On Thursday morning me, Mel and Jon left Christchurch Public Hospital after a night shift, and jumped in the car (a couple of strong coffees later!) to drive north-east to Nelson Lakes National Park. Luckily Jon had managed to get a few hours sleep on his shift so he was happy to drive. We stopped at Murchison, NZ's white water centre, for a lovely lunch and a coffee in the cafe, then on to our destination, near lake Rotoroa. We set off after debating an overnight camp to sleep off the night shift. We walked up the Mole track which followed forest then river bed up to Mole hut. It took about three hours and was about 7pm when we got there. Mole hut is a small four bedded hut, seen in my pictures. It did not have a fire but was fairly warm. We were joined by a man who had come up to the hut for a few day to hunt deer, and so we quickly befriended him, thinking that fresh venison go down a treat! Was not to be though, we probably scared the deer off with all the noise and giggling! Anyway, we were all so tried, so we had a brew, cooked some pasta and settled down to our first hut sleep! Which was surprisingly good I have to say, probably thanks to having been up for more than 24hrs!
Next day we got up at six, faffed around til 8 (how did that happen!)and then set off with our packs. We climbed up to mole tops, my favorite bit of the trip. Up on the hill tops you could see mountains all around, and not another soul for miles. We dumped our packs and climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop and along a beautiful ridge line. There were small tarns all around, and snow on the distant mountains still. We left the tops for a dubious descent down Bull Creek, a track no longer maintained by Department of Conservation (DOC), scarred with landslide. It was mainly following a river (wet feet again, an integral part of NZ tramping!), boulder-hopping and wading, leaving the river for bush every known again. It was slow going, and hard on the knees. I have to say, I was getting rather fed up by the end! At the bottom, we followed the river along for another hour or so to our next hut, D'Urville hut. Part of the path was flooded so we partly waded there. The hut was bigger, with 12 bunks, and a fire. It also had running water. There was a party of 3 fishermen there, making the most of a weekend by the lake, lake Rotoroa. We had another great pasta dinner, then were soooo tired, we went off to bed. We had been walking for 11 hours.
Next morning we didn't leave til gone 9. It was raining so we put on our waterproofs, squeezed back into our wet shoes and set of down the Tiruamea path, even more flooded this morning! The water was freezing so cold toes and legs all round. We walked to the Tiruamea hut for lunch, a lovely 6 bunk hut with a fire. We had some lunch then carried on for a long slog of a climb out of the forest onto meadow land. Thank goodness for lollipops and flapjacks! We topped out a few hours later and made a decision to continue down to the car and get back a day early. The trck down to the car took a while to find, and in the rain and mist we almost decided to return to the nearby Mole hut and walk out the next day. However after being mislead by a confusing sign, we found our intended route, Jamieson track, and decided to take a gamble. It was 4pm by then, and there had been a sign at the bottom saying it took 5 hours, but luckily it was a good track of steady descent along the ridge of a spur. We got down in three, by 7pm. Yey! ten hours walking today! I stayed with the packs (sensible) while Mel and Jon ran back to the car (silly). 20mins later we were all in the car and changed into dry clothes. To our great excitement the cafe in murchison was still open, so we had a great feed, brought coffees for the road and just caught the petrol station before it shut. Me and Mel shared the driving, we were all tired so played games the whole way back to avoid a sleepy driver! Home by 1am, tired, sore, and definitely thinking that Mel + Jon + tramping does not equal a relaxing country break! Thanks though guys, definitely character building! x
