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19.8km - 9.5 hours
People ask me why i hike, and it's simply scenes like this...
To get to this point it took us 8 hours of nothing but uphill climb to 1500m from 200m. An incredibly tough up hill slog! Compounding with me only getting maybe 5 hours sleep, bad period pain and feeling pretty flat. But what am I going to do, I just to keep on going and I'm so unbelievably glad I did because the feeling of absolute exhaustion combined with delirious euphoria when reaching the peaks, is the greatest feeling.
I've reached Slaty Hut after 10 hours and 19.5km.
Knowing I pushed myself non stop for 10 hours, with nothing left in my tank, makes me realize in a sense just how capable I am and how very much determined I am. I will not let a mountain defeat me!
Another very hot day and water is getting scarcer so at every stream we crossed today I downed my drink bottle and refilled in the cold fresh water. I've done away with purifying the stream water now but keep doing so with the rain water tanks at the huts. You never know what ends up stuck in them or how long the waters been there.
We sad goodbye today to Ben & Lina who were heading out at Hacket hut to resupply in Nelson. It's been an absolute blessing having hiked and camped with them since the start. Having done the North Island they were a wealth of knowledge and had great tips, on particular: peanut M&Ms!
The first kilometer today was following the river down stream and due to some flooding and bad storms in September there was a lot of washouts. The sign said take the high route in bad weather but i thought it didn't look so bad, and i lookar the the landslide and rock fall and thought I'd give it a go so I went low and navigated that. Crikeys! Should have gone high. It was rather dicey in places crossing the landslide cliffs metres up from river, then having to scale a landslide vertical to get back up to the path and hope more of the hill doesn't come down while doing it.
We had numerous river crossings following the orange triangle markers back and forth across the hacket stream in the morning, passing beautiful blue-green pools that looked so nice to swim in but there was work to do, mountains to climb. The Hacket was the most gorgeous of rivers completely sheltered with beech trees. Then we started the uphill climb and didn't stop. It was at this point the sign had strong warnings for only experienced trampers, and not to go in adverse weather. Thankfully it was sunny and on we went.
I'll skip the details of the hour upon hour uphill climb and summarize it as a stair master on steroids that seemed to never end. I was overtaken by two guys with very light day packs who whilst struggling up the mountain themselves, we got chatting and I thought they were joking when they said that a helicopter was picking them up from Starvael Hut but it was in fact true. Their family were doing a day climb and paid a chopper to pick them up so they didn't have to walk down.
Finally at Starveall Hut we stopped for lunch and crossed paths with a guy Josh and his dog Kea. They had been up in the ranges the last few days. Kea carrier her own pack! It was so cute!
From here on we continued the rock scramble up to the Ridgeline and while struggling up in gale force winds, in comes the helicopter and Bruno, Costa, Coco, Talulah were off to go have their cocktails by the pool before we'd even reached tonight's destination - Slaty Hut.
Up in the alpine mountain tops all I could do was smile so big and think how other girls need to just get out and go do something. Go hiking! Go see places! Or even just get out in your neighborhood. (Mountains are definitely the place to be though!) Views make you forget all the hard parts and just makes you stand totally in your element and in awe. I had spent 4 days hiking to get here! Conny took a photo of me (below) in front of the mountains we are to climb in the coming days and apart from it being terrible, my expression immediately reminded me of a photo of me as a toddler in a bath tub with the same scrunched up smiling face. And then it hit me, i am the same level of happy and in my element as i was as a kid happy in a warm bath.
It was a huge day and as Conny and I came over the final climb and down into the grassy bowl Slaty Hut is perched in, the guys clapped and cheered us into camp. There is something about being clapped in by guys that justifies everything you felt that day. Almost like a sign of respect because they acknowledge that it was one hell of a tough day and us girls had made it.
We have a full hut tonight. It's so great who you end up meeting in the mountains. We have Andrew, a Canadian man walking parts of the TA, Laurence an English/Kiwi arborist just doing an overnight hike, Mathew a young pharmacist from Richmond, who's just quit his job and is now hiking the Richmond Ranges, Steve from Christchurch who goes by the name of 'stoner Steve' in the hut intentions books and then Conny, Laura and I.
We had so many laughs in the hut recounting stories of other TA hikers we've met on trail or funny instances that's happened to us. It's great because it's such a sense of community on the TA. Most people have met most others at some point and you also see peoples names in the hut books as a check in, so you know where people are or have been and it's almost like a sense of pride when you see someone you knows been through the day before.
All I'm going to say about tonight's toilet efforts is - ladies ask me in person if you want to know. I'm equal parts horrified and amused. I'm on toilet paper rations and I've literally used all my wipes cleaning a drop toilet. {Insert disgusted face emoji}
I'm sitting up on the hill overlooking our hut to write this and Stoner Steve has come up to sit not far from me and I'm now instantly reminded of Morocco as the smell of a joint wafts across. Not that i smoked in Morocco, moreso when mum came to visit we hiked up to a hash farm and she made us all smoke the pipe in front of a horrified Abdul & Mohammed. 'Your mum?!' they questioned through tears of laughter. Yes my mum. I'm pretty sure it was so if she went down, all her children would end up in a Moroccan jail too.
It's still light out at 9pm but it's time for bed. I'm using my buff as an eye patch to provide the darkness.
Ren x
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