Day 58 – Flippity flop

It’s called a flip flop when you’re thru hiking one direction and then change direction, often it’s because of weather or timing. A good example of this is AT hikers when hiking north and it doesn’t look like they’ll get to Katahdin before the park closes, often will get a ride to Katahdin while it’s still open and start hiking south from there until they get to wherever they left the trail.

Malween, Rebecca, her sister Nina and I are flip flopping the Tararuas and going NOBO (northbound) for a change!

John gave us a lift to Waikanae and we set off hiking north to the Parawai hut. The hike was rather easy and it was a beautiful day for a change, so we got there early and had some time to hang around and enjoy it.

While we were relaxing at the hut a group of five folk musicians shows up. Since that hut is only about 1 km from a parking lot apparently it’s a great place to go if you want to get away with instruments so you don’t have to carry them that far and it didn’t even occur to and of us that it’s a Saturday night and people might be doing something like that. We had a fun conversation where they informed us they were thinking of playing music until 11 or 12 and I told them we would probably be asleep by 9 and up at 5 am. They weren’t the most amazing musicians, but the music was nice and when we went to bed they were very respectful and kept it quiet. They had two guitars and I thought about joining in, but I was happier just listening.