A Dangerous Business

Dates: 27th-28th February 2024

Start: Birchwood Station (km 2877.7)

End: Merriview Hut (km 2904.9)

Distance Travelled: 25.9 km walked + 5.1 km hitch (31 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 2755.2 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Colours by Voyager

How Much I’m Dreading Longwood Forest: aaaaaagh!

I was in for a rude awakening at the beginning of today, that being the first day listed in this post. Today was supposed to be a rest day for us all thanks to some rain that was supposed to be coming through. Well, it didn’t come through, so in the eyes of everyone except me that was licence enough to keep walking. But not me. I was fine, but mentally I was prepared to rest today and really didn’t want to do any walking, not to mention that I still had to pack my food resupply. My decision was final, I would still have a rest day here. I’d leave my trail family. We were still aiming to finish together on the 3rd of March but a big part of me doubted they’d stick to that schedule based on some of the decisions they’d made in recent days. I fully expected to get a text from Matt saying they would just push onto Bluff for the 2nd.

I tried my best to not let those thoughts get to me, now alone at Birchwood Station. For the rest of the day I sat around and rested, writing this blog and scrolling through various apps to pass the time before the first hiker arrived from Mt Linton from around 3pm. The afternoon was much quieter than the last one which in a way goes to show the different kinds of people that get attracted to this trail. Some like to party and socialise with others, some just want to stick with their partner or by themselves.

That night I couldn’t sleep, stressing over whether my fam would wait for me or not. Eventually I got a few hours before waking up, this time to hit the trail. I was barreling towards the final major hurdle of the TA, the Longwood Forest, infamous for its mud. Still not the biggest fan of mud, but we’re this close to the end, I’m sure I can endure two days of it.

For now, I had to reach the start of the forest by first passing through Birchwood Station on a mixture of farm track, logging road, and hiking trail. The first bit of this involved a classic stupid steep climb up a fenceline where we weren’t even given the courtesy of some small switchbacks. Nope, straight line up the hill.

The low cloud prevented me from seeing much of the surrounding land, so my climb went unrewarded. Unless of course you count seeing some big red mushrooms as a reward.

Thankfully a nice flat road greeted me up the top for some quick and easy kilometres until it ended at a muddy natural tunnel. Think of it as a faster for what’s to come tomorrow.

It was the slippery kind of mud and at this stage of the journey I didn’t fancy falling over in it, so I was very much taking my time and avoiding the worst bits of it. The trail on the other side was quite nice – surprising for a farm track. Even better, the forest was teeming with birdlife. Pīwakawaka danced around the trees with their trademark sassy eyebrows (including a fully black one) with the odd tomtit also joining the party.

Native forest gave way to stinky pine trees at the bottom of the hill, the ground covered in more of those big red mushrooms. I guess I shouldn’t be too harsh on pine trees, they’re a far sight better than gorse which I then found myself in.

My destination for tonight was Merriview Hut, a private shelter built by a local farmer. After the forest, my route to the hut consisted solely of road walking. At least my route did. There is another small farm track that has been closed for a couple years due to a logging operation but apparently it’s not the easiest to follow and at this stage of the trail I just can’t be bothered with those kinds of tracks. The roads may be boring but I know I can cover them quickly.

A few kilometres from the hut I met Terri, a local who – if I understood her correctly – works in the agency responsible for registering PLBs. As such she’s quite familiar with the trail and offered to take me to the hut. I was happy to accept.

The hut is small, only 5 beds, but is very comfortable. There’s an undercover area with a sink and a picnic table for eating on.

There was a surprise waiting for me inside the hut. Till, who had passed through here yesterday with my guys, had left a beer for me. Mighty nice of him!

Because of the hitch I’d arrived at the hut by mid-afternoon. Guess that means I can have a other relaxing evening, potentially my last for a while with Longwood coming up. I tried my best not to worry too much about it. Later on, Same, Riley, and Laura rocked up, a relief for me as I then knew I could head into the forest tomorrow with people I knew. That was another thing I didn’t like about being left behind, because that doesn’t feel like a section that would be fun to do solo. With that avoided, I settled in for dinner and into bed. Only 4 days to go…