This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Stuart Meiklejohn
Tony, Laurayne and me (Stuart) set off to do the SK at 5.40pm, on Friday 24 February 2007 (I include these details for posterity). Tony had done the trip at least once before, but Laurayne and me were setting off for the first time.
Tony had the plan of doing the reverse SK, South to North. The benefit was we were able to get going early on Friday. We set off from Marchant Road, up the long Marchant ridge track. Perhaps it was because we were just setting off and full of beans, but the track didn’t seem as long and dull as expected. It did start raining though, and we spent the last 2-3 hours walking through a light drizzle. We arrived in Alpha hut just before midnight.
We crashed into the hut, making plenty of noise because we thought we were alone. However, there was one poor soul tucked in a corner of the bunks. He greeted us cheerfully enough though. We decided to get up at 4am, and get going as soon as we could. I went straight to sleep, but Tony and Laurayne struggled to nod off. Perhaps it was all the excitement of starting the trip.
We woke at 4am when Tony’s alarm went off (and so did the lone tramper in the other bunk), then decided to go back to bed for another hour when Tony decided it was too foggy outside to start off while it was still so dark. We woke up again for the second time at 5am pulled our gear together, ate quickly, and headed off, leaving the lone tramper behind us, still trying to get back to sleep after we’d woken him for the third time.
We headed up to the Dress Circle. Dawn was slowly breaking, but it was hard to tell as it was very claggy. Up on the ridge it was cold and windy and drizzling. Our hands were getting blue and numb. By the time we got to Kime hut at about 8.30am, we were struggling to undo the buckles on our packs with our frozen hands. We had a short break, and contemplated the rest of the day in the cold weather. Just as we were gearing up to get moving again, Tony suggested that we just get our sleeping bags out and settle in for a couple of hours in Kime hut. If it got better we would push on, and if it didn't we would consider pulling the plug on the whole trip. With the state of the weather outside it seemed like the most sensible option.
We got tucked up in our sleeping bags, but were still pretty cold. Regular visitors to the hut stopped us from staying asleep. At about 11am, we decided to get up and get going again. The wind was marginally lighter, and the rain had stopped. We headed off along the Southern Main Range, and were relieved to find that the marginal conditions were improving. We never really got any genuinely fine periods, but the wind died off and the rain stayed away. It was much better than the last time I'd done the Southern Main Range, and made it seem so much more enjoyable.
We arrived at Maungahuka hut in time for a late lunch in the early afternoon. There was a couple there with a tiny white toy dog. It was the kind of dog that would look more appropriate being carried in a woman's handbag than walking in the Tararua ranges, but they assured us that it had walked the whole way in the day before, and only been carried down the ladder on the Southern Main Range. The two trampers seemed amazed when we explained to them how far we had come, and how far we were going. Our light packs and running shoes probably made us look like we were doing a short day trip.
We pushed on for Anderson hut, with the weather holding constant. It was far more enjoyable than the horrible weather the last time I'd done that stretch of track. We got to Anderson hut at about 8pm, knowing that we siill had at least 1-% hours to get to Nichols hut, our destination for the night. It turned out to be almost a three-hour stretch, as we got to Nichols hut at 11pm. We were all pretty grateful to see the hut. Fortunately, it was a beautiful clear night, and we could see the lights of all the townships from Otaki up to Palmerston North (we think), At Nichols hut we had a very quick dinner of pasta, vegetables and tuna, then headed to bed. It added up to about a 16 hour day, and we knew we had to get up in about 5 hours to do the same distance again. It was harder getting up at 5am than the day before, and it took us a bit longer to get going. We headed off to Dracophyllum hut, which meant the longest spell of bush walking since Marchant track two days before. I had picked up the idea that it was a bad stretch of track, but it seemed pretty easy going, and a nice change from being up on the ridges. Dracophyllum bivvy was another place I'd heard bad stories about, but the stories must have been a bit old, because it turns out the old bivvy was replaced with a small hut in 2000 (if my memory serves). It was a lovely looking hut tucked in the bush. We filled up with water, knowing that we wouldn't be passing another hut on the track until Herepai hut. It was a long climb to get up to Arete, but from there, it felt like we had turned a corner for home. There was a long straight line along Dundas ridge to West Peak, and on the map it looked pretty close compared to the distance we'd already traveled. The weather wasn’t great; it stayed overcast and was a bit cold. The upside was that we managed to walk right through to Herepai without needing to fill up our water bottles from any manky puddles. There had been a long spell of fine weather, and there were no fresh tarns along our path. We reached Herepai hut at about 8pm. There were a few guys there who told us that they were going to do the SK over seven days. I think they were a bit surprised to hear we were doing it ina weekend. We had to reassure them several times that we really had come all the way. As is sometimes the case, the last stretch of the trip seemed a lot longer than we expected. We were dead keen to get to the end, and it couldn’t come fast enough. We made it out at about 10pm. I’ve never felt quite so relieved to finish a tramp. I was even more relieved to see that Tony’s car hadn't been stolen. We managed to get back to Wellington by about 1am on Monday morning. All up, it made for a pretty long weekend.