Day 45: Living Life On The Edge
November 24th, 2019
Kilometers: 1130.5-1061.0
Whakapapa Holiday Park- Fisher Track Free Camp
Tongariro was exhausting yesterday so I slept like a log. I finally woke up around 7 when Charlie went to the bathroom and closed the door loudly. He, Alex, and Matthew had all been up for a while at this point and were not in a rush to leave.
Peter and I reluctantly crawled off our top bunks at 7:10am and began gathering our things.
The guys had discovered that I had been carrying almost $10 in change yesterday without me even realizing it so I decided to spend it at the holiday park store this morning. I was able to get a Red Bull, a cookie, and a snickers bar and still had 80 cents to spare. I also bought a bag of cashews knowing that we didn’t have a ton of lunch food left.
A quick inspection of our shoes revealed some not great news. My shoes had a few new tears after yesterday’s hike. Alex’s, on the other hand, are ready to fall apart. His socks are now showing through the holes.
After a breakfast of the cookie and a few bars, we were off for the day around 8. The comments on Guthook had us a bit nervous for the first section of the trail known as the Whakapapaiti Track as 10km of it were described as being full of “typical TA mud”. Something I have grown very sick of.
Despite the comments, we took off eager to get to National Park and a resupply point.
The hike began going uphill, which was surprising as we are supposed to drop over 1000 meters over the next two days.
The trail was in great shape and we were quickly able to traverse through it and eventually ended up in the bush. We were greeted with a wonderful boardwalk and the most absurd view of Ruapehu I could imagine.
We continued along the trail through the wetlands, which were described in the trail notes as a bog. Due to the lack of rain the last few days, the ground was relatively dry and the mud was very manageable.
Eventually the trail ran back into the the woods and the track did start to become muddy again. Fortunately, this is a well maintained track and there was plenty of DOC boardwalk.
The track was really fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the almost 14km track back to the highway.
Charlie and I found Alex and Peter laying in the sun by the side of the highway. We were both hungry so we stopped at a little building with some shade for lunch while Alex and Peter pushed to town.
Matthew met up with us shortly afterwards and the three of us made the push to National Park together.
About 500 meters up the highway, Matthew located a GeoBox, a little GPS box with a piece of paper inside to sign your name. He is trying to sign as many of them as possible along the trail.
The walk along the highway was pretty brutal. There was no shade and it was relatively hot meaning we were at the full mercy of the New Zealand sun. To make matters worse, the road is an arrow straight 100kph road meaning that people fly by at well over the speed limit.
We reached National Park at around 12:30pm and found Alex and Peter already eating lunch and drinking beers at Schnapps Bar.
Having already eaten lunch, I got an order of fries with bacon and cheese on them. We also got dessert because after Tongariro yesterday, we felt we earned it.
We went to the local Foursquare afterwards and resupplied for tonight and tomorrow.
Afterwards, we set off again into the blazing sun. We had no campground in mind as there are extremely limited camping options between National Park and the beginning of the canoe trip. We knew there was a few water sources along the way and we would try to find camping spots at one of them.
After leaving town, we turned onto Fisher Road, and sent our last text messages as we likely won’t have cell service for at least 6-7 days.
We followed the road until it eventually gave way to the Fisher Track, a 4WD trail which cuts through the mountains to a road a few kilometers away.
We weren’t expecting to be quite so high up on the mountains but it gave way for some spectacular views.
This unfortunately meant that water sources we had been hoping for were actually just going to be little streams flowing down to the valley below.
At around 5:30, we crossed the best water source we had yet to come across and decided it was best to set up there. Especially considering there were minimal water sources for the next 17km.
We set up our tents off the track as far as possible, despite their being rather large drop offs on the side, and set up our poles in X patterns to alert any passers of our campsite.
With camp situated, we all took liter showers and started dinner. At our resupply, Alex and I got tortellini and tomato sauce, which somehow ended up being kind of bland. Regardless, it was something new so it was fine it that sense.
Tomorrow we have 42km’s to Whakahoro in what is sure to be another hot day. The canoe section cannot come soon enough.
-Ethan