Heaphy Track Day 1

December 11th, 2002 at 12:00am

It’s 8pm and I’m the only person in this 10-person hut. There’s a father/son from Adelaide outside in a tent, and the 3 of us are the only ones here. I’ve got a nice fire going in the old stone fireplace and the heat is a divine relief from the cold, wet weather outside.

24 km (15 miles) to get here today. It was a long day, mostly because I had to hitch-hike 120 km from Motueka to get to the trailhead before I even started hiking. As always the hitches were interesting. I packed up my gear early this morning and was on the road hitching out of town at about 8:30am. I only had time to unpeal my banana and take one bite before I got my first ride by some older guy in a pickup. He drove me a fair bit of the way, about 52 km, to Takaka, and we had a nice chat along the way. We were talking about maps for awhile actually and when he dropped me off he gave me a Kahurangi National Park topo map for free which was so cool because I didn’t have one!

From Takaka I stuck the thumb out again and this time was picked up by an elderly couple who were Jehovah’s Witnesses and on their way to talk to people about Jesus. I guess the trade off for getting a free lift was that I had to hear about why Jesus came to earth for about 25 minutes. They let me off in Collingwood.

From there the hitching became more difficult, because I had to get 33 km down a one-way road to the start of the track and there wasn’t much traffic heading that way at all. Lucky for me I got picked up by a sheep farmer and his wife who have a farm half-way out on that road. Got to hear about their 1100 acres of land and 9000 sheep! and more interesting than anything else, their 6 trained sheep-herding dogs. I was most fascinated to learn how to train a dog to herd sheep.

The farmers let me out at their turn-off where I was officially in the Middle of Nowhere and still a good 16 km from the trailhead, so I sucked it up and started walking. About 15 minutes later a lone car came by on the dirt and gravel road.

Thumb out, thinking please PLEASE!

They stopped! A couple heading out to the park for a day hike was kind enough to pick me up and take me to my destination.

I was finally at the trailhead at 11:30am and got my gear sorted and started hiking at 12 noon. It was a late start but better than I expected because I knew I’d have trouble hitching (everyone told me it was impossible), so I was considering myself lucky.

It was 16 km or 10 miles to the Perry Saddle Hut, the first hut on the track. It was a nice, gradual uphill through the forest to get there. Took me 4.5 hours. Passed one family and 3 women on the way so yes I was happy that there weren’t a lot of people on the track. Weather started out good this morning but clouded over by afternoon and it looked like rain was imminent when I arrived at the hut at 4:30pm. But there was no camping available at the hut and I’ve only bought a camping pass for this tramp so I pressed on another 8 km to get to Gouland Downs. It was worth it mainly because the rain held out AND there are only 2 other people here AND it’s got the fireplace (other hut didn’t) AND I’m sleeping inside because there is no warden here so I’ve got the hut to myself. And since I arrived it started to rain so I’m happy to be dry inside. The weather doesn’t look good for tomorrow either but we’ll see (this is normally a 5-day tramp but I’m planning to do it in 4). I’m feeling sleepy now so I’m going to retire to the sleeping bag….

My almost 30+ km road walk to the start of the tramp

So many ferns in the forest

Tired, but warm and dry

Entry Filed under: Heaphy,Hiking/Trekking,New Zealand