The morning opens drizzly and windy. I hear Floris and Marjolein packing up, their voices low as they shake off their tent and quickly move on. We’re crowded into Carol’s backyard in Waikane, a generous Kiwi we met at a hut in the Tararuas who invited us all over for dinner, beer and a soak in the hot tub. 

This was a glorious pit stop after such a long and hard hike through the Tararua Range, but I was the only one who opted to walk the entire way, over 20 miles after some hairy river sidling of mud, roots and steep hills, then over a small mountain and road walk. I felt tough last night, but this morning, I’m exhausted and I’ve absolutely hit my limit with rain. 

Carol’s left already for work, but Brent is home and makes me some tea. Their home is so warm and welcoming, I suddenly start crying. Poor Brent has no idea what to do. 
So he makes me a grilled cheese sandwich. 

And then makes another one, before chucking my mud-soaked clothes in the washer and drying the alicoop with a couple of old towels. He even scrubs the mud from my trail runners as I snuggle in with their sweet dog Max, and in no time, I’m all better. 

I really wimped out that morning at Carol’s, but the previous day was pretty rough, and unexpected. Funny how that is on thru-hikes, just when you think you’ve checked off the hardest section of the walk, one springs up at an unlikely location. 

There’s a big group of us at Waitewaewae Hut in the Tararuas. I suppose I should take just a moment to explain about New Zealand’s hut culture. It’s not entirely unique to this island nation, but there are 1400 huts scattered over a country with a smaller population than the state of Minnesota, and their value is deeply embedded in Kiwi culture. 

Huts started out in the 19th century as simple structures with a simple purpose, to shelter from the storm. They were used in the backcountry by farmers, miners, sheep musters, and animal control in a country filled with introduced species like possum and stoat reeking havoc on the bush. 

Over time, Kiwis developed nostalgia for huts, so it was only natural at the dawn of the 20th century huts became a way to create an egalitarian infrastructure around tramping and enjoying the beauty of this land. 

Hut life demands patience and consideration for each other. It’s first come, first serve and everything is shared, the water in a tank of collected rain water from the roof, the cooking space – usually just one long counter – the drying area, and the bunks themselves which might be in the Maori tradition of one long shelf where each hiker arranges their mattress in a row. 

That’s how I slept up a ladder in the loft with the two Germans I met at Dracophyllum and Koen, a teenaged Dutchman I met way up in Northland.  I have tuna for breakfast and wait for the expat from Cornwall named Julian to finish his muesli and coffee because he told me he knows the shortcut across the river.

Which it turns out he doesn’t.

So we end up crossing in minor rapids before climbing high above the river through muddy blowdown and tripping roots, me f-bombing for most of the start. Somehow that endears me to Julian and we become like long lost tramping pals, separated at birth. 

But Julian doesn’t muscle the climbs like I do, stepping high and heaving my body. Rather, he jumps. It’s actually remarkable his skill at managing this awful, root filled clagg – and with only one pole since he snapped the other yesterday on that savage downhill.

So I, at least try to, mimic his style, leaping up and thrusting myself over, under and down the wild terrain. Julian talks non-stop about his wild adventures in New Zealand as we grind away on this misery of a trail. He talks about how English people tease relentlessly those they like the most and how he loves the attitude of professional fighters hazing their opponents. That in particular opens my eyes to a different attitude, one up for the challenge, and also a bit more pugnacious when the situation calls for it.

DOC predicts six hours through this awfulness, though we manage it in four, including a major detour to avoid a massive landslip that looks more like mountain-top mining than an act of nature.

We finally reach a calmer grade and cruise into Parawai where clean, sweet-smelling day walkers are shocked by the thickness of mud on our clothing. Julian drops his gear next to Carol’s car and gives me his last candy bar. It’s hard to say goodbye, so he doesn’t, offering to carry my pack up the steep climb towards Mt. Pukeatua. 

Views open to the higher peaks, mostly with a veil of cloud and I’m thrilled I pushed hard to catch the two-day window of spectacular weather in the mountains. We finally part, and I learn later that Carol waited an hour at the car for his return! I push higher and higher into a mini goblin forest before reaching the summit with glorious, though shrouded, views into the Tararuas. 

I cook a big lunch of noodles, tuna and olives, then head down, again through dark, ghostly trees to a forest road on an astonishingly steep section of forest in the Queen Elizabeth National Trust in the process of being clear-cut.

At first I am not sure if this is trail, but I do indeed need to descend hundreds of feet on loose stones to a river, cross it, then head up through farms, across a suspension bridge and finally to road. When I get signal, I let Carol know I’m on my way and she sends her boyfriend Brent out to pick me up, but I decline and he remarks he understands how stubborn us trampers are and allows me to walk the final six miles to town.

At Carol's, a few beers and a huge dinner await as I put up the alicoop in the back yard. Carol has hiked all of the Te Araroa in sections and shares her thoughts on the trail, especially when it comes to the dangerous river crossings ahead on the south island. She tells us what we just walked in the Tararuas, is the hardest part. 

Then she hands me a towel and sends me to a small bathhouse where I soak in the hot tub with American hits of the ‘70s cranking. Just as I dry off and head to the alicoop, it begins to rain. 

