14 December 2019

The Original Plan: Long Harry to East Ruggedy
The New Plan: Yankee River to Long Harry
Steps: 30,394
Floors Climbed: 40
Distance: 22.6km
Tantrums: 0.5

Time to soldier on!

Awoke to the sound of Yuval stoking the fire, we gathered and said our goodbyes as he’s packing 2 days in and heading to East Ruggedy. He did it too, according to the log books. Fit people…

José and Tiphaine, the French couple, were also carrying on to Long Harry as they wanted their rest day where there was decent fishing and Yankee River didn't cut 'la moutarde'. I left first, crossing the three-wire swing bridge and they passed me halfway up the hill. The area was quite lush with lots of birdsong going on so it made for a lovely morning.

No rain today so the mud was less sticky and the walk more pleasurable. The flora changed to be less dense and rainforesty, presumably due to the wind around the north side which wasn’t major today but the trees certainly showed it could blow when it wanted to!

A lot of up before the down but it was easy to work out where I was and estimate timing, I was treated to a rather magnificent view down over Smokey Beach. The hard part was Smoky Beach with the sand dunes, which started with having to scramble up a 10-metre high one! Sand walking is difficult and painful with a pack but WOW what a spot! I saw a Dotterel running along away from me, she kept looking back. Meeting some DOC volunteers at the next hut, they explained she was trying to distract me and lead me away from her eggs, if I continued to follow she would have started limping or feigned a broken wing so I would eat her instead of her eggs. Aren’t mother’s amazing? I didn’t know it was a rare bird at the time, missed that photo op.

Stopped for lunch at the Hunters’ Hut and carried on. At this point I misread the “high tide route” sign, I thought you could get to the swing bridge two ways depending on the sign. No. The bridge is PART OF the high tide route, so I could have crossed the river on foot in less than 2 minutes but instead I went over a bridge and up/over a hill just to arrive back on the beach across the stream. 45 minutes of clambering. Like I need extra exercise this trip!

After a hard slog up, along and over the hills I got to Long Harry Hut. The track, for some reason, headed on down to the sea instead of over to the hut which was clearly less than 100 metres in front of me. Why not go straight there? My guess at the time was the track planner was drunk, tripped over and rolled down the hill and clambered up to the hut after staggering along the rocks, not thinking to perhaps adjust the map route to suite sober people such as myself who had been walking for a while and wanted to lie down.

José and Tiphaine arrived hours before me and they went down to look for paua (New Zealand abalone), he returned with 6 huge ones! So after dinner I was being served pieces of plain paua fried in rice oil, paua with rosemary and garlic, paua with curry. They didn't just cook it either, they warmed it gently on the wood-burner then fried it. The thing with French people, you never know when they'll just whip up a degustation restaurant in the middle of nowhere!

Callum and Lizzy, who were volunteering with DOC on a working holiday from the UK and walking the opposite way, came out with marshmallows to toast in the fire and chocolate. I shared my freeze-dried apple pie, surprisingly delicious. You can’t plan perfect evenings like this 😊

With comic timing, just as one of them asked what I do for a job (cruising industry) one of my ships happened to sail past! I know my colleagues were worried about me but that was an extreme way of checking up on me...I tried to not think of all the people dining in the fancy restaurants and burning the dance floor. The fun is wherever I am so it sucks to be them!

We had a nice view across the Foveaux Strait to the South Island and I had just enough reception to text my Dad and one or two others whose messages dropped in after the eruption on Whakaari/White Island. It's great being the wilderness and getting a message "Hey I just saw the news, are your family OK?"...what news? Why wouldn't they be OK? What's happened? Sheesh. Wrong part of the country thank God.

I heard some kiwi chattering nearby but out of sight making some quite prehistoric noises, which I would never have known was a Kiwi if it weren’t for Callum and Lizzy’s expertise. Super cool. I will see that elusive bird eventually! It sounded like there were quite a few out there.

Tomorrow is another big one. Knees are a bit sore but they’ll just have to get over it! I'm over halfway so it's easier to keep going than go back, or so my innocent mind thought at the time.