the 6th, I headed to Ohakune to meet up with Ben. It was great to see him and feel like things were finally getting going after 3 days of travel.

We stayed at a hostel there that was much more low key and much more my scene. We hung out with a couple of guys from France and a couple from Holland before turning in for am early night.

The next day we had the owner of Yeti Tours, Rob, drive us to our trailhead and started a tramp around Mt Ruapehu. It was a gorgeous walk with amazing views of the mountain and waterfalls.

That night we slept in Whakapapaiti Hut and got blasted by a storm. Thank god for 4 walls around us that night. The next day was soggy, all the more so because of a river crossing in the first k. At halfway, we stopped at a cafe in a small town the trail went through and waited out the rain. At about 4 we got back out on the trail and were very glad to have some sun on us. We arrived at our hut around 6:30 and got some beautiful shots of Mt Ngarahoe, better known as Mt Doom, at sunset.

We woke up ar 3:30 the next morning in the hopes of getting to the top of Ngarahoe for sunset. I thick cloud that covered the mountain thwaryed those plans. Instead, we hiked to a smaller peak and sat in some thermal vents there to warm up after a wet, windy morning. It was one of the best hikes I've done in a long time. We couldn't see much, but we were able to get some misty otherworldly views and I laughed harder than I have in a while.

At times, I am missing the comfort and familiarity of home. I haven't moved to a new place or really done anything out of my comfort zone since heading to college almost 7 years ago. Ultimately, though, I am glad to be here and glad to be out od that comfort zone. I'm excited to see what New Zealand holds.

Until the next post,
G

Day 0 - Last day in Tigard, OR

Alright, this is just a test. I'm flying off to New Zealand in a little under 20 hours! Just about all packed (but nothing is cinched up and put away like it's ready to throw on a plane). I'm a little bit frazzled trying to throw everything together, and a little bit nervous, but all in all, there's nothing to do really but be excited and look forward to the adventure ahead.

So, that adventure ahead, for the foreseeable future is: fly from Portland to LA, LA to Sydney (17 hours..:)), and Sydney to Auckland. I leave on the 3rd from Portland at 3:30pm and get in to Auckland at 5:30pm on the 5th! Once I get there, I'll take a bus to the hostel, stay one night and then bus it down to Ohakune where I'll meet Wampler and we'll start figuring out what we're going to do. We were planning on a week long canoe trip, but that has been cancelled or postponed due to a few minor fractures suffered by my big companion ;)

Alright, off to finish packing. Pictures and stories to come!

G