A Dangerous Business

Date: 22nd January 2024

Start: Waiau Hut (km 2030.8)

End: Anne Hut (km 2056.8)

Distance Travelled: 26 km

Total Distance Completed: 1896.8 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Andy Serkis’ narration of the Battle of Helm’s Deep

Today’s Terrain: a very grassy pancake

I can now understand why some people listen to the sound of falling rain to help them sleep. Contained within the safety of Waiau Hut, I found the rain very peaceful and slept soundly. Not knowing the whereabouts of Melly, Matt, and Andrew (his dad) did play on my mind a little bit, but I know that Team Camera are strong, experienced hikers so I knew they’d make good decisions about how to stay safe.

The rain was still falling when I woke up so I delayed starting my day until 8:20. Oli, Callum, and Destroyer had all left before me, either due to force of habit or wanting to get over the many river crossings before they became too dangerous to cross once the rain upstream made its way down. The latter became more of a concern when the rain abated momentarily and we all heard a sudden roar come down the valley, which could only be a massive rush of water. This day might be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Once I did get going, the clear welcoming water of the river that I saw yesterday had taken on a different character.

Advice from DOC and the Mountain Safety Council recommend that one should not attempt a river crossing if 1: it’s fast flowing, and 2: the water is cloudy and you can’t see the bottom. Both criteria were met here. I caught up with Destroyer and a Brit named Bertie at the first one. They had learnt a better strategy to cross rivers than what is advertised by DOC, facing your body into the flow of the river and side-stepping across. It worked well for the first crossing, but just downstream Destroyer got in a river that was a bit too quick and deep for her. The three of us then walked downstream for half a kilometre to a better spot and combined side-stepping with the classic linking up strategy to get across. I won’t lie, it was still pretty sketchy and needed all of my focus to get across, but get across I did.

From there we did some small climbs – including one where we had to clamber across a barbed wire fence over a fallen tree – before descending back onto the valley floor for the rest of the day.

No more sketchy river crossings and thankfully no more rain. My jacket came off when the sun came out of the clouds, the three of us spreading out for a nice day of solo hiking. It’s time to rack in some kilometres, helped along by the power of The Two Towers.

Ignoring roads, I can’t remember when the last bit of long flat trail was. I guess it’d have to be around Waikato when I was walking along the levee. The difference here is this trail isn’t overgrown. There was some long grass, but that was it. Nice easy walking through a rather pretty valley.

Despite how dry the valley was, it’s surprisingly colourful. Yellow and orange grass in the valley with tall grey peaks surrounding me on all sides. I was having a great time, but in the back of my mind were the trio behind me. Surely they can only be a couple hours behind assuming they stopped at Waiau Hut for a while…

Putting those thoughts aside, I walked past Ada Homestead and their many horses grazing in paddocks down another valley.

I was approaching the St James Walkway, a well graded track from Boyle through to Lewis Pass via these valleys. For the time being I stayed on the 4WD track I’d been on since the end of the last hill. I was now turning to the west and had to climb over a couple of small hills which after several hours of flat hiking were surprisingly tough.

The last “challenge” of the day was another chicken wire swingbridge over the Henry River. I could see some dark clouds approaching me over the surrounding hills so I shifted into a faster gear for the final 2 km to Anne Hut. The rain never turned up but if it means I get to the hut a few minutes faster then it’s worth it.

Anne Hut is another new construction having being built in 2011. As you can hopefully see it’s quite a bit larger than Waiau Hut, having to service both the TA and St James Walkway. Inside were few occupants: Callum, Destroyer, Hopper (an experienced American through-hiker; this is his second time on the TA), Oli, and a couple NOBO’s. However, I got the feeling we’d be in for a John Tait experience where several waves of other hikers would arrive as the afternoon progressed.

It was exactly as I predicted. All of the hikers Oli and I passed yesterday came in two by two, several reporting flooded tents in last night’s storm. Through the evening as I ate dinner I kept my eyes peeled on the track waiting for Melly’s big blue backpack or Matt’s radiant red rainjacket. But neither showed up, and with the sun going down I assumed they’d camped somewhere short of the hut, although Oli proposed a theory that they’d returned to Blue Lake Hut yesterday when they saw the weather coming in. Getting slightly more concerned, I went to bed, listening to more Two Towers…

…for about two minutes, when a very tired looking Melly poked her head into the bunkroom with her signature “hello”. Warmly embracing her, I did the worst thing you could do to a tired hiker arriving at sunset: I asked her all of the questions. In summary, she’d stuck with Matt and Andrew over Waiau Pass, camping with them just after the first major crossing after the descent down. They’d just got their tents set up when the thunder and rain hit, the ground fully soaked the morning after. Then came the river crossings. From the sounds of things, they were far worse than anything I had to endure today. I was just glad that she’d made it here. Presumably the other two would camp behind us, but it was also good knowing they were also safe. With that I could go to sleep in peace.