I was getting antsy with 2 weekends in a row in Gizzy and needed to hit the backcountry big time. Good thing for me, there's always others keen on the same. Charl, Mags, Julie (a couch surfer who had been staying with me since Thursday) and I loaded up the truck with probably more than one night's gear and headed out to the gorge. A treacherous drive, but beautiful scenery, between Gisborne and Opotiki. We hiked the 2.5 hours to the Koranga hut, met some Zimbabwean and young kiwi hunters packing dead pigs on shoulders and deer in their backpacks. A bit too hard core for the tinned-salmon likes of us... You definitely couldn't be mistaken that you were in New Zealand, with the carcasses everywhere, sheep paddocks, massive Remu trees, immaculate hut (inhabited by full
... read more