Te Araroa, Days 8 – 12: Birchwood Station to Te Anau

Hello again, good people – here’s your second post of the day, available exclusively via the Te Anau Public Library Internet Special! Before I regale you with tales from the trail, I wanted to thank everyone from home who’s commented on my previous posts – I have read and savored every single comment, and they’ve made me feel happy and connected and grateful to have such wonderful stalwart caring friends in my life. I know I’d promised to write back to each comment, but it turns out that was a little ambitious of me (not exactly out of character, I’ll admit) – it’s been an average of 3 days between opportunities for cell service thus far, and I’ve been trying to conserve phone battery power so I can continue to use the trail app for navigation. OK, that concludes the sheepish excuse segment of this post – thank you for understanding!

Now back to the trail. Rob and Ellyse decided to spend another day at Birchwood Station to sample further delights at the Takitimu Pub, but Harold and I were feeling good and resolved to press on to Telford Camp, 16.2 miles away and up into the foothills of the Takitimu Mountains. I wake up at 7:30 am, eat my cold leftover pizza for breakfast (heaven!) and dawdle happily until we finally push off at 10. The late start is gradually revealed to have been something of an error in judgement – the hike is long and it turns out that we are a little bit run down and tired after all. On the last ascent of the day I can see that Harold is waiting up for me, so I tell him to go on at his own pace and I’ll meet him up at the campsite. I smile as I see his twenty-something self bound away up the mountain and I feel a little upwelling of joy for him, truly off on his own for the first time in his life and having a grand adventure.

As I plod the last 5 miles of the day I entertain myself by imagining this as a grueling family vacation: “IS DAD GOING TO DIE???” I drag my pathetic carcass into camp at 9:30 pm (thanks, long summer days, for making that dusk instead of night!) and use the last of my energy reserves to set up my tent while a savage cloud of sand flies descends upon me. I hurl my stuff into the tent and dive in afterwards, still managing to trap about 30 flies in with me. A series of targeted killings ensues. I fall asleep observing that my tent’s outer ridge vent is constructed exactly like a malaise trap (non-entomologists, look it up!) – hundreds of flies obligingly make their way up there to spend the night.

The next day is a zero day at Telford Camp, as we decide to rest, tend our blisters, and wait for Rob and Ellyse to catch up with us. I can see by daylight that the camp is along the lovely Telford Burn, a fast creek that comes from up high in the Takitimu Mountains just north of here. Little steep path down to the creek, a paradise of ferns and dappled shade and rounded stones under quick water. I fill my water bags, dunk and scrub in the creek, and rinse the mud and sweat out of my clothes. Then I drag my sleeping pad under the shade of a southern beech and spend the day watching birds and loafing in high style. Rob and Ellyse arrive, as do a few other hikers – Andy from Australia, Debbie from Switzerland, and a group of four Kiwi women, silver-haired, laughing, and effortlessly tough, who have been section-hiking the Te Araroa together for the past 6 years. They’re all teachers and have known each other for decades – they expect to finish the trail next Easter. We all sit in a circle on the soft grass and chat over dinner.

The next morning our gang sets out from Telford Camp to Aparima Hut, a walk of 12.3 miles. The day off has been magically restorative and I start out strong, enjoying the first ascent of the day and pausing at the summit for a snack – soft tortilla filled with about half a jar’s worth of peanut butter. Amazing how quickly my appetite has increased in just a week and a half of hiking!

This was a fairly non-eventful day so I figured I’d digress from the trail narrative here and tell you a little bit about the hut system over here. The huts are constructed and maintained by NZ’s Department of Conservation, and they really vary in size and character. The smallest and oldest are like little sheds, while I’ve heard (but not yet seen) that some of the huts along the country’s most popular hiking routes are more modern, some even with running water! Thus far the huts we’ve stayed in are modest affairs. One-room buildings, simple bunks outfitted with vinyl-covered mattresses that would in other circumstances seem sort of on the dodgy side but after a day of hiking look like paradise on Earth. A table, a stainless steel counter, sometimes a fireplace or a wood stove, mismatched chairs or wooden benches to sit on, hooks to hang your food bag out of the reach of the little mousies. Most huts have a water cistern rigged up to collect rainwater from the roof, and a little ways off, a simple outhouse (known in NZ as a “long drop”). I can’t imagine the US government maintaining anything remotely like this system of self-service non-standardized little trail-dwellings. When you clomp into a hut at the end of a long day, you feel grateful and somehow immediately accountable – like you want to be worthy of the trust that’s being afforded you. It’s a good feeling.

From Aparima Hut we went on to Lower Princhester, then this morning down a gravel farm road and past a few suspicious steers that initially refused to let us walk past them to the gate beyond. I talked at them until they relented (overtalking = my not-so-secret weapon) and we carried on to the main road, where we caught a hitch into the town of Te Anau. Going to resupply here, spend the night, and carry on tomorrow!