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Published: February 28th 2006
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Day 3: 21.5km, 6 hours, James Mackay - Heaphy Hut Today was almost completely down hill. Heaven. We were back in the forest again but as we descended during the day towards the coast and mouth of the Heaphy River there was a noticeable change in the types of trees and vegetation that we saw, moving from predominately beech at the start of the day towards and increasing number of nikau palms at the end of the day. A few of the girls were starting to get some quite evil blistering and rashes but we still made steady progress. Poor Aileen took a wee tumble at one point which, with a few juicy embellishments, made for a good story later. We crossed lots more swingbridges, stopped for lunch at the Lewis Hut and eventually got to see our first close up views of the west coast and Tasman sea as we approached the final few km of the day.
Back to the family from hell.... their redeeming feature was that they made almost everyone else on the track bond together!! We'd got friendly with some other guys at the previous huts and had agreed that whoever got
to the Heaphy Hut would bags beds for all of us so no-one had to share with them... That might not read so well but they were so rude and didn't give much thought for others. What I also haven't mentioned is how awfully one of them snored. I really don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it - it was every kind of snoring noise all made one after the other, and so loud!!! Even my earplugs weren't enough to block it out. We arrived at the hut to find that the others had indeed got everyone a space in the 'quiet' room so we quickly put out our sleeping bags, grabbed our swimming gear and went for a well earned swim in the river. I was sooo glad we'd decided to walk the track in this direction rather than the reverse - after three days of walking, sweating and layering on suntan cream it was great to be able to swim.... even if the water was ice cold! We'd arrived early enough that there was plenty of time for messing around on the beach too!
Day 4 - 16.5km, 5hr Heaphy Hut - end of the track!!
Today was flat, a few last swingbridges, more forest with nikau palms and coastal views. We expected to walk for 5hrs, according to the leaflet that we had anyway. I don't know if it was the green vodka jelly that we'd had the night before or the fact that we could almost feel hot showers at the end of it but we fairly whizzed along the track, finishing at least an hour early and in plenty of time for our bus pickup. The bus trip but to Nelson was a long one..... 6 hours or so. We'd got chatting to some people on our first night on the track who were flying back - apparently it takes 20mins to fly back over the track that too four days to walk.... and if there's a group of you its not too much more expensive than the bus... But the bus journey was a good time to catch up on some sleep.... in between the travel sickness that I kept getting. :0( Back at Nelson we divided up into new year food shoppers and showerers... the benefit of being in the latter group was that I got to
have a hot shower ;0) Although i'll just add that it was because i'd being one of the xmas and heaphy shoppers!! Dinner was the most gourmet pizza ever and some well earned beers to celebrate the end of the second part of our xmas adventure...
Next up, New Year in the Marlborough Sounds, horse racing, wine festivals and leaving doo's.....
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