Our Heaphy Adventure

The second day was about 17km from Gouland downs to the Mackay Hut.  We had to cross a few rivers (more like bustling small streams) by foot (most have bridges), which meant I had to fall into at least one.  My record has been pretty good with crossing waterways in New Zealand, but when you strap a 20lbs pack on my back I'm bound to fall right into the water like a turtle on its back, and sure enough I did.  With a little time and the hot sun I dried up a bit, and at the next rest stop Jeff and I went dipping in a watering hole. (too cold for swimming)  It was a beautiful afternoon, but the discovery of some nasty looking spiders under the rocks quickly scared me from the water hole.  We arrived at the Mackay huts and were greeted by the sandflies.  They basically make is so we cook quick and run and eat it in the tent.  My feet were killing me by day 2 so I was very content setting up the tent and falling asleep before sundown (which was about 9:30-10).  We were abruptly woken around midnight to the sound of a Weka trying to steal our food.  We were able to save the cous cous, but he got our last few slices of bread!

Honestly, I was quite surprised that of all of the things that could really hinder my ability to enjoy the hike it was my feet.  I expected sore shoulders, a lower back spasm, or maybe some really rough hills, but not sore feet, but they were so sore at times i could feel the adrenaline pumping so that it was almost numb.  Day 3 came along and the feet were still pounding, but we had to move along so I took it one step at a time for about 20km to the Heaphy Hut.  It was the most beautiful of the hut locations, and it was located right where the Heaphy river (a very large river) dumped into the Pacific Ocean.  Despite all of the sandflies, we made sure to take a swim in the waves of the West Coast.  We were informed by John, a friendly American born (attended HS in Allentown!) guy who has lived in NZ for 8 years, that there was a shuttle from the track end to Karamea (an additional 18km) that came at 1, so we made sure to get up around 6am to get to the trail end by noon.

The last day was the most beautiful, as we walked almost entirely along the beaches of the upper west coast, and we arrived at the end around 11:30 and grabbed a shuttle to Karamea to find a backpackers to clean up in.  It took us 72 hours but overall I enjoyed the hike.  I don't mind camping at all, but I did not enjoy walking when my feet were acting up or the sandflies.  I think I prefer camping when I don't have to carry a pack the whole day, because I was so exhausted by the time we got the huts each day, I really couldn't enjoy the surroundings too much.  We also had to ration out food, which is my weakest point because I love to eat, but we brought a soup for each night, and about 18 granola bars, some cous cous, some scroggin (kiwi name for  trail mix), breakfast shakes, a bar of dark chocolate, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter, and we had finished everything by the end, and didn't go too hungry, although a bigger dinner would have been nice.

The Heaphy River draining into the Pacific Ocean

Arriving in Karamea was like a huge ray of sunshine, despite the dark clouds rolling in.  We got some laundry going (for $5 a wash!!) at the Rongo backpackers.  Rongo was really fun and there were a few Heaphy trampers there.  Petia stayed the same night we did, as well as our new found French friend Gabriel (he'll show up later in our adventure as well), and we even got to pet our first sheep (because it was on a leash)  That afternoon we headed out to a cafe called "The Last Resort" for a proper bite to eat.  There we had run into an older American couple, Steve and Laurie, we had seen/spoken to along the Heaphy, who were currently living in Nelson.  We said hi and joked with them about following them here, and you could tell they felt bad about not offering us a ride from the trail end when we spoke to them there.  They offered to take us on this nature adventure they were doing the next morning, and said if we wanted to go to just wait outside the backpackers at 8am.  We thanked them for their generosity, but decided not to go because we wanted to sleep a bit and there were rain clouds coming. By the time we got all of our things together and has some breakfast it was 10am and time to set out for our first hitchhiking experience.  It is 430km from Karamea back to the Heaphy start where our car was, so we knew this could be quite the adventure (when driving to the west coast you have to go all the way around Kahurangi National Park rather than through it).
(side note:  At "The Last Resort" we ordered a milkshake, and apparently a kiwi milkshake is just shaken milk with a flavor... quite disappointing for $5.50)

We often refer to our experience getting back to the car as "more of an adventure than the Heaphy itself", but it only took 50 hours to get the 430km. We could have taken a shuttle for 6 hours and $110, but we decided to do it the hard way, or the "adventurous" way as some may put it.

I hope to get caught up to Queenstown by tomorrow because I really can't wait to blog about QT, but there we have had a lot of great experiences before we even got here!

Cheers!

Jeff & Annabelle