Te Araroa chapter 2 - The Sounds & Richmond Range

Tak jsme vam slibili blogovani zbesile, tak tady to je :) Bohuzel nemuzeme psat s diakritikou, takze to bude takto hloupe :) Nicmene, ti, kteri sledovali nas blog jiz predtim uz vi, ze cesky nic psat nebudeme, ale budeme publikovat fotky naseho super denicku :)))

Zatim jsme na ceste peskobusem presne 14 dni. Usli jsme 240 km. Tak se podivejte, jak nam to slo ;)

Well, you English reading readers can't really appreciate the awesomeness of our handwritten diary but you might want to use some imagination when translating the cartoons :)
Our journey started. We've walked 240 kms in 2 weeks.

Fotky uplne na konce blogu :)
Photos are at the end of this post :)

We started our journey in The Sounds - Marlborough. our backpacks were sooo heavy as we carry some stuff we don't normally carry when we go hiking. So that was the first VERY big challenge. CARRY-THAT-STUFF! But Sounds were mild when it comes to elevation and terrain and it's very nice mild hike with loads of wonderful views. We were very lucky with the weather as well...no rain whatsoever till the end.
Cheeky wekas everywhere, trying to steal our stuff :)

There were about 784116131 cicadas as well and heat!

Roman is very strict! He doesn't allow me to eat chocolate before dinner :( What a bugger!

The day passed nicely in the Sounds, we just think that next time, we'll get a small backpacks and will stay in fancy lodges, swim, fish and sunbathe and drink some nice cocktails. Well, hopefully :D Somebody would like to pay for our next vacations? :)

However, the ideal place to be ended when we got to Anakiwa. Beautiful little village, but from there we had to start walking on the asphalt road to Havelock. We thought it would be fairly easy and will go well and in the beginning it really did but then the sun and heat and 30 km did the work. You can see the picture below and will understand :)

It wasn't over when we had to climb a bloody gorse hill because it was shorter. It was a real cherry on the top.

But then we could see Havelock, we managed to find nice accommodation and had a tower burger for dinner! Yep! I didn't finish it. There is something wrong with me :)

After this day we were very tempted to hitch hike to Pelorus bridge to avoid another horrible road section. But my horrible rash on my feet got better, we ate a lot of green lipped mussels and we were very positive, so we made it. Another 20 km or so on the road and in the end farmland. Never again... Happily we arrived to nice campsite in Pelorus Bridge and had a SHOWER :)

From Pelorus bridge guess what? Another 18 km to start the Richmond Range...on the road! But in the middle we met a guy...who is doing TA from the south and was just soooo positive, doing 50 km a day sometimes and he gave us a lot of energy, so we finished the 18 km just in about 3 hours. And then we entered The Forest. Richmond Forest...

How I can tell you about Richmond Range...It starts nicely, around beautiful river full of emeralds and turquoises. Forest all around you and you start to walk on nice footpaths. Then it changes to horrible route on the steep edges over the rocks, fallen trees and rocks. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. And bloody challenging :) 

We didn't really see the river during the first 3 days except for morning and evening next to the huts. From the huts we did a lot of scraping up and down the hills and eventually the mountains when we finally did the first big climb up to Starveall hut (more like stairway to heaven hut :) This was the first time it started to rain heavily in approximately half the climb. We we soaking wet from the sweat already so we didn't bother wearing our jackets. And later on we could squeeze our tops and bottoms so many times :) It was a hard climb, but spirits were halfway high and we did see the hut in the end. We decided to spend one more day in the hut after this long day.

It was a very good decision to stay one day put in the hut. During the day we were trying to find the bloody rat and were in clouds. We didn't see anything from the top, but the next morning a miracle happened. We could see EVERYTHING! Nelson, The Sounds, Blenheim and all the Richmond range. although we've just started our walk it was quite impressive to see where we've come from - the distant contours of Marlborough sounds were just so amazing. And it was only the beginning of the day. This was a very hard day but the most beautiful we think.

From Starveall we climbed to Slaty Peak and then walked a long time on the ridge. We could see where we were heading - Old Man and Mt.Rintoul - the whole ridge and valleys everywhere. Just wonderful. The rest of the day we climbed and descended 3 more mountains - Old Man, Little Rintoul and Mt. Rintoul, which is the highest of the whole Richmond Range track. The weather was great but when we reached the top there was a friendly cloud waiting for us. There's nothing you can do about this kind of thing. Just enjoy what you can see. The descends were very very steep and sometimes I felt like shitting and brick :) but it went well and we were safe :) just a fabulous day.

We arrived to Rintoul hut just in time. It started to rain 20 minutes after.

Next day we just moved to Mid Wairoa Hut. Over the hills again and down the valley in the end.

You have to go up so you can go down and you have to go down so you can climb again. Sometimes you'd like to have a big bridge connecting the mountains so you can avoid it, but unfortunately this is the law. What a law sometimes ;)

For last 2 nights we had a nice company - Another TA hikers - section trampers Eileen and Dave. It was great to have their company, they are very nice and friendly and it's simply great to catch up about the trail in the afternoon with someone who suffered the same :D Dave gets up really early, around 6 am, so we don't have to worry about alarm :) It's good to have early start, it's not too hot in the morning and you can do a big bite of the day's walk. Well, the "big bite" in Richmond range can be 8 km. When we did around 17 km a day in this terrain and elevation, it was a good day. 

The final section waiting for us in Richmond Range were the Red Hills. We could see them in distance many days ago. Big Red mountains. Some geological specialty, very rare. Very beautiful. And very hard to climb as we were a bit afraid (lot of "edges phobia" :D ) From Mid Wairoa hut the climb started quite steadily over many river crossing until we reached Top Wairoa hut. We crossed the rivers mostly by jumping on the boulders. The boulder fun continued on different colour boulders later as well as we started the final climb to Mt.Ellis on the Red Hills - so you assume right, the boulders were red. the view from the saddle and under Mt.Ellis was just breathtaking... completely different, wild and savage valley with river flowing down there. If there were no trees, the combination of red and blue rocks would remind me of Iceland. This is the kind of "remedy" for all the pain you experience during the walking time. Just amazing. We arrived to hut after another 2 hours of fair walking in the beautiful valley with pristine blue river with red stones in it.

And then, the last day came. This day's elevation profile told us we'd be going up and down all day all 18 km. We knew it was the last day so had high hopes to arrive pretty early and we set off with a good walking pace. The trail really was up and down and sometimes straight up! It was getting very hot as well, but hundreds of Bellbirds around us were trying their best to make it really pleasant for us. Hopes were high and although the hut played tricks with our eyes in the end, the distant fata morgana became real and we arrived safely to the Red Hills hut and finished this section of TA South Island about which many people say is the most technically difficult from the whole Island. 

From all the hiking in many different countries and NZ as well we do agree with this opinion. It is very harsh and long track and it will not let you pass easily (...bloody edges... :) but the views in exchange are definitely worth the hard work. 

Yesterday we found it very easy to walk to St.Arnaud on the road. We are having a rest day today with lot of bloody sitting on the computer :D And tomorrow we move on to Nelson lakes National Park to hide in the woods again.

PHOTO SECTION 

Marlborough Sounds

Krasne Marlborough Sounds / the beautiful Marlborough Sounds

First day faces

Find your spot :)

Climbing the gorse tree....posledni kopec pred Havelockem. Uf

Om nom nom... The capital of green lipped mussels! aaaah nam nam

 Richmond Range

dosli jsme do Pelorus Bridge...we made it to Pelorus bridge!

one of many swingbridges over the Pelorus river / jeden z mnoha lanovych mostu pres reku Pelorus. Je to luxus, pak uz nejsou :)

Priklad "rimsicek" :) tahle byla jeste velmi mila/ the example of "edges" but this one was still fine :)

Starveall hut - Roman making some firewood

Sunset at Starveall Hut

jedna z prvnich z nejlepsiho dne/ one on the early ones from the best day

Romcovi se to taky libilo :) / Roman also liked it :)

Vzdalene Nelson Lakes / distant Nelson Lakes

Z vrcholu Mt. Rintoul 1736m / From the Mt.Rintoul top 1736m with the friendly Mr.Cloud

Tam jdeme taky...off we go there as well

Red Hills climb

Red Hills saddle

Red hills

posledni den, tam na konec udoli nejdal/ the last day, the end is at the end of the valley in the distance

Dosli! A jde se dal.../ We made it! and off we go again...