19 December 2019

Day 11

The Original Plan: North Arm Hut to Oban/Shower/Beer/Steak/Bed
The New Plan: Somewhere in the Bush to Oban/Shower/Microwaved Pie/Bed via North Arm Hut
Steps: 47,805
Floors Climbed: 151
Distance: 35.5km
Tantrums: 8
Mega Tantrums: 1

The end is nigh!!!!

After sleeping fairly crappily, I packed up and got moving as I was cold already so decided to just get moving down and have some tea and scroggin at the bottom of the hill. During this process the other gaiter vanished, I’m amazed they stuck with me this long to be honest!

I made it to the bottom of the mountain, DOC had removed the bridge over the river and replaced it with...a new one? No. A sign suggesting I turn back if the river was in flood. The river was fine to cross but I can assure you, if it was in flood nobody would turn back over that mountain! So they can stick their sign!

After this it was low undulating forest (my favourite...) and the worst maintained part of the track so far, which surprised me being close to a Great Walk section and easier than other parts to get people to. Many fallen trees to climb over and around, one requiring removal of pack to clamber over it! Fortunately the Rakiura Orchestra of tui, bellbirds and various others serenaded me along; it's very hard to be grumpy when they're performing!

I was fueled with the hope and knowledge that although it was a long walk ahead of me today, more than half of it would be part of the 3-day Great Walk and much better maintained.

The tide was low so I was able to cut across the mud flats and back to the track of doom. I was about 3 bays away from North Arm Hut, I’m not kidding when I say it was easier to wade through water than follow that track! I managed 3 more undulations and decided I was DONE undulating. "If I see one more blasted mud bank to climb up I will march down the river and wade the rest of the way", and sure enough that's what I did! I went downstream to the water and waded knee-deep to the hut. Two young hikers were meandering down the wooden stairs to the water below the hut, seeing me approaching through the water they turned and climbed back up again. I must have looked delightful.

Suddenly I was surrounded by people, as this is a more popular hut as part of the 3-day Great Walk so there were all ages around and clean-looking compared to Mr Swamp Thing here.

I had a snack and made fresh tea and chatted to the 3-day hikers, nice to see some kids around and some cheerful new faces! They tried to tell me about the crazy mud they had over from Port William. Cute. I recharged my phones for a wee bit and showed off my Kiwi videos and gave away the rest of my fire starters.

The snack of cheese and crackers at 3:30pm was, amazingly, my breakfast. I had actually forgotten to eat since my breakfast snack so no wonder I was in a cloudy stormy mood earlier! After an hour's break I was recharged and soldiered onwards.

I had paid to stay here last night so made sure to sign the book in case anyone worried about my absence. They recommend always to sign the hut books, even if you only pop in as they are super helpful to rescue parties should they be looking for you.

The sign said 5 hours to Oban, being a Great Walk Track this was probably accurate and I did get there about 9:30pm so 5.5 hours which was good given my physical state of exhaustion.

Unbelievable as it may seem, now Rakiura is a National Park, there was once a thriving saw mill with rail engines! At some stage, when the industry finished, someone had the bright idea of turfing some rail cars into the bay! Nowadays that would earn you a crazy fine, but since it happened a long time ago these engine pieces are apparently "heritage" and "historical artefacts"...so they're there to see, kind of ruining the tranquillity a wee bit. I reckon they should pull them out and put them in a museum for people to see. Oh well, today's litter is tomorrow's artefacts I suppose!

I tried to follow the map but when I found the side track to the historic sawmill I literally screamed “NOOOOOOO”, the loudest I had screamed so far (or ever) as I was certain I’d passed it and had pinned myself being a lot further ahead than I was. Devastating. So close to home but so far!

It was raining pretty hard by this point, I soldiered on in a cloud of expletives. At one point I tripped over a rock and couldn’t get up as my leg muscles were done cooperating. I’m 40 years too young for that! I crawled gingerly to a bank and hoisted my sorry ass up, and onwards we go.

I finally got to the end and onto the road, 2km from town. Please God no. Welcome to Rakiura, even the end isn't the end!

By this point it was raining horizontally (am I on a TV show or something I mean COME ON) and blowing an icy gale as I staggered dramatically and purposefully through to the South Sea Hotel and inside at 9:30pm. Electricity! Heating! Was this heaven? I regret not having someone take a photo of me, I'm told I looked exhausted in the Facebook Live I made at 10pm but that was after a shower and change of clothes...I probably looked like the Missing Link before that!

I got my key and my bag and was asked if I’d eaten, if there are nicer hotel staff out there I’d like to meet them. I hope they didn’t curse my name the next day when they saw the large round muddy butt print I left on the other bed after sitting on it…oops.

My phone lit up with a text and voicemail from Dad last night warning me not to use gas in the tent...it's a parent's job to worry, and my job to give them things to worry about.

After a quick shower, when I couldn’t bend down to wash my glorious mud-caked legs, and donning clean clothes I was sitting in the bar with a cold Speight’s, a pie and a sausage roll. I crawled into bed, then got up to turn the heating and electric blanket off as apparently I was used to being cold now!

I’d pushed myself further than I knew was possible but you know what else? I’D BLOODY DONE IT!!!