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thelazyadventurernz-blog · 6 years

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St James Walkway and the mice...

My first ever tramp was a few years ago. I had four weeks off, I spent 3 weeks of them in Japan snowboarding my little heart out. A good friend of mine Helen convinced me to giving a tramping ago in my last week of holidays. I caught a red eye flight from Japan to Brisbane, having 3 hours to get from the international airport, to my friends place, to swap my snowboard bag for my backpack that was pre packed, then turned around and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Christchurch. Lots or flying and minimal sleep.

My very kind friend Helen let me sleep in the next morning, whilst she sorted out our rations. That day not long after I got up, we headed out picked up a gas bottle, topo maps and hut tickets then headed out to Lewis pass.

DAY ONE

Due to us getting a late start (completely my fault, may have slept in...) we didn’t get started until about 1530/1600ish. The track starts at Tarn Nature Walk picnic area, its a boggy bushy area, as described by DOCs and descends in a zigzag into Cannibal Gorge on Maruia. We crossed this long swing bridge with beautiful clear water running underneath. Then we came to a look out where we had our afternoon tea. We always try to eat with a view... As the sun set and only had a bit of twilight left, stressing somewhat, we got to Cannibal Hut. We were greeted by an older lady, when questioned if it was just her, she let us know it was just her and a “little” friend... It was a this point Helen realised that my mouse phobia was legitimate. That night I left my pack on the floor, already stressing about the mouse in the hut, I kept hearing scratching on the packs.... Minimal sleep was had this night.

DAY TWO

We woke early, I took the top bunk, Helen took the bottom. Even though I knew better I was convinced that the mouse was more likely to stick closer the ground. Helen asked how I slept. I told her about the scratching on the packs that was freaking me out overnight. Helen wasn’t sure whether to tell me or not but she had ear plugs in when she went to bed, and we she woke up one was gone and she found in the corner across the room torn into little pieces... We left Cannibal hut shortly after breakfast and made our way to Christopher hut. The track was an easy graded path and intermittently followed the river. The terrain varied from beech forest to beautiful open spaces of long grass. As we got to Christopher hut, guessing we had about 1k left to go we noticed storm clouds heading towards us, winds picking up. We both agreed, those were snow looking clouds... “What the HELL!!! Its February!!!” We made it to Christopher hut, dumped our packs on the bed to get unpacked and food out for dinner and a mouse ran across my feet. Well I held my breath and talked myself down, honestly whats the worst that could happen right?!? We had dinner out on the deck away from the mouse and with amazing views of the mountains as seen in the photo above. Not long after sunset we went to bed, well for a bit anyway... At approximately 0030, Helen turned on her head torch, which I woke too, I asked her what was going on, she said nothing, when pressed further she told me she thought there was a mouse on the bedding, but not to worry she couldn’t see anything, I pulled my sleeping bag closer in and Helen turned off her head torch. Not 10 minutes later I feel something slightly pull on my hair, I woke up, and then I felt it a mouse crawling through my hair!! Well to say I screamed would be an understatement! I turned on my head torch, told Helen what had happened, then tried to convince myself that I had imagined it, then while my light was still on the mouse ran over my sleeping bag, I was out of there! Over to Helens bedding FREAKED, Helen said that was IT, she was done, and the decision to set up the tent at 0100 was made.

DAY THREE

After waking up after a much better sleep in the tent we ate our breakfast and admired the snow that had fallen in the Alpine. We headed off from Christopher hut to make our way to Anne Hut. About 1/2hour into our tramp we came across approximately 30 wild horses and foals, it was absolutely incredible and made the terrible nights sleep fade away as a distant thought. Once again we had a day of varying terrain, long grass, beech forest and wide open plains with dead trees and dry shrubs. We were followed by bees (which we found out later are attracted to blues, which both us us were wearing...) and small baby birds almost seemed to be intrigued by us, however, when we stopped the sandflies were crazy!! Today was the day I was coming to realise that perhaps doing a 5 day tramp after 3 weeks of snowboarding wasn’t the greatest idea, my legs were sore, I was fatigued and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. Thankfully Helen, kept me in check with Dark Chocolate when I had my first tantrum that day. We got into Anne hut at a very reasonable time, set up the tent (as we weren’t wanting to do it again at midnight) even though the hut looked very well sealed were weren’t taking any chances! After dinner we headed to bed, the rooms in this hut had doors, I scoped the room out, decided that there weren’t any mice in there and when we got ready for bed I shut the door then stacked all the spare mattresses against the door, just to be safe.

DAY FOUR

OH! I SLEPT SO WELL!! No signs of mice overnight, I was very happy and caught up on some much needed sleep, however, we still had to get up early to dry the tent and be ready for 17k day which was our longest and included going up and over Anne Saddle 1136meters above sea level. It was my job to get the fire going to dry the tent out and cook breakfast (this turned into our routine which continues on even now) and Helen was to pull down the tent and clean up after brekky. As I was completing my first job (getting the fire ready) I was sitting nice and close to the fire place, throwing in wood etc... when a mouse pops its head out! Well, shocked and surprised once again I slammed the fire place door and locked it... I think I may have accidentally killed it... whoops. Here I was thinking I would get one, mouse free day... We left Anne hut and headed to Boyle hut, it was a big day, Helen kept me motivated with dark chocolate and snakes (snakes are the big guns that come out and load me full of sugar to keep me going), talked me up the to the highest point, let me have regular breaks and constantly waited for me to catch up. Today was also full of laughter there was this big boggy mess and small landslide. As Helen tried to make her way over it (of course I made her go first) she placed her feet either side of a small tree, hoping to place her feet on solid ground, which she did very briefly, as the tree started to give way and leaned to one side, with herself together with her 18-20kg pack it was too much she crouched down to give herself some stabilisation, but it wasn’t quite enough, thankfully I made it to her in time, I was able to grab her pack and stop her from falling into the mud. Today was again a big day, Helen’s first upset was today, we were running out of water and were a little behind in time, we found water shortly after and then it was my turn to give her the dark chocolate (turns out this is the big guns she needs when she is tired and exhausted from walking and being out in the sun). It was nice to be the one who was needed for 5 minutes ;-). We were very happy to get to Boyle hut. Once we got there it was the most run down hut we had on the track. We decided to just stay in the tent that night. Once we were ready for bed it was still twilight, Helen had her eye masks on and asked me what I was doing. I responded nothing, but take your eye mask off and see for yourself... We had a resident mouse on the roof between the fly and tent, the mouse then slid down on my side of the tent, run underneath the tent, up and down my side and under my legs... haha, I mean of course it did... I woke up at 0300 the next morning to scared to get up and pee in case the mouse was outside the tent.

DAY FIVE

LAST DAY! 14.5k until civilisation, real food and most importantly a shower. We headed out after our usual routine and ran into two guys about 45 minutes into our walk. We then realised that apart from that lady we met at the start on the first day, we hadn’t seen or spoken to anyone else expect each other for nearly three full days. It made me realise how isolated we had been, it was so quiet, my mental batteries were fully recharged. We spoke to the guys who were hunters for a little bit, then continued our way. The terrain changed from the beech forest to farm land, to more beech forest (it reminded me of what I would imagine Hansel and Gretel fairy tail to look like) and then back out to Lewis Pass, where were met my Helens awesome parents who the took us to Hanmer Springs for a weekend there with her family to recover.

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