I awoke suitably humbled after the previous day’s meltdown. I vowed to myself and Iain that I wouldn’t be so ridiculous and melodramatic again, that I would take more frequent rests if needed. In fact I never had another problem on the rest of the trail, once I stopped fighting the mud and the roots and the rain and the pain everything became a lot more fun!
We said our goodbyes to the hunters, put on our soggy gaiters, grabbed our hiking poles and headed off for Long Harry Hut. Early in the day we crossed one of my favorite New Zealand hiking contraptions, the suspension bridge. I have no idea how much money gets spent on the park system here but the bridges and the huts indicate a HELL of a lot. I think the bridges are wonderful; they are found at the worst river crossings and take a fairly big leap of faith to get on. They bounce and sway over turbulent waters and each end is bedecked with an ominous sign reading “ONE PERSON AT A TIME MAXIMUM”. Every time I saw one I wanted to test the weight limit, but figured I should lighten the pack a bit before I did so in case I ended up swimming.
Hiking day two was very different from day one. We still spent most of our time climbing; either large hills or out of the never ending gullies that line the hills, but the big difference was the changing scenery. The forest became beautiful, filled with mosses on the ground not just a sea of never ending mud. There were variety of trees I had never seen and I began to see glimpses of the stunning coastline Iain had been telling me about for months. About halfway through the day we emerged out of the manuka forests onto Smokey Beach a long stretch of golden sand soaked in longed for sunshine and pounding surf. I basked in the sights and smells, the salty tang of sea spray hanging in the air and the raucous cry of shore birds disturbed from their afternoon foraging. We made slow progress down the beach, stopping for photos and simple sightseeing.
We encountered our first river ford at the far end of Smokey Beach. There was a turbulent tidal river filled with rust colored sands. I asked Iain to cross it first as he was taller and stronger than me. If it looked too deep I would have to walk upstream a few kilometers and cross the bridge then walk back to the shore to meet up with Iain. As it turned out it was no more than thigh deep and with the hiking poles to help with stability I made it across with no problems. We had caught up with Emma and Jenni at the river crossing and spent a few minutes basking in the sunshine with them before getting chased back onto the trail by vicious homicidal sand flies.
The trail off Smokey Beach led us past a group of enormous granitic boulders all tumbled together like a giant’s marbles. The trees were creeping over them, splitting them slowly and quietly with their relentless root systems. We played in the cracks and crevasses for a while until Iain found a route to the very top of the pile. I scrambled up with the camera and was presented with an unparalleled view out over the dusty green canopy of manuka. We could see Smokey beach behind us and Long Harry in front of us and the big blue ocean all around. It was a wonderful peaceful spot for a little reflection and a lot of water drinking. Eventually we had to don our packs again move on.
We made it to the hut while the sun was still high. We had seen men fishing off the rocks below the trail so we expected a few people at the hut when we arrived, however the mess we were presented with was gruesome. It turned out to be six hunters, younger guys with no camping or hunting etiquette to speak of. Their gear was spread across the entire hut, there was a deer carcass hanging in the vestibule with a tangle of bloody hoofs sitting uncovered on the bench underneath. There was no water in the tanks and the number of flies in the area spoke more of an abattoir than a coastal cabin. I was appalled by the condition but it was worse for Iain who had beautiful memories of this hut from his first hike on Stewart Island.
We had planned on spending a rest day at Long Harry because Iain had enjoyed his time there so much the first time around, however the six hunters were there for a few more days, the flies were intolerable and the prospect of hauling every pot of water up a long hill from the beach meant we would keep moving the next day. We did do some beach exploring in the long shadows of the evening, moving from spot to spot trying to outwit the sand flies and finally finding some reprieve in a rock cave on the east side of the beach. We dodged the tidal surge until the water rose too high to make it back to the hut dry. Back in the hut we quickly crawled into our bunks with the other hikers and tried to sleep. It was the first night I used my earplugs, the hunter’s conversation was no louder than the night before but there was an edge to it. They were no happier to see us than we were to see them.
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