26 February 2007

Round the Hut

The Mavoro Walkway

Day 2 page 1 Taipo

Miranda has hardly any dinner and the painkillers are not even denting her migraine. In the morning she is obviously not going anywhere except to the fence to throw up. We change our plans. Mike and Carol will walk out to their 4WD, and head back to Te Anau to pick up the van, then bring it back to the Mavoro Lakes campground. They will meet us at Boundary Hut tomorrow night with the 4WD and if necessary, drive us back out. We will take a day's rest, and do our best to make it to Boundary tomorrow.

The hut has a collection of old Readers' Digests, women's magazines and so on. Meditation seems a fairly attractive alternative. The Taipo is a tiny hut - 8 beds, but about a square metre of living area per person outside of the bunks. There's no fire, but it's fashioned from insulated slabs, so even though the walls are thin, it's toasty warm inside, though I note one comment in the visitors book about waking to a bucket of ice on the bench.

This is the first hut I've been to where we are advised, point blank, to boil water before drinking. I'm not sure why, as it's all off the roof and there appears to be no way any creature could make it inside the tank, but there you have it. Maybe possum poo on the roof. I boil a couple of billyfuls and leave the water to cool. (We do make a point here and at other huts of placing all the food in plastic bags and suspending them where mice and rats can't reach.)

Once again the weather seems to have veered around us and we have a sunny day. I wash my polyprops and underarms and do a bit of a food tidy, and head out for a closer look at the territory we have recently walked through.

Just past the hut is an impressive suspension bridge I haven't had a good look at yet. We'll cross that one when we come to it.

Up behind the hut is another valley.

There's a track heading up from the hut, barely visible, like an old, old cattle track and no poles to assist.

I start to pay attention to the small alpine flowers and berries I was too tired last night to take in.

Miranda is drinking a little (boiled) water, but that's all, and keeping very still as much as possible. I spend a little time in the hut, and a little time wandering and a litle time in the hut and the day passes. By the time I am thinking about bed, she is starting to feel a little better.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. It's around 14 km, I think. DoC time has it at 3 hrs. That's averaging nearly 5kph so it must be a superhighway, I reckon.

Like Hell!