A Dangerous Business

Date: 1st January 2024

Start: Waiopehu Hut (km 1560.9)

End: Nichols Hut (km 1578.5)

Distance Travelled: 17.6 km

Total Distance Completed: 1418.5 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: JOY by Kings Kaleidoscope

There Word Summary of the Day: hard but rewarding

An alarm going off before 5am is either a sign that I’m about to do something really cool or really annoying. Starting off today, I honestly couldn’t tell you which one it was. Because we only got as far as Waiopehu Hut yesterday, we’d have to do a marathon of a hike over to Nichols Hut today. Normally each day on the Tararuas should take between 8-10 hours if the trail notes are to be believed. Today could be in excess of 14. We had one thing going for us as we set about packing our bags with the sun beginning to show its face: the clouds had lifted.

Before us were the southern Manawatu plains, the town of Levin, and the Tasman Sea stretching over the horizon. If that was a taste of what’s to come, I reckon we’re in for a solid day.

At 6:15 we bid the hut farewell and began the short climb up to the Twin Peaks, the track being just as arduous as it had been all of yesterday. Steep and mud-soaked, it took a good while to climb the final 50 metres to the summit, but once we did, oh boy was it worth it.

Before us stretched Tararua Forest Park, tall forested mountains with telltale tussock covered peaks and valleys in between them. And we had to go up them. Just not yet, first things first we had the track to deal with. The time estimates for such short distances began to make sense. This trail was going to be incredibly hard.

The first challenge to get up the Twin Peaks was f9ne, now we had to descend into a valley. Steeply, obviously. It’d be far too much to ask for an easy, gentle descent. With that said, the forest was very pretty.

Although it felt slow we were making good time to Te Matawai Hut. The trail notes suggested 4 hours were needed to get there, but in the end we managed it 45 minutes faster than this. Still, that amount of time to do 5 kilometres is ridiculous any way you cut it, and this is what the entire route over the range was going to be like. I’d also like to add that although this was going to be my first planned stop, I’m kinda glad it wasn’t. Waiopehu is definitely a lot nicer.

A short climb was needed to get out of the valley and up to the hut which continued as we now pushed on further. The sun was out in full force much to everyone’s delight, giving some much needed warmth and helping to dry out the track. The latter could use some work, there was very little reprieve from the mud. With the trees ending just after the hut we could now see the mountain we’d be climbing looming over us, along with a less than helpful sign telling us how much further we had to go.

There were no gentle switchbacks in sight, it was a very Kiwi-esque track. Is there a mountain to go up? Ok, make the track as straight as possible, contours be damned. To make matters worse, clouds began mingling over the summit, seemingly for some conference that they didn’t want to leave. I had hoped that they would clear in time due to our slow pace, but alas they didn’t.

It was by no means a super windy day but a stiff breeze was still blowing, and considering we were now over 1300 m high, it didn’t take long for us to lose body heat. The solution is to keep moving, now heading along a ridge all the way to Nichols Hut. I’ve done ridge walks before, namely the Kepler Track on the South Island. It was lovely track with great views all around. We had those views too, with the southwest coast on one side and more of the Tararuas on the other. What this track lacks is, well, any sort of semblance of easiness. From the distance the ridge looked fairly even with small rises and falls, but when you got closer, it became apparent that reality is often disappointing.

Each little peak and knob had to be summited and descended, always involving a steep, muddy, occasionally overgrown track where achieving 2 km/h was a rarity.

By the time we stopped for a break, we had been on trail for a bit over 6 hours and had only covered 9 km. And this was in just about the best conditions you could get up here, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to try and do this track in poor weather.

Ahead of us – well technically below us – the trail dropped back into a forested section of moss-covered trees and bushes, still just as challenging to traverse as when we were above the treeline. I’m really not great when it comes to descents, I can never find the confidence to go as fast as some of the other hikers I’m with. Perhaps a bit selfishly, I had places myself in the middle of the pack so that I would at least always have someone behind me and have someone in front I could follow. In this case, Snacks and Vicky were ahead of me, Team Camera were behind. To my surprise I was able to keep up with the girls in front of me. They didn’t seem to be going slowly (relatively speaking of course), maybe I’ve developed a bit more confidence in the 2 months I’ve been on trail? Whatever the case, we made short work of the track to Dracophyllum Hut, which can be best described as small.

2 bunks, a small table, a water tank, and a door. By far the most basic hut I’ve come across on my travels. A small part of me wanted to stay here just for the novelty of staying in a tiny hut, but I knew the right call was to push on, not to mention that both bunks had already been taken.

Not before we had lunch, of course. A very late lunch as it was nearing on 4pm by this point. That’s ok, we only had 5 km to go to reach Nichols Hut, that’s only *checks trail notes* 4 hours? Oh boy, it’s gonna be one of those stints…

Leaving Dracophyllum, that time estimate started making a lot of sense, with some of the roughest ridge walking of the entire day. We could almost see the hut whilst sadly knowing it was still a few hours away.

Past this cairn was the final descent of the day, back into a mossy forest. Impatience and a desire to get to the hut began to set in. Melly rushed ahead as did I. Without anymore perilous bits of track to cover, I felt more confident going alone and I knew the three behind me were still together. One slightly annoying thing was that Far Out was having a tantrum and refused to find my location unless it had mobile reception which I wouldn’t get down in the forest. I therefore had to make guesses on how far I had left based on the elevation profile and what I could see what the track was doing around me.

Once I noticed the track was rising continually, I knew I had to be close. My head popped out of the trees and after a bit more climbing I arrived at what I assumed was the junction to the hut.

Funny thing is, that peak wasn’t the junction. I had to go down a bit further to reach it, at long last arriving at the front door of Nichols Hut at 7:15pm, exactly 13 hours after I had left Waiopehu Hut. Melly had already been there for half an hour and to my surprise she said apart from a couple already there, our group would be the only other hikers staying the night here. I was fully prepared to play a game of seeing how we could fit 14 hikers in a 6 bunk hut, but now there’s only be 7. Who were this couple, you might ask? None other than Ruth and Elliott, who I had last seen up in Kaitaia before I had even begun the trail.

Matt, Vicky, and Snacks arrived shortly after me. Exhaustion had properly set in by this point. This had easily been the hardest day of the trail so far. Not a great deal happened after we arrived. We ate dinner, brushed teeth, and got into bed. Tomorrow didn’t look like it was going to be much easier, although the weather looked like it would stay nice and fine. Here’s hoping our feet and knees recover in time.