From McKellar Hut to Greenstone Hut
Hiking time: 09:30a.m.-02:30p.m.
Daily/Total distance: 18km /988km (247.5 hitched/skipped, 84 biked)
Steps: 24911
Weather: overcast with some drizzle and some rays of sunshine

Well last night was an adventure. In the middle of the night, around 2am I heard a loud BEEP BEEP BEEP. I sat upright in my bunk, then it came again. BEEP BEEP BEEP. I immediately realised that if was the smoke alarm and closed the open window next to me, thinking the guys might be smoking outside and the smoke was coming in. Then it came again BEEP BEEP BEEP. Now I was fully awake, looking around for a fire. There was nothing though. And I didn’t smell any smoke. Panicked that the fireplace in the main hut might have caused a fire I went to check it out, but there was nothing.

By this time the alarm had stopped beeping and I went back to my bed. I was still seriously freaked out though and didn’t have a good sleep afterwards, continuously worried about a fire somewhere.

So I got up at 8am and had a slow start to the day. The guys were already up and moving about. One of them heard the alarm from my room during the night as well. They were already making their breakfast of bacon and eggs when I checked on my clothes in the main part to get changed for the day. The food smelled sooo good. They then set off at 9am while I continued to get everything packed.

As it had rained throughout the night, everything was quite wet outside and I was slow to get moving. By 9:30am I set off to go. Immediately upon starting my feet were wet from the wet grass. Within 10 min there was a very sturdy bridge crossing the stream into the valley. This will later become a much bigger stream.

After crossing the stream the path weaved through the forest on a small rocky track. In some sections it was not as easy to follow as the first section of the track.

Then it opened again to an open field with wide views.

While walking through the the field I saw 2 helicopters passing by. If the two trampers hadn’t informed me about them getting transported via helicopters, I would have been worried that something happened to someone. The field soon gave way to forest sections again. Here I found a lot of muddy sections and gnarly root sections. Furthermore, there were quite a few places which had been damaged and eroded from the recent storm in February.

Then I was back in a field again, this time with cows grassing on them. This field also had some very deep muddy sections, and because I decided to take a short cut between markers instead of following them I went right through the mud…

Soon afterwards I was back in the forest. Here I took the first opportunity walking through a stream to get the mud off my shoes again. Within the forest I also came upon more destructions from the storm. There were two bridges going over streams, that had been washed around and piled up with stones. At first I thought that these were really useless bridges to put there, then I realised that the path of the river had changed due to the storm damage.

In the middle of the forest came a boulder field to cross. Due to the rain it was a bit slippery, but not as bad as the muddy sections in the forest.

After the forest and the boulder field I was following along the side of the stream.

The stream must have been massive during the storm in February. Close to the hut I was walking through a very young beech forest with nice and comfortable forest floor to walk on.

At 2:30pm I finally reached the hut for the evening. I could have pushed on to the next hut, but getting so close to the finish there is no point to rush too much. Also, this was another of the greenstone huts, with nice flushing toilets. Such luxury is not to be frowned upon.

In the hut I met the German girl I had previously met on the section to Arthur’s pass as well as at Top Timaru Hut. There was also a French guy who walks sections of the TA NOBO. There also were two couples who are walking the Greenstone/Caples Track. Finally we were joined by the guy from the UK who I previously meet hitching from Hanmer back to the track. We had a good time catching up in the evening. I also told the hut warden here about the smoke detector getting off in the previous hut, which I assume is due to flat batteries. She told me that she will exchange them, as she will move to that hut the next day.

I spent the evening talking to the French guy who turned out to be a big Lord f the Rings fan. He told me about the upcoming sections and that there were places where the movies were shot. Finally went to bed at 10:30pm, ready to get back to the track tomorrow.