Start – Te Matawai Hut
Finish – Nichols Hut
Daily Distance – 12 km
TA Distance – 1600 km
After yesterday’s reasonably large amount of ascent and late finish my legs have been feeling unusually
tired today. It also hasn’t helped that I am carrying a lot of food in case of being forced to wait out bad
weather. There are parts of this section that reach almost 1500m and feature relatively exposed ridge
walks, so aren’t safe to be tackled in high wind. Fortunately, the weather has been generally fine today.
Low clouds billowing across the sky and rain showers have obscured the views, but posed no major issue.
There have however, been several other issues today. The first was a mild piece of mental torture
delivered via track signage. Shortly after leaving the hut this morning I came to a sign indicating that it
would take 6 hours to reach my destination hut. Excellent, I think, if I don’t hang around too much I
should be there by lunch. With a newfound spring in my step I proceeded to slowly tramp up the latest
large climb towards Pukematawai. Arriving at the summit some 90 minutes later I was somewhat
dismayed to find a new sign proclaiming that my destination hut was now 6-7 hours away! If ever a sign
could be said to have a malevolent look then this one was cocking-a-snook while twiddling a nefarious
moustache. Sensing that I had met my match in this villainous placard I trudged on towards my lunch
spot at the excellently named Dracophyllum hut.
Dracophyllum is a tiny 2 bed hut, which was a perfect size for me to get out of the rain and ventilate my
steaming feet. Unfortunately that isn’t a figure of speech. Throughout my entire lunch, and this was a
lunch that featured 2 coffees, my socks were emmitting lasy coils of steam that were both beautiful and
impressively aromatic. My lengthy lunch was a boon for more than my caffeine levels. Sven, Sebylle and
Andy, who had been in the hut last night, arrived. In particular Sven arrived carrying my main clothes
bag, which I had somehow contrived to leave at the hut! I am very glad he caught up as I could have been
looking at a very long return journey to retrieve it. This should have been a warning that I was not on top
form today. Unfortunately, an hour later I was making time for the first epic trail meltdown of the trip so
far. Having missed my turn on the track, I made a rookie navigational mistake, made more frustrating
because I know better. Rather than backtrack to the previous marker, which was several hundred metres
and a steep slope upwards, I saw a track down the valley I needed to take and cut down the slope to it.
Unfortunately, despite starting out as a reasonable track, it petered out farther down the valley. It was
only at this point and after closely scrutinising the map I realised that I had dropped into a valley running
broadly parallel to the one I was supposed to be in. Queue idiotic decision #2. Rather than backtrack to
the head of the valley and then backtrack to the previous marker post, I decided to save time and
bushwhack the hundred or so metres back to the trail. Long story short, after 20 minutes, innumerable
scratches and several howls of frustrated rage I plopped exhausted and greatly relieved back onto the trail.
It seems that most people got lost at that same point, but it’s a timely reminder that even when you know
how to navigate it’s all too easy to make stupid assumptions.
Eventually everyone filtered in and it’s a busy hut for New Year. Sadly nobody had any booze, but I did
greatly enjoy a donated cup of vegetable stock to ring in a slightly salty new year. There was a brief
discussion about staying up to welcome the new year, but as hiker’s midnight is well known to be 9
o’clock, this was judged good enough. Not a typical new year, but a fine group of people to spend it with.
