Hunters Hut to Red Hills Hut aka Te Araroa LASH Day 14

A few days ago I told you that I woke up with severe condensation. Clearly that was just a warm-up for this morning. This morning I had my own atmosphere inside the store. Every bit of wall in the store was saturated.

I moved like I was an Operation game piece, taking great care that no part of me or my team touched the wall as I packed up. One wrong move and the day was going to start wetter than yesterday in the rain.

Once I had successfully overcome this first challenge of the day, I headed down to the cabin with my oatmeal and chatted with other hikers who were preparing for what looked like a day of much nicer weather. There were some clouds, but it was a non-threatening cloud, we are not going to disrupt your day.

After breakfast I returned to my tent. I set to work removing as much water as I could. As I rolled it up and put it back in the bag, I was sure that my 600g shelter weighed at least 1.5kg. Looks like I’ll be carrying some water today even though it’s not in a drinking container.

I hit the trail and it was immediately clear who was to blame for my condensation covered tent. It was wet. Like super humid. Like instantly sweating as soon as you take your first step down a wet trail. Adding to the sweat fest was the boulder field I needed to overcome early in the day.

Off-trail shenanigans

The morning was reasonably challenging. Lots of steep ups and downs as the Richmonds maintained their control just as they had for the past eight days. The cloud continued to rob me of the views I imagine this part of the trail can offer.

I groped my way knowing that my great ten-day journey was on its penultimate day. After a couple of hours I reached the last descent before the first shelter of the day. I saw the cabin from a great distance because it was on top of a hill and my brain made the subconscious decision that my feet should be pointed directly at the structure.

The problem with this synapse snap was that the trail did not follow the same strategy to get to the cabin. Kunjungi cdse. In fact, you could say the trail was very clever because it avoided the ravine I found myself in that seemed to head straight into a swamp.

I only realized my mistake when my watch was kind enough to beep to let me know I was 40m off the trail. Coros must be seriously applauded for this feature. I would have continued along the river a little further if it hadn’t been for that diversion alert.

Of course, being the stubborn and foolish wanderer that I am, I decided that instead of walking the 40m uphill the way I had come, I would just sneak across the path following the contour line. And so began my twenty-minute struggle with the New Zealand ferns. A wonderful nonsense that kept me entertained and cursing the various branches that tried to stop my momentum back to the sweet, sweet path.

I finally got back on the trail with some reminders of my detour in the form of scrapes and small cuts. Thirty minutes later I arrived at Porters Hut and happily collapsed on the wooden bench outside.

Over the years I’ve gotten smarter about what I do when I get somewhere for lunch. One of my big improvements is taking my wet tent out to dry. It amazes me how much time it has taken to do this simple action that makes a huge difference in the quality of life when you arrive at camp for the night.

So with the tent drying under the ever-emerging sun, I searched through my dwindling food supplies. To my surprise, my supply of peanut butter held up perfectly. Turns out my eyes are pretty good at measuring 50g of PB a day.

Lunch ended up lasting a couple of hours. The duration was determined by a few things. A combination of a reasonably tough morning, a constant arrival of hikers to chat with and no real sense of urgency as there was plenty of sunlight left in the day to get to the next hut, the last of the Richmonds. The results of my long lunch were renewed legs and a completely dry tent.

Endless Richmonds

The afternoon started off very calmly with a reasonably flat trail. This would prove to be a red herring as to how the rest of the day would unfold.

The views were again good and adequate. Huge river valleys began to appear as the abundant water had carved the tail of the mountain range. Of course, this wonderful geographic feature made the rest of the afternoon very, very tough.

The trail wound in and out of the river valley, with some extraordinarily steep descents and climbs.

Mid-afternoon, after a particularly long and steep climb, I saw a bathtub. Ok, not a real bathtub. More like a perfectly shaped little pool that I had decided would work as a bathtub. You see, I haven’t showered in the South Island. And I’ve been on the island for twelve days.

So, after making my dinner and having a drink, I stripped naked and jumped into the surprisingly not-too-cold water. I think it was because it was a shallow pool and the sun had warmed it perfectly.

I lay in the bathtub for a while and reflected on how wonderful the Richmond Ranges area had been. Once I decided that the water had done all it could to clean me, I put on my stinky clothes and continued down the trail.

The magnificent views continued as the afternoon progressed. It has to be said that I felt much better after my dunk. The trail then started to get quite muddy, which brought back memories of the Tararuas. It’s been such a dry trail since the Queen Charlotte Track that my mind was really shocked to see the sticky stuff under my feet again.

The last views of the day were south to Nelson Lakes National Park. Considered by many to be the crown jewel of all of Te Araroa, it would be my final section of this hike and I was excited to see the big mountains in front of me as I walked towards the next hut.

I arrived at the cabin around 5 pm. It had been a long, hard day and I was happy to have arrived. The presence of weekend Kiwi hikers confirmed that I had indeed crossed the Range and was very close to a road once again.

After a lot of chatting with the local walkers and European hikers I had shared the Richmond Ranges adventure with, I headed to my tent to rest up for the last day before St Arnaud.

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