I was up early as usual and got to enjoy a nice sunrise. Then Holger, Jayden and I got breakfast at a place in town with birthday pie (because the pie looked better than the cake) and started hitching back to the trail.
Jayden and I got a ride first and we started hiking as soon as we got there which wasn’t until about 11:30. It’s a later start than we wanted but still enough tine to make it to the second hut. The first 5k was a walk along a gravel road to the first hut, so we got there at about 12:30 and took a quick break.
After that it’s about 16k to the next hut but DOC estimates it takes 8 hours and the trail notes estimate 6 hours to the Aparima hut.
They say the TA ends like it begins, with lots of mud and a Long Beach wall at the end. I’m starting to see it, the trail went mostly through beech forest with some sections of tussock between them, but there was a fair amount of mud. Jayden took a break at a stream about an hour in and I kept walking alone. My favorite part of the next section was a beech forest that had a ton of ferns, it was amazingly dark and lush and just generally beautiful. I took my time and took a lot of pictures.
Jayden eventually caught up and we reached the hut just before 7. I took a birthday swim in a swimming hole in the river in my birthday suit, which was wonderfully refreshing!
Holger showed up around 8 and the three of us shared a little whiskey in celebration. I couldn’t ask for a better birthday than spending the day in the backcountry with great friends.
