Days 34-39: Hiking the Heaphy Track

So obviously, I'm a little out of time, so I'm going to cheat and do a few photo dumps slightly out of order, and with no commentary except for this.

Molly, Sarah and I hiked the Heaphy Track in Kahurungi National Park.  It's a 50 mile long multi-day affair from the Golden Bay area (where we were) to the West Coast.  It's one of New Zealand's Great Walks, so we expected it to be good.  And it was.

However:  Unlike most of the Great Walks, the Heaphy Track is not a loop.  That means that when you get to one end, you have to find your way back to the other.  We knew this, but instead of doing what most people do (hire a car, hitch back, hire a helicopter or plane [pricy but good views], etc) we decided to hike out, buy a bit more food, and then hitch back.

So far, not too crazy.  But then again, the Heaphy is supposed to be hiked in 4-6 days, roughly 8-12 miles a day.  We want to hike it, both out and back, in 3.  So we have to average 16.6 miles a day.

Mildly crazy:  It's a 60 km drive to the trail head.  We don't have a car, and the last 25 km is badly maintained gravel.  We ask a few favors from some awesome people we had met at Kiwiana, and got a ride.  Getting out might be harder.  (Thanks Rob, for your car!  Thanks Sage and Maddy, for driving us!)

A little crazy:  Sand flies.  Misquitos are bad enough.  But sandflies somehow manage to be more annoying, and slightly itchier, and the last half of the trail is black with swarms of them.  You'll see a few photos of the outside of our tent (taken from the inside) to get an idea.  It sounded like rain.

Getting crazier.  We also don't want to use the very nicely accommodated huts along the way, because they cost $32 a person per night.  We'd rather just camp, at $14 a person per night.  Which doesn't sound bad, unless the weather turns.

Okay, sort of crazy.  The weather turned.  We had a great Sunday and Monday, but it started to rain on Tuesday.  Wednesday rained more, off and on.  And then Thursday got crazy.

Very crazy.  Like, pouring Houston downpour showers for 10 minutes, and then letting up, and then doing it again.  All day.  And then 40 mph winds blowing said rain along the mountain tops.  We finally decided to use the last hut, called Perry Saddle, on the last day.  A good decision. You can do this as a camper, if you're willing to pay the difference in rate, and the hut doesn't fill up.  There were 24 bunks at Perry Saddle.  We were, very fortunately, #20, #21, and #22.  Lucky us.

Double lucky us:  No ranger wanted to brave the storm to check our ticket, so we didn't have to pay the difference.

Triple lucky us:  Remember how we had to bum a ride in?  We were planning on hitching out, but remember how the trail head is quite a ways from any real road?  Yeah, we thought about that, too, for the last couple of days.  But lo and behold, the moment we ended the trail, we saw Vladimir from Slovakia, who out of the kindness of his heart had just dropped off a hitch hiker at the trail head, and who with a little sweet talking, gave us a ride back to the main road.  Vladimir, you are the best.  Once there, it was an easy hitch back to Takaka, and after a beer and some fish and chips, came back to our humble yurt, and slept.  Quite well.

So, I'll be posting pictures by the day, and completely out of order from normal posting until I catch up with them.  I'll spread it out, though, so you don't have "somewhat crappy photos of beautiful scenery" fatigue.

Here we are at the beginning!

 Here is the picture I took of the map board, although getting lost would have taken some serious work.

 And away we go!