By Ruth
Distance: 13 km
Finally, after all our weather delays, this morning we woke up to a beautiful day. Everyone in the hut wanted to get going early so it was a bit hectic eating breakfast and packing up. We had forgotten about these big TA groups and how there can sometimes be a bit of a competitive energy around getting in and out of camp.
Anyway, we were among the last to leave just before 7 am. The first couple hours of walking were a steep uphill along a ridge. The trail was in great condition, relatively dry and clear. The views were spectacular. We did a short detour up to a peak and we could see down to Levin, along the coast, out to Kapiti island, and even to the South Island.
After that we changed directions slightly and started downhill along an adjoining ridge. The views were still great but the trail deteriorated a lot. It became very muddy and slippery, with lots of long grasses to trip you up. We both were slipping and falling a lot, which was not great and kind of ruined the mood. Elliot in particular was struggling with the mud and getting very frustrated. At one rare dry point in the trail we just sat in the middle of the path for him to regain his composure.
It felt like a long time before we reached the Dracophyllum Hut, an adorable 2-person hut where we had lunch. Just as we were leaving, we saw two people we hadn’t met before arrive. They had stayed last night at the hut prior to ours, and told us there were fifteen people all expecting to stay at Nichols Hut (a 6-person hut) tonight. We were both a bit rattled by this. We were suddenly not sure if we would get a bunk in the hut or even a place to pitch a tent there. The number of people around us on the trail is very overwhelming.
After lunch we dropped back below the tree line into a cool mossy forest. The mud eased up a bit and so did the exposure. We made pretty good time, unfortunately spurred on a bit by the thought of the hordes all heading to the same hut as us.
A bit after 4 pm we arrived at Nichols Hut. To our surprise it was empty! It seemed that everyone who arrived before us had decided to continue on down to the next hut, more than five hours walk away. We decidedly did not have that kind of energy left, so we stayed put. We picked our bunks which have a great view out over the valley. Then we had our dinner and even got a little fire going, since it is pretty cold this evening. As it got later, we began to believe that maybe we would have the hut to ourselves tonight. That would have been incredible.
It was too good to be true though as we saw another hiker coming down the ridge at around 7pm. Eventually there are 7 of us in the hut tonight, so not too bad. The top bunks will have to squish a bit but we below are fine. Some of the people here are people we met when we were holed up in Kaitaia waiting out the cyclone. Funny for the trail to come full circle like that right near the end of the North Island.