After a rainy night I awoke in my tent to a bitterly cold morning with a biting wind. So it was on with all my cold weather gear and on with the walking early.
Bizarre then that 90 minutes later, having dropped over a thousand meters to Hacket Hut, that I should be having a swim. Quite apart from this being my 5th day without a wash and needing it, there was no wind and it was much warmer lower down.
I was interested to see Hacket Hut. Last year, when I was in Nelson for work with my family, I brought them up this valley to within only 2 kilometers of the hut to see a very pretty waterfall and a very strange hill - a full river runs down its side yet runs over grass and does not cut out channels like you would expect a river to do. It's very strange. Hacket Stream, which runs past the hut, also has some fantastic swimming holes down closer to Nelson.
Having spent four days traversing north on the tops, the bush looked pretty exotic as I dropped down, the forest filled with silver ferns, much different to the Beech forest I had left behind in the Nelson Lakes.
Not having looked at the map closely enough I was expecting an easy day of it, having finished with the Richmond mountains yesterday. The difficult 800 climb to and past Totara Saddle came as I little bit of a shock therefore. After so many climbing days I really didn't feel like any more. Fortunately my legs responded well enough one last time. Once over Totara Saddle I was in the Pelorous River catchment. I'll now be following my favourite river all the way to the sea!
The afternoon consisted of some fairly easy ridge walking, although the forest looked something like a tree graveyard in places. At some point a wind storm has decimated the bush along here. Parts of it were cleared, but there was a fair bit of trunk negotiation to be performed.
The track was also well and truly rooted, which made the going more difficult than the flattish topography might suggest.
So the sight of Rocks Hut mid afternoon was a sight for sore eyes. I was intending to get closer to the road by going an hour downhill to Middy Hut, but couldn't turn down what I've termed the Hamilton Hut of the north. I can give a hut no higher praise. It even trumps the Hilton in one respect; it has the almost unbelievable luxury of flush toilets! With this likely to be my last hut on trail I stopped to take advantage.
It was also a chance to dry out all my damp gear from the night before. Tomorrow I have a choice of two routes. The first is a very historical gold route from Nelson over Maungatapu Saddle and past Murderers Rock, infamous in New Zealand as the spot where a band of brigands accosted and murdered a couple of prospectors and a shop keeper in the late 19th century (if memory serves they weren't too clever, started spending their ill gotten gains, were caught and hanged). I've already been this way though - Eli and I ran up to Murderers Rock a few years ago, so I think I'll stick to the normal TA trail so I can see more of the upper Pelorous River. In either case tomorrow ends with me at Pelorous Bridge. I hope I can make it while they still have the cafe open!
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