The trail from the Nichols hut to Pukematawai (mountain) was described by the other hikers as a lot of little ups and downs but very tiring. I don’t know why they said little ups and downs, they felt like solid ups and downs to me, but it certainly was tiring. We only hiked around 2 km per hour. We continued to cross paths with people we knew, the engineers (a British couple), Katie who I hadn’t seen since Kerikeri, grandpa and many others. I’d think that’s my favorite part to the whole flip flop, running into all the people I haven’t seen in weeks!
At one point we bumped into people on the ridge who pointed out that the hut that was visible on the left (on the other solids of a huge ravine) was Te Matawai, the hut we were planning on staying in, however we still needed to go to the top of Pukematawai to get to the connecting trail down the ridge on the other side.
Having the hut in view made me feel like we were nearly there, but in reality we still had a long way to go. The upper sections are covered in long grass called tussock, which looks like it would be lovely to walk on, but in reality it thickly covers the trail to the extent where you can’t see where you are putting your feet. I rolled my ankles a couple times because I thought I was putting my feet on something solid. Also sometimes you get a muddy surprise, which might end up with wet feet or just slipping and potentially falling. For added fun there were many times when I stepped down on the grass with one foot and then my other foot would catch that same grass, tripping me. If that wasn’t fun enough it also gives you very minor cuts. It made me miss the mud, but the views were really fantastic!
Te Matawai was a bigger hut, there was another group of six people who we had met before and we all had plenty of space.