beautiful monsters

Mud, sweat, and rata flowers

Tramping is always a cheerful activity; think aching legs, extreme exhaustion, sunburn, windburn, mosquito bites, bee-stings, stinging nettle, and your back just about breaking under the weight of clothes, food, tent, cooker, kitchen sink...

But tramps in the Tararua’s, well, they’re particularly uplifting.

Think mud. Really deep mud. And wind. And lots of prickly scratchy plants.

Well, the track wasn’t exactly a wheelchair path (hey, I’m not kidding, some tracks you could get up in one). There were huge roots to be climbed over, and small roots that tripped us. Slippery rocks that moved beneath our feet, and sticky mud that sometimes sucked us in up to our knees. Supple-jack vines twisted across the path and got caught around our limbs and packs. Swollen creeks to wade through. And the wind! We had to abort our mission over the tops, because we would’ve been blown off, so we stuck to a river valley. If it was a plantation, you wouldn’t even go into it with hard hats. The forest would be closed on such a windy day. But trampers aren’t into wearing hard hats, let alone closing forests! So we clung to roots and branches as we tried not to get blown off cliff faces, and shuddered as trees crashed to the ground meters away from where we were frozen, boots trapped in the mud.

Then it got really fun, because the river was flooded so we had to tack a longer route. And then part of the track had fallen down a huge slip, and we got lost. We tried to bush bash for a while, hoping we could follow the map and meet up with the track, but it was too hard with the vines. And it was getting late. And I was exhausted, disheartened, with two twisted ankles, dizziness and nausea. We were about to pitch our tiny tent and squeeze into it, trying to sleep on a bed of rocks and roots, while the rain lashed against us and the wind threatened to rip the tent to shreds... but luckily, just at that moment, my mum spotted a marker. After a bit more scrambling around we found a second one, and so we trudged onwards. What should have been an easy four and a half hour stroll on Christmas day had turned into a seven and a half hour marathon.

But my father has always said, the best thing about tramping is stopping. We got to the hut and there were three people there already, so the fire was blazing and it was cosy and warm. We had pasta with sundried tomatoes and olives, and home-grown peas, and believe me, nothing ever tastes as good as food eaten after a long tramp. Then we shared a Christmas cake, finished our hot drinks, and snuggled up in our sleeping bags. Ahhhhh!

Day two was still windy, so we couldn’t get up on the tops and we decided to head out – the weather forecast was for worse to come. But we were well rested, had an early start, and the river was down so we could take the quick route out. The valley was beautiful, a sea of toitoi, golden against the grey of rocks, river and sky. There were rewarewa, kamahi and rata flowering, tinting the bush a deep rusty-red. Even the mud didn’t seem so depressing when we knew we didn’t have far to go.

And oh, the first shower after we got back... complete and utter bliss.

Posted by Fionnaigh at December 27, 2003 12:09 AM