"I'm telling you, the hut's just around the next bend"

Howdy peeps. In the last few days I've completed the Routeburn Track (and half of the Greenstone, more of which later), and been out for a cruise on Milford Sound. Both were stunning - the weather as we crossed the Harris Saddle on the Routeburn was as clear as you could ask for - and at some point I'll post a few choice snaps of each. You lucky, lucky people.

For now, though, I want to tell a tale from the last day on the Routeburn.

At the start of the track I met Danny of Heaphy Track fame, and two girls that we'd met in Franz Josef. They'd not done any tramping in New Zealand, had heard of the fabled alpine scenery on this track and signed up. Danny - who seems to be on a mission to misinform as many people as possible in NZ, telling anyone who'll listen that only 6 people have ever climbed Mt. Cook - told them there were pots and pans in all of the track huts, and so they didn't have any of those. They didn't have their own stove. They didn't have quite enough food for what they wanted to do (a 5 day combination of the Routeburn and Greenstone) and they didn't - sweet fancy Moses - they didn't have sleeping bags. One had a 'snuggle sack' - ie, a sleeping bag liner - and the other had some blankets out of her car. For the first two days, we took it in turns to use my billy can to cook our oh-so-delightful noodles, and at nights Danny and I dug into our packs and produced Polartec sweaters for them to wear to bed.

On day three, Danny walked to the Divide at the end of the track, and hitched a ride to Te Anau. I had a very short day, having been grossly misinformed about the time required to get from Mackenzie Hut to the end and thinking I'd need a night at Howden Hut, one hour from the Divide, in order to make my 11 o'clock bus to Milford Sound. The girls - call them Jane and Jill - had decided to walk to the second hut on the Greenstone rather than the first, thanks to their food situation and the fact that the O.C. was on on Friday night.

We arrived at Howden Hut at 10.30, and Danny set off for the Divide. I dropped my pack off at the hut, had a muesli bar and then started walking the Greenstone with Jane and Jill, slightly concerned about the fact that they still had about 7 hours of walking ahead of them. To try and set a decent pace I helped with their packs, carrying one for an hour or so and then the other. This behaviour was not - honest guv'nor - due to any sleazy, sexist or even gallant motivation. The fact was that they were giving me a lift to Te Anau on Sunday, so I had a vested interest in getting them to the hut safely (transport to Te Anau is bloody pricey). At the first hut on the Greenstone, we spoke to a lady walking in the other direction who'd taken nine hours to reach it from the hut we were aiming for. Urk. We grabbed the bags and set off at a quicker pace.

I finally left them at around 2.30. We'd been walking for over four hours and I hadn't brought my torch and so needed to get back to my hut by sunset. By our calculations they had about three hours of walking left. I waved them off and started jogging back the way I'd come.

The first bit of guilt kicked in when I made it back to the Howden hut at five o'clock. I could've easily walked with them for another 45 minutes or so, giving one of them more time without a pack and getting them a bit nearer to the hut. Bugger. I spoke to a guy who had a Greenstone map, a proper map with distances on the tracks rather than estimated times - damn the DOC trackmaps - and realised that