Start – Nichols Hut
Finish – Waitewaewae Hut
Daily Distance – 8 km
TA Distance – 1608 km
A most excellent New Year’s in the Tararuas! Today saw me reach the summit of Mount Crawford at
1462m and, having had to skip the Tongariro crossing, the highest point that I will reach on the North
island. The TA route has so far included almost no alpine terrain, which has been a major disappointment,
so today was a rare treat.
Ascending back to the track after departing Nichols hut and climbing the few hundred metres to the
Crawford summit was a slow business. This was partly because of numerous stops to take in the views
and partly because someone seems to have replaced my knees with bags of soggy noodles during the
night. Oriental body parts not withstanding, after a few hours of wondering how I can still be so unfit
after 1600km, I was able to stand exaltedly upon the summit and gaze out upon the surrounding ridges
and lesser peaks. I then exalted in a cheese wrap and checked my email. After all, the world doesn’t stop
just because I’m off bumbling about on mountains. Fortunately the world avoided Trumpian catastrophe
owing to confusion about which big red button launches the White House fireworks, so after a spot more
exalting it was back on with the rucksack. Employing the classic Newtonian routing philosophy of, “what
goes up must come down”, the day’s next challenge was a 1100m descent to Waitewaewae hut. To my
considerable relief this wasn’t actually as steep and tricky as I had heard and I made good time to reach
the hut by midday. By this point my knees were displaying the heroic strength of 100 sleepy kittens mind,
so it wasn’t entirely without cost.
I had originally intended Waitewaewae hut to be a lunch stop before pushing on for another 4-5 hours to
the next hut. However, I decided to revise that plan as it is the loveliest hut that I have yet encountered.
Boasting a large deck area and views down onto the clear waters of the Otaki river it was a delightful spot
to spend an afternoon eating, swimming and catching up on my writing. Joining me in idling away the
afternoon were Tom, an IT consultant on a festive hunting trip and Guillaume, a French ex-pat (and Lord
of the Rings era Elijah Wood lookalike), who is spending a few days tramping for New Year. Finding
myself in beautiful surroundings and good company I was most content, truly nothing could darken my
day. And then He arrived. I never felt compelled to ask his name, so for the sake of narrative convenience
I’ll just call him the Tosser of the Tararuas (TotT). Perhaps mid-50s with greying hair and beard, barely
had his pack hit the floor before he embarked on a lengthy Shakespearean-esque monologue as to the
many ways in which pine forests are evil. Apart from being non-native, they are apparently terrible for
soil quality after being cut down and presumably also wear black capes and tie innocent young maidens
to railway lines. I’ll confess that I was too preoccupied imagining the many ways I could insert a pinecone
into him to really pay much attention. Notable among the many, many other things to make TotT’s
naughty list were Kiwis, Australians, the free press, ultra-light backpackers and most egregious of all,
milk powder. Eventually the paralysis that Tom and Guillaume had been suffering from passed and they
furtively shuffled off to do suddenly pressing chores. Having exhausted my creativity with regards
pinecones, I decided 3:30 is a perfectly acceptable time to start cooking dinner and scarpered too.
Fortunately after several more hours 3 other hiker’s wandered in so the TotT’s attentions could be diluted
to the point where having an axe for the firewood was no longer a dangerous situation. Having finally
exhausted all of the things it is possible to take umbrage with, or perhaps having just consumed all of the
words left to speak in the world, he went to sulk in bed and the last few hours before bed have been a
blessedly peaceful affair.
