Before I start. I would like to give a shout out to two beautiful, and intelligent young German doctors who laughed a lot along the way, to a young male English doctor who practices medicine in Wellington and who fully understands how fortunate he is to live in a place such as this, a young adventurous fellow from Singapore who I met several weeks ago, who hikes in those rubber toe shoes that look like gloves for feet and who laughs at everything, an Irish woman who has spent years comming to this wonderful place and who occasionally talks to birds, a very cool young German student traveling alone and Rambo, the strange but likeable French speaking fellow from Switzerland who showed up at night during a storm, dressed in army wear, cleaning his massive hunting knife by the light of his head lamp.
The Heaphy Track, located in Kahurangi National Park, sits at the North-West corner of the South Island. The entire track covers almost 80 kilometers of varied landscape from forest walks filled with Nikau palm trees, to vast tussock downs filled with copper colored grasses, laced with massive boulders that seem to have been artfully placed along the endless landscape. At times you follow the track through expansive valleys, towards distant fog covered mountains, through green forest trails with enormous trees that dwarf anything that I have ever seen. Towards the end of the track, you continue along moss covered pathways that eventually bring you down to the copper waters of the Heaphy river and out to the pounding sea with waves crashing against a coastline dotted with monolithic stone formations and the bleached skeletal remains of thousands of trees that have washed up on the beach. During this long and beautiful walk, you transverse many rivers and streams, that were swollen, and at times raging, due to the day and a half of rain that happened over the four days spent on this spectacular journey.
Having given the reader a brief understanding of the topography and beauty of the Heaphy track I will now get down to why this may have been one of my favorite walks so far. Their were two main factors that made this track one of the most interesting walks to date. The weather and the other crazy adventurers I met along the way.
As with all of the great walks, you always check the weather reports before you venture way out in to wilderness. I, along with the other trampers did just that. We all heard the same thing, sunny with possibly one day of some light rain. Seemed safe enough we all thought. When I arrived at the Perry Saddle hut 17.5 Km from the start of the track a hut warden informed us that there had been a slight change in the forecast. He then went on to inform us that an unexpected storm system was heading over Kahurangi park and that they were expecting gale force winds and rain for the next day and a half. At that point the few of us that had ventured in to the park were already to far in and already committed to completing this journey. I had just walked 17.5 Km's up to the Perry Saddle hut and it seemed possible that I could get another 7 Km's done before the storm got really bad. So off I went, with the two German doctors close behind and the Irish woman somewhere behind them, as I headed through the open landscape to the Gouland downs hut.
By the time we all got there the wind was becomming quite fierce and the rain even harder. As I settled in, set up my sleeping bag and prepared to weather the storm, I heard a shrill, shreaking sound as if a bird had been run over by a mack truck. I looked at one of the German girls and finally realized that the Irish lady was outside of the hut and apparently engaged in some bird calling ritual as she tried to summon a Weka (A native bird that looks like a cross between a black bird and a hen). Once inside I enjoyed the familiar taste of noodles, tomato paste and chemically treated water as our Irish companion sang along to the song stylings of Jon Bon Jovi. Could the night become any more interesting? Why yes it could. As darkness enveloped the cabin and the weather intensified, the door opened and a very large French speaking man entered the room dressed in some type of camouflage outfit. I watched silently from my wooden bunk as he sat in the light of his head lamp cleaning a large hunting knife, before he clambered towards me took off his boots and climbed in to the bunk above me. Pleasant dreams Greg....pleasant dreams. He would later be called "Rambo," by the various park wardens as he was apparently moving through the park in rapid speed without paying any of the DOC hut fees.
The next morning it was still raining, and I set off for the James Mackay hut approximately 18 Km's away. The guide book for the park states "when the mist lowers, the featureless downs can be confusing and it is easy to become disoriented." I kept this in mind the whole way, as I navigated my way over some streams that were now roaring rivers due to the amount of rain we had received. After finally reaching the hut many hours later, a young doctor from London entered the hut. He had walked over 40 Km's in one day through this storm system and was obviously quite exhausted and sore from his journey. Also at this hut, the young fellow from Singapore, the young German student, the English doctor and myself. The two German doctors were also here but decided to camp outside as the weather was finally starting to ease. This turned out to be a great group of people and I would hike anywhere with any one of them. Anyone who hikes in toe shoes or who brings along a bag of wine and a fishing pole is cool in my book.
The rest of the journey was varied, beautiful and rugged, as we finally crossed the Heaphy river and made it once again to the coast. It is an amazing thing to be walking in a thick moss covered jungle and to hear the pounding surf through the trees. The coast line was strewn with massive rock formations, boulders and sun bleached drift wood and the ever present and relentless sand flies.
On one of the last moments of the track, I sat with my friend from Singapore, another avid photographer who would laugh at me as he turned a corner to find me covered in sand flies taking another photo. We both noted how the photographs can never fully convey the beauty of what your eyes were really seeing. It was sometimes frustrating to think that there is no photographic image that could truly define what the eye really sees and how the other senses soak in the beauty of such a primal and surreal landscape.
Once we made it to the end of the track we took a shuttle to Karamea and the young doctor from Wellington gave the two German girls and myself a ride to Westport. Last I heard the Irish lady had moved on and had spent the night in one of the open shelters. I hope the flies sleep at night. Rambo was never seen again.
No comments:
Post a Comment