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17.5km, 10.5 hours.
I wish I was talking about being hungry when i say today was like the Hunger Games but I'm not. Today was like a scene from the Hunger Games, with killer cliffs, killer schist and let's throw in killer wasps too.
In each hut there is an intentions book whereby everyone passing through writes their name the date, the weather, trip intentions and comments. Before leaving mid wairou hut we read the comments in the book and on the app FarOut which we're using as navigation. 'watch out for wasp's' was a repeated comment. Some even saying beware of wasp nests in tree on path or the black tree by the river. But where?!?
As per usual the days normally start with a climb and today was no different except this was up into a steep gorge where you were traversing the narrowest path on the side of a gorge. There was no room for error. We were rock climbing in parts, pulling yourself up and over rock ledges with a good drop into the blue-green water gorge below.
Add to that soil wash outs in the holes in tree roots so you never knew when your foot may fall through.
We traversed this gorge for a couple of hours, added in were 8 river crossings, knee high deep. There is absolutely no way you'd have been able to do today in anything but good weather. Again we were so lucky.
So while we were navigating all this, we were also navigating wasps upon wasps. One by one everyone but somehow not Laura and I were being taken out by wasps. Poor Conny climbed over a log on the track and put her leg on a nest and copped quite a few stings. No one was escaping.
We get to another river crossing and instead of wading through the water i see a fallen tree that went right across the river so I was like 'ill walk that'. Casually striding along it. Would you believe that was the log that everyone was referring to and yet somehow I made it across without a single sting.
After four hours of every bit of ducking, diving, jumping, lunging, climbing activity you can possibly do we made it up and out of the bush line to Top Wairao Hut. Knowing this was the last water source we filled out bottles up then embarked on rock scrambling up yet another steep cliff to get to our hut for lunch.
Then the scenery changed completely! It was like we had teleported to some foreign land. A volcanic land but reminiscent of parts of Australia. It was hot, dry and a lot of dirt and rocks. Back to rock hopping on rocks that move when you step on them adding another level of complexity to the walk. Your poles also getting stuck in the gaps.
As we started to get quite high up in the clearing. I sat down for a moment. Partly exhausted from the heat but partly because it was such a moment for me, on where I was. It might have been because I was listening to music and the Lana Del Ray song Ride came on and it just seemed to fitting. 'i hear the birds on the summer wind, I'm alone at midnight'. Everything about that moment just made me smile. I looked up ahead and i still had a mountain to climbed but when i looked back the other way i could look over all the mountains I'd previously crossed.
Realising i couldn't actually sit there forever, i had to keep going because i still had 5 hours of hiking ahead of me. Little did i know it would be 5 hours of brutal downhill scree that was to nearly break me. Nearly.
It was horrible. I was being fried in the sun, lathered in sunscreen, the sweat then dripping sunscreen into my eyes stinging. I could see the hut in the distance but i knew it was still 5 kilometers away. You couldn't go fast down this slope or you'd just slide and fall. If it wasn't for the fact that their was quartz scattered everywhere and all sorts of other cool rocks peaking my interest, I'd have been more frustrated.
Finally we reached the river and thought wed have an easy stroll the last 2 km to the hut. Incorrect. When has this walk ever been easy. There were wash outs to jump down and climb out of, more scree slopes to traverse and finally another river crossing. I was so spent, only to get to where the hut was and find we still had another 20minute steep climb to the hut.
Eventually made it to Hunters Hut with the hope that we'd survived everything a day could throw at us.
We weren't there an hour when poor Conny knocked her cooker and pot of boiling hot water onto her lap, giving herself a very nasty burn on her thigh and backside.
Trying to calm her down, not have her go into shock and look after the burn, we quickly got her under the tap of the rain tank. Using a steel hunters bucket filled with cold water we made her sit in. While continually pouring cold water on her thigh. We did this for a few hours in the hope it wasn't going to blister. With the sun setting we had to make a decision whether we needed to set off her plb to get helicoptered out for medical attention or not. In the end we decided to give it the night and see. So between our first aid kits and food we managed manuka honey and paw paw ointment on the burns with guaze and then strapping tape to hold that on. Burn cream is definitely going in my first aid kit now.
It was nearly 9pm and then we hear a noise and look out and Brent who we had met on day 2 of the queen queen Charlotte track strolled into the hut! So with a now added crew to our trail fam we had a catch up then hit the mattresses. This time we were in rows of 4 all sleeping in very close quarters with one another. The lines blur where mattresses end.
While we had everything trying to take us out today, we all thankfully survived to live another day in the Richmond Ranges.
Ren x
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