I'd slept well, eventually--no doubt better than poor Taylor who'd had to prop himself up on his pack all night to keep his sinuses clear so that he could breathe. But there he was up and about and packing up at 6:30 when I hadn't yet risen from my bunk. When I did I wished I hadn't. Yeah, I'm not a morning person, even on good days and, unnecessary biological details aside, today was not starting out as good day.
I finally managed to get up, get myself sorted and was making breakfast as Taylor set the final straps on his pack. His plan is to mission through to the second hut on from here, Hauhungaroa, so that he might make it out to Taumaranui in two days. It's no fun being sick in the bush and his food is rapidly running out (or maybe he sensed a bad dose of PMS in his hiking companion and had the good sense to flee...?!). I plan only to go as far as Waihaha Hut and consequently have a much shorter day ahead of me (although the walk time is supposed to be 7hrs and consequently I don't think I'd have a hope of getting to Hauhungaroa in a day even if I wanted to).
I wished Taylor good walk and to get well soon and he set off; we might catch up again down the trail. After he left it was strangely quiet. It was a damp, overcast morning but not raining, one of those ones the birds seem to be waiting out to see if it's worth getting active for the day or not. Feeling like some isolated semi-living thing I stumbled groggily around, slowly getting organised, and talking to myself a good deal. I do that on groggy mornings, or any time when I'm by myself really (and some times, rather embarrassingly, when I'm not by myself...).
A good hour or so after Taylor had left I shut up the hut, shouldered my pack and set off back up the track to the turnoff. Thid time going straight ahead I headed off through the forest in the direction of Waihaha Hut.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from the track today but it turned out to be a mostly easy, and extremely nice walk. The first several kilometres take you through sub-alpine cloud forest; the trees are not very tall and every square inch of them is covered in thick green moss. Everything is green, one of a hundred different shades of green!
I stopped for a morning tea break when I came across a large empty green container that was just big enough to sit on. As I munched on a museli bar I looked up at the great, thickly moss-clad radiating boughs of the totara(?) trees above my head. They look quite surreal, so much so that I wouldn't have been surprised if little translucent forest spirits had started appearing along the branches and peering down at me inquisitively, like something out of a Hiyao Miyazaki film.
Moving on the track climbs easily to the summit of Mt Weraroa where a makeshift helipad and low scrub may have afforded a good view had the summit not been completely enveloped in thick, damp cloud. Going down the back of Weraroa the track is steeper. As you descend the forest becomes less mossy, more open and the trees get taller. Passing by a bog I was startled by the sudden sound of frogs, there surprisingly deep voices quite jarring in the otherwise cloudy silence. In my stupidity I thought "oh, let's get a photo of the bog" and within two steps off the trail had sunk into up to my knee...and sinking. Happily my other foot was still on solid ground and with my hiker poles I was able to haul myself out and back onto the track. The mud I brought up on my trouser leg didn't smell real good.
Beyond the big the trail crosses a few small streams (where I washed said trouser leg) and then has an easy climb up to a ridge walk. Guessing I must be nearing the 1000km mark I flicked on the GPS and used the 'find marker' function to tell me when I reached it. There was an orange trail marker not more than 10m away so I got out my permanent marker and wrote "2015 1000km 1/3 of the way to Bluff!" on it before taking a selfie. It occured to me my graffiti might be forgiven as others might like to celebrate the milestone (but only occured to me later that I should have put "TA" on there too, after all, not everyone walking this track is doing TA!).
I sat on a log nearby for a museli bar break and was treated to a family of kaka playing in the trees above my head. I must gave sat and watched them for a good half an hour, trying in vain to get one recognisable photograph of any one of the birds, before giving it up as a lost cause with such a small camera and deciding instead just to sit and enjoy the company. Parrots are entertaining to watch and kaka are no exception. They're also fun to listen to, with their mix of parrot-like squawks and short but musical catch-phrases (I use the term because the same short musical set of notes seems to get repeated a lot, but never quite constitutes a song).
Eventually the kaka flew on to neighbouring trees and I too set off again, grinning from ear to ear and feeling very lucky to have been able to see so many of the birds and watch them for so long (at least five altogether at that time).
It's a steep climb down from the ridge walk, before a small river crossing (that warranted boots off and sandals on to wade across), and then a steep climb back up onto the next ridge, past some truely enormous rimu trees along the way. It was a very slow kilometre or so, with two or three 'tree root ladders' to scale, both up and down. From the ridge it's a slow descent down to the Waihaha River and the hut which bears its name.
The Waihaha Hut is a much more modern building than Bog Inn, and also much larger, housing ten bunks, a large table, fireplace and a sink and bench top. It's nestled in a large clearing surrounded by forest that seems to exist in two levels: a lower mixed canopy pierced by the trunks of rimu trees towering high above with their characteristically shaggy tendril-leaved branches. Kaka could be heard throughout the valley and fairly often one or two would pass overhead, heralded by their loud squawk before coming into view, their laborious flap making flying look like rather hard work.
It was still mid-afternoon and no one else was around so I made a b-line for the river, keen to wash away sweat, mud and a general feeling of ickiness I had despite the surprisingly pleasant day's walk. My 'wash' was little more than a quick splash and a shriek at the water was icy cold.
Dry and in relatively clean clothes I went back to the hut and set about making a cup of tea and dinner at the outdoor table, listening to the kaka, and bellbirds! I first saw one yesterday. We have loads at home so in themselves they're not new to me but are remarkable in that this forest is the first place I've seen or heard bellbirds all trip. Everywhere else has been completely dominated by tui. I have seen one or two tui here, but definitely many more bellbirds. As I watched two of the birds in question erupted from the trees on one side of the clearing, shot across and into the trees on the other side, bellbird in the lead with a tui in hot pursuit. I wondered who had been the bully to instigate such a chase. I suspected the tui; I've seen them chasing or being chased by several different types of birds over the course of my journey. While they sing beautifully (for the most part, with a notable exception being the broken record tui at the Repeater Campsite!), they do appear to be trouble makers (gosh, are tui divas?).
I sat and munched my pasta, thoroughly enjoying the birds, but feeling a little lonely. I realised it's been almost a week since I've actually been alone for a night. Funny how you get used to having people around, and how weird it feels when there's suddenly no other human beings to talk to. There was always the chance someone else would show up at the hut of course, but as the time passed I got rapidly used to the isolation and quietly hoped no one would come by and that I'd have this lovely little patch of forest to myself for the night.
As it turned out I did. As the light faded I moved indoors, got a small fire going for a few minutes just to take the chill off the room (the wood was a little bit drier than at Bog Inn but not much), and sat and updated my diary by candle light. By 9pm I figured I was alone for the night and hung up my gear around the bunks to air/dry before going to bed, feeling happy and content in my own private, though significantly over-sized cabin in the woods.
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