Walking Through the Grey

Well, it finally arrived. A wet day.

The rain had been patient with us through this section, offering grey skies and mist on the Abel Tasman but largely holding back its full force during the alpine crossings where it would have made dangerous terrain genuinely treacherous. We had been lucky, and we knew it. But luck has its limits, and today the weather collected what it was owed. The rain came down steadily from a sky that had no texture, no variation, just a uniform grey ceiling pressed low against the mountain tops, erasing the peaks and filling the valley with a cold, persistent downpour that found every gap in clothing and every seam in resolve.

Seventeen kilometres to cover. Not the longest day we had walked, but distance measured in rain feels different from distance measured in sunshine. Every kilometre stretches itself out, every rest stop becomes a negotiation between the need to pause and the knowledge that stopping means getting colder, and the trail underfoot transforms from firm ground into a series of puddles and mud and small streams that have no business being where a path should be.

Graham headed off early, as had become his habit, slipping out of Anne Hut while the morning was still dark and the rain was drumming steadily on the roof. His quiet, methodical approach to the trail meant he preferred the solitude of an early start, covering ground at his own measured pace, and we had learned to trust that we would find him at the other end, already settled in, probably with a cup of tea in hand. We followed a bit later, pulling on rain jackets and pack covers with the resigned acceptance of people who know they are about to spend the next several hours wet and cold and that no amount of waterproof technology will entirely prevent it.

The trail wound through the valley, the river beside us swollen and discoloured with the runoff from the hills above, its voice louder and more urgent than it had been the day before. The rain drove into our faces on the exposed stretches and dripped from every branch and leaf on the forested sections, creating a constant percussion that filled the world from every direction. The beauty of the valley was still there, we could sense it in the shapes of the mountains and the sweep of the grasslands, but it was hidden behind veils of grey, like a painting viewed through frosted glass.

We stopped in at Rokeby Hut for a quick break from the wind and rain. The small shelter offered four walls and a roof and the simple mercy of being out of the weather for a few minutes, and we took it gratefully. We were both cold, that deep, damp cold that settles into the core when wet clothing presses against skin and the wind strips away whatever warmth the body tries to generate. We stood inside the hut and let the shivering ease, wringing water from gloves and adjusting layers, eating a few mouthfuls of trail food for the calories our bodies were burning just to stay warm. It was a brief stop, not long enough to truly dry out or warm up, but enough to reset the mind and remind the legs that there was a destination ahead and a fire waiting at the end of it.

We continued our push on through the rain, heads down, hoods up, the world reduced to the few metres of muddy trail ahead and the sound of water in all its forms, falling from the sky, running across the ground, dripping from the canopy, rushing in the river beside us. Conversation was minimal, each of us retreating into the private endurance that wet-weather hiking demands, the internal monologue of one foot then the next, the quiet bargaining with discomfort that gets you through the kilometres when the joy of the landscape has been temporarily washed away.

And then Boyle Flat Hut appeared through the rain, and even before we reached the door, we could smell it. Wood smoke. Someone had a fire going. We stepped inside and the warmth hit us like an embrace, that glorious, enveloping heat of a backcountry hut with a fire burning in its belly, and the relief was so immediate and so complete it was almost dizzying. Graham was there, settled in with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had once again arrived first and made himself useful, the fire crackling in the grate, the hut already warm and welcoming.

We hung our gear up to dry as best it could, draping wet jackets and socks and shirts over every available surface near the fire, the hut quickly taking on the appearance of a laundry and the smell of damp fabric slowly steaming in the heat. The fire hissed and popped as droplets fell from hanging clothes onto the hot metal, and the windows fogged with condensation, sealing us inside a small, warm world while the rain continued its work outside.

We knew that tomorrow's final walk out to Boyle Village would also be in the rain. The forecast offered no reprieve, no last-day sunshine to send us off in glory. We would finish this section as we had walked today, wet and cold and determined, and there was a certain honesty in that. The trail does not arrange its weather for dramatic effect or narrative satisfaction. It gives what it gives, and the walker's only choice is how to meet it. We had met it today with our heads down and our feet moving, and tomorrow we would do the same.

The fire burned on, the rain fell, and the last night of this section settled around us in the warmth of Boyle Flat Hut. One more day. One more walk. And then the first chapter of the Te Araroa would be behind us.Read more