(It’s been three years to the day since this actually happened. After getting home distraction and procrastination kicked in, and for the last two years I’ve been on a different sort of journey. But now I’m in a place where I’m keen to get this done, so I can finish this North Island Te Araroa story and be able to write about future adventures!)

• TA Day 67
• Makahika Outdoor Centre to Te Matawai Hut – 19.99 km in 8 hours 45 minutes
• 1,469m of elevation gain!

My alarm went off at 6:30 and it hadn’t been a bad sleep considering it was quite chilly and I’d had to sleep in pretty much all of my clothes . I got dressed and packed up what I could in my tent before unzipping it. I thought it was weird I couldn’t see dew dripping from it…. I reached out to a crunch. Holy moly… It was frozen!!! Peeking outside it was very frosty. Well, no wonder it felt cold last night! I decided to take a spare gas canister Sally had kindly offered, thinking the mountain ranges might be miserable without hot drinks while I fretted about running out of gas.

As we made breakfast and packed up it seemed to get even colder. With polyprop gloves on it was still freezing trying to pack up my tent. I picked up the tent fly and couldn’t believe how much it weighed with all the ice. My toes were totally numb by the time I started walking down the road. Luckily the sun was coming out and the road wound its way toward the odd sunny patch so I slowly warmed up. I kicked myself for forgetting to check the weather forecast again, just in case it had changed overnight. Mobile reception was patchy at best.

We’d done the road part in about an hour and made it to the Ohau entrance to the Tararuas within a few minutes of each other. There were a few cars in the carpark, and some farm to walk through too of course. I set off between the guys, just in case. Miraculously, no stock today! The steam coming off the grass from the frost thawing was impressive though.

My plan for the day was to go slow and steady, keeping to hourly breaks. Early on the track seemed reasonably mellow. It wasn’t far from the second swing bridge that I came around a corner to see a huge, newish slip had taken out the track, and panic surged through me. From the edge of the slip I could see a foot-width wide precarious path across the loose gravel that looked very sketchy. Put one foot wrong and you’d tumble and fall all the way down to the river below – at least 20 metres down? The guys were ahead of me, they must have done it I reasoned to myself. Don’t overthink it, just do it. I took two ginger steps out just as I heard a stressed and stern Pieter yell from somewhere above “Nicola don’t cross the slip, there’s a path above it, go back”. Gee that was close! Back along the path a couple of metres was a very rough, fresh track that went straight up and around above the slip. Still sketchy and very vertical but thankfully with much more vegetation to grab and a rope in parts. The photo below is of the view looking back at the slip, or get the full experience via another hiker’s video clip.

I couldn’t help but wonder how this would have panned out if I’d been alone… Consumed by the sight of the slip, I had walked right past the ‘alternative track’ and had almost made a very poor decision. It was a sobering thought that played on my mind for the rest of the day.

Collecting water at the last possible spot before we began the big climb was also not easy. I couldn’t decide if the down or up was more treacherous. I was glad to be able to leave my pack and do it while Stephen & Pieter were resting nearby – just in case. All morning my water bottle water was freezing and unappealing. Obviously the air temperature hadn’t warmed much as it seemed much colder even than something straight out of a fridge.

It was a steady grinding climb but through beautiful forest. I stuck to my one hour breaks and it seemed to help a lot although I certainly had a huge appetite today! I passed a handful of people coming down who said the views were epic up on the tops, but alas cloud had rolled in a bit by the time we finally got up to ridge and there were only occasional views. We did spot Levin though and Stephen found great mobile reception at that point too and alerted us. I remembered to check the weather forecast and was relieved it find it had improved, with no wind symbol for tomorrow now.

After more grind and more mud, my legs started to get a bit weary and I was relieved to finally come across a sign indicating the hut was just 30 minutes away. Most of DOC sign times had been accurate all day, and eventually we arrived at Te Matawai Hut! There were no others in the large but older-style hut, which was fairly chilly inside. Some damp firewood raised hopes and a fire was morale boosting but didn’t provide much actual heat. It was time for an eatathon:

• Entree: the dinner that I didn’t need to make last night, with hot tea.
• Main: Italian couscous with parmesan cheese
• Dessert: strawberry rice pudding with a calorific hot chocolate.

Stephen is a good trail mate because he seems happy to eat whatever I give him. I had a few odds and ends left from the previous 3 days which I was keen to offload, while still having plenty more food in case we got delayed. We hung our tents up inside hopefully to dry and were a bit surprised to find two still had bits of frost from last night attached!

I’m proud that with breaks, good food, and a slow and steady approach I didn’t feel too wrecked at the end of today. It was really cool that we were all within 5 minutes of each other for most of the day. Company is lovely up here. Tomorrow is another big elevation day and about the same time-wise. For the second part we’ll be exposed on ridges so I hope it isn’t too windy. Wind chill can be a major issue up here, as well as not being able to physically stand up.