There is something lovely about the plinking sound of rain on the alicoop tarp. I’m dry and warm and safe, so it’s a lullaby. And yet, I begin to panic thinking of going back in it again. I begin to wonder if I’m suffering some form of PTSD. I was so strong in the Tararuas, even with thick mud, steep ascents and descents, sidling hell along the Otaki River and developing tachycardia, yet here I am 20 feet from a house, and feeling like I simply can’t go another step. And the reason, is the rain. 

English nature writer Melissa Harrison purposely explored walking in inclement weather in her famously damp country, to see things as they really are. She writes, “To experience the countryside on fair days and never foul is to understand only half its story.” This is true in New Zealand too. As long as I’m prepared and don’t develop hypothermia, walking in rain is how things are on this land of the long white cloud. 

But that doesn’t mean I can’t take some refuge to catch my breath and get brave again. Brent finds it all a bit amusing since, like the English, Kiwis would ever go out at all if they avoided a bit of weather. 

He leashes up Max and we head to the estuary, verdant green leading to golden grasses, sturdy flax and a curling ribbon of sand covered in drift wood, crashing waves in the distance. We hug goodbye just as the sun comes out and I meet a  binocular-wearing Kiwi who tells me that it's the first time in recorded history, dotterels have nested on this beach. When she shows me a photo she snapped of a chick, I immediately exclaim my admiration in baby talk.

The rain didn’t keep more adventurous types home, paraponting over the waves on snow boards, lifted by colorful sails. It’s all boardwalk here as I cross fresh water from the Tararuas tumbling mixing now with the sea and creating a rich habitat of pukeko, dabchick, terns, pied stilts, godwit, wrybills, spoonbills and myriad oysters.

Back on the beach, I walk on sand again – hard, compacted like concrete my feet crush into pipis, tiny pools with sandy bottoms in their upturned shell. I pass a family playing beach cricket, loads of dogs and beachcombers, one child who’s willing to wade in on this blustery day. 

It’s high tide and I’m marooned on a sea wall of sand and crushed rock that's hard to negotiate. Eventually I reach a kind of promenade and my sore legs get a rest as the waves crash against the stacked boulders to my right. More mountains – big hills really – loom ahead before Wellington under low clouds. 

It’s funny walking a long trail – everything changes. Just when you get comfortable in one tramping standard, things switch, views change, weather changes, the vibe is different. Like life, you can’t ever know exactly what’s ahead. Perhaps that’s the reason to walk in the first place, to challenge expectations and shake up the routine.

Brent tells me the story of his brother making a marmite sandwich for lunch every school day over six years straight, not once trying something else. While I find marmite pretty awful, I still wouldn’t make the exact same lunch every day, even with foods I do love because the best things in life need space and distance – sometimes comparisons – so we can savor them when we return.

As I approach Paekakariki, a family of five plays Kuub in the sand. I notice my friends' tents and meet Vera again. She's very tan. Thinking I could get take-away on the beach, I discover I’d still have a few more kilometers to go to get to town, so I ask some Kiwis just starting cocktail hour in their Christmas lights-decorated region of tents and caravans if they wouldn’t mind popping me into town. Natasha volunteers and waits while I get a big sandwich, chips and chocolate.

I eat it at the picnic table back at camp and meet two American sisters walking the trail who gave up on the Tararuas because of weather. Devin and Bri are energetic and positive young women who generously offer advice on the coming days. A Canadian joins us and we laugh about mud and rain and muse on what’s to come on the South Island.

I have service here and see that Julian texted asking how I’m doing. I hardly have the heart to tell this strong and fast adventurer that a little bit of drizzle in Carol and Brent’s backyard nearly stopped me in my tracks. I then remember his mentioning something about wanting to climb a mountain and watch the sunrise on New Years. 

Today is December 30th, so I text back. Hi Julian, I’m fine and all the way to Paikakariki, easy walking on beach and boardwalk. Carol and Brent are awesome, thanks for introducing us! Say, tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. What’re you up to? Isn’t there a mountain you wanted to climb?

The three trampers take off and I sprawl out on the porch, protected by a roof as the rain starts up again. Maybe I was a bit too forward, I think. I mean, I’ve got at least a decade or so on Julian and he barely knows me. 

I fuss about with my gear, sorting and resorting, checking to see if I have enough food to last me until Wellington. I wonder what he thought of all those F-bombs I dropped when we missed the shortcut and ended up taking the harder route around the Otaki River. I mean, he did carry my backpack up the steep hill. Maybe he just did that because he felt sorry for me. 

The rain really comes down now and I don’t have any more chores to do, so I casually look down at my phone and see a text has come in. It’s Julian. OK, let’s see what he has to say. 

“I’ll pick you up in Paikakariki tomorrow at noon.” Whoa! OK, so I guess I’m not such a loser afterall. What was the mountain he wanted to climb again and to see the sunrise, it would be climbing in the dark?? 

Those are all questions I’ll get the answers to tomorrow as I zip up my raincoat and run out to the alicoop to get some sleep. Whatever it is, it will definitely be an adventure.