AKA “Welp!”
In preparation for our walking holiday in Japan next month, and since last weekend’s hike was such a breeze, we decided to do something a little more challenging this weekend.
The time estimate given was around seven hours, but since it was less than twice the distance of last week’s walk, which had only taken a couple of hours, we thought that was a wild overestimate, and we’d be fine to finish well before we lost the daylight even though we were so disorganised that we didn’t get started until 1 pm.
What I hadn’t appreciated was the elevation gain of 1000 metres. In fact, I had done very little preparation for the trip, leaving it all to Simon. Hence, the numerous river crossings in the first half hour took me somewhat by surprise. In fact, one of us fell over getting across the very first stream. I’ll name no names, but it wasn’t me. For the first three crossings, I took my walking sandals off each time, but by the fourth I gave up and just waded through with them on. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, this was the coup de grace for my faithful walking shoes which have stood me (walked me?) well for nearly two decades. It took me several kilometres to realise that the glue holding them together was failing.
When we got to the beginning of the loop section, I was pleased to be nearly at the end of the water crossings. What I hadn’t expected was the enormous amount of up that was going to be facing us. For ninety minutes we slogged steeply upwards through the rugged terrain. Simon being heaviest, struggled the most, I did OK, and the dogs ran around us both madly, having a whale of a time. I remember thinking I wished I could explain to them to conserve their energy, because they’d need it later, but in fact they both did very well the whole day, even the young small one. We had intended keeping them on leads throughout the day, but as they kept getting tangled up with each other, and their harnesses got twisted, we soon gave up. They were never out of our sight long enough to go and kill any kiwis, I promise.
After an hour and a half, we met another group coming down. They asked us what it was like ahead for them – “steep” , we said – and we asked what it was like further up – “muddy” apparently. It had taken them an hour and a half from the hut, which we thought would be the half way point. Any thoughts of giving up and turning back left us then, because surely it would get easier now we’d left the steep uphill part behind?
The bush was definitely beautiful, and varied a lot over the course of the walk.
We reached the hut at around the three hour mark, where I’d hoped for a wee break to eat my sandwiches. Unfortunately, there were people inside who sounded like they were reading poetry to each other, and the door was shut. This gave it a very unwelcoming vibe, so we decided to push on to the summit and eat our lunch there. It hadn’t been too muddy up until now, and I had written off the group we’d met on their descent earlier as a bunch of whiners, but then the mud really started to become evident. The soles of my shoes were now starting to peel away in earnest, and I was getting a blister, which I’d never previously had with these shoes, so I suppose it was because they were wet. I actually took them off for the push up to the summit. I tried just walking through the mud in my bare feet but it was disturbingly deep in places so we went back to skirting around the edges of the path, which again slowed us down considerably.
I sat in the tussock near the peak to eat my sandwiches, out of the cold wind. We were up in the clag by now so there was no view. In spite of the flapping soles of my shoes, I decided my best approach to the descent was to put them back on. We had no bandaids for my blisters so I cleverly MacGyvered a solution which was to wrap my sandwich gladwrap around my foot as a makeshift sock. This worked pretty well once I persuaded the dogs to stop licking it.
Once we had summited we thought the hard work was over and we’d be able to pick up speed. Unfortunately the descent was just as steep as the journey up, and we now had mud to contend with.
We soon came upon a route marker pointing to the way ahead, which we assumed would say we had around two hours to go, as it was already 4:30 and we were surely well over half way and it was all downhill from here. Au contraire! The sign said we had four to five hours to go. I nearly died, but we had no choice by then but to push on.
I had to go backwards down any particularly steep bits because my soles were now flapping like clown shoes.
As it came nearer to seven pm and the light began to fail, we thought surely we must be coming near to the end. Then Simon called out behind me. “Wait! I’ve left my phone behind! I know where it is, it’s around 500 metres back where I slipped over…” I was really anxious then. This felt like the turning point, where things would really go pear shaped, and we’d end up taking a wrong turn in the dark and dying in the bush, slowly eaten by the dogs who have never watched a Lassie film and know nothing about movie tropes where they’re supposed to go and get help.
I had just decided that it would have to be me to go back and get the phone, while unbeknownst to me, Simon had already written it off and was decided which iPhone to buy next, when he discovered his phone hidden in his bag. In his panic he’d had a man look when it was actually right there. We still weren’t out of the woods yet, though – quite literally. Half an hour later, I was starting to panic as I could no longer see the orange route markers in the gloom. Luckily, the next steep descent, which Simon had to get down mostly by feel as it was too dark for him to see where to put his feet, we came across the route markers at the start of the loop.
We did the last twenty minutes crossing rivers using the torches on our phones to see where we were going. Note to self, for our next walk:
bandaids
head torches
walking poles
know the route
get started early
have a good breakfast
I was supremely grateful to get back to the car, and posted this on Strava:
Really we were lucky to avoid disaster. Serious injury and getting lost were too close for comfort. Thank goodness the dogs coped so well. I was half expecting we’d have to carry Ratdog for the last half.
We have both decided not to repeat this hike in future. Today, I have blisters on both feet and my thighs are stiff but I feel otherwise OK. Simon has a giant contusion on his shin and a twinge in his knee, but is otherwise fine. A narrow escape but I do feel a little sheepish for being so underprepared.