The Climb

10 April

Waitewaewae Hut to Nichols Hut

KM 1579.5

Distance: 8.4km

Elevation: ascent 1270m, descent 378m

Steps: 17,800

Time: 7:30am - 12:50pm

A short day today to align ourselves for the next two days of walking. Also, the next hut on from here, a 4-hour walk, only sleeps two people. And we know that two people are going there tonight, so we've decided to stay in a larger hut.

While last night's sky was clear and had such beautiful stars, when we woke up this morning the skies had clouded over. This was not what we wanted, knowing that there is some less savoury weather coming up, and we hoped that the overcast skies were not a harbringer of an early arrival of the storm. The weather held nicely for us as we started The Climb. This was through some more of the beautiful forest, and as we climbed the trees became more and more covered with moss.

We also saw many types of ferns today, here is a small selection:

At a guess, top to bottom, left to right:

* Mauku / Filmy Fern (Hymenophyllum sp.)

*Piupiu / Crown Fern (Blechnum discolor)

* ???

* Raurenga / Kidney Fern (Trichomanes reniforme)

* ???

(We have a mini guide book to native ferns, but this is very much not our specialty. If anyone can and wants to identify these, please let us know!)

After a climb of nearly a kilometer and a half (vertically), we came out to the exposed tops, and here the wind really started to come up. Unfortunately, the wind was not yet blowing away the clouds, so we were missing the views that had been promised and gushed about by hikers coming the other way.

Shortly after we reached the summit, we started walking along knife-edge spurs and ridgelines, and it was here that the clouds began to part, revealing the breathtaking views to us.

Just about as we were wanting to stop for lunch, we saw that we were only a few hundred meters from the hut that we had planned to stop at for the day - Nichols Hut. And with Vaughan's cry of "I see the hut!" we had a renewed burst of energy... which was neded for the final, sharp descent to the hut.

Inside, we met a couple of hunters Justin and Richard who are holed up in this hut for a week or so, exploring all of the rigelines and valleys. They are super friendly and full of stories, so great hut mates. Justin is the host of the forthcoming outdoors show, Just Wild, so look out for that on YouTube - he aims to inspire people to get outdoors, and he is such a cool guy I can't wait to be able to watch some of the episodes he described!. 

Viktoria and Emma, who we effectively walked with most of today (we all had about the same pace up that brutal hill, and then across the tops in the wind) carried on to the next hut - Dracophyllum Hut, which has a great name but only two bunks. So we'll leave that hut to them for the night.