Friday 20 April 2018
Heaphy Track #2
Last week I did the Heaphy Track again with some friends and family. We did the track west to east this time, staying overnight in Westport on Saturday and spending the following nights on the trail in Heaphy Hut, Mckay Hut, and Perry Saddle Hut. The weather forecast was pretty bad from outset, predicting heavy rain and high winds for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. In the end the weather wasn't as bad as forecast, but it did rain a fair bit on those days and we had a major thunderstorm on Sunday night — glad to be in the hut! For some of our group it was their first multi-day tramp, and covering 80km in four days in those conditions wasn't the easiest introduction, but I'm confident everyone had at least a memorable time, and probably a good one :-). We had a bit of everything: beaches, forest, rivers, giant carnivorous snails, lots of wekas, limestone caves (next to Gouland Downs Hut), wetas, rain, sun, views of snow-capped hills. In huts we played lots of Bang, some Citadels and San Juan, talked to interesting people from many countries, and cooked some pretty good food.
