Te Araroa (day 32) - Toilet Camp to Dracophyllum Hut [Tararua Range] / mile 977

"There are always a few people who are in the woods at night, in the rain (because if there were not the world would have ended) an I am one of them". Merton

Another grindy day in Tararua Range, it looks like I will be arriving in Wellington later than I thought but luckily it's not a big deal.

First thing in the morning I had the funniest encounter for a long time. I saw two teenagers walking on the wrong side of the fence alongside the trail. I assumed they were farmers children checking something. They eventually joined the trail and stopped by the river crossing. When I was walking past them they asked me if I knew how to get to Mangaore mountain, I checked it on my GPS but there was no trail leading up there, perhaps they could find other way if they returned to the carpark and went around. They nodded and joyfully went back.

When I joined them at the car park, it turned out that Amelia and Jericho as that were their names, were both partying all night and decided in the morning to go and climb a mountain! They had no water, food, decent shoes or clothing on them. Only thing they had was spontaneity, good weather and hangover but I doubt it would be enough to accomplish the task. After a brief conversation they drove off, hopefully to get some sleep.

After few miles of roadwalking the long uphill struggle begun. It was muddy, it was steep, it was wet. It took me five hours to arrive at Te Matawai Hut, I was completely out of water at this point. Trail was way harder than I anticipated so I decided to cut the hike by few miles as going to the original destination would take me another seven hours. There was a small hut halfway through, which I decided to stop at.

Next section was a stunning ridge walk towards 1432m tall Pukematawai mountain, the views on both sides were excellent. It took me another four hours to arrive at the Dracophyllum, the first hut I stayed in New Zealand! It was a tiny, two person wooden shelter, here is it's story:

"Dracophyllum biv was first erected on this site by NZ Forest Service to provide shelter for hunters and trampers traversing the Main Tararua Range. In February 2000 the original, waterlogged biv was removed and replaced by Department of Conservation."

After half an hour I got joined by Samuel from Wellington, he was section hiking Te Araroa northbound and hoping to arrive at Lewin (that's where Amelia and Jericho were from) tomorrow. Samuel informed me that I have another tough day ahead but once I'll get to the town of Waikanae it should be smooth sailing.

It was getting dark so I hopped on the noisy rubber mattress, wrapped myself in a sleeping bag and went to sleep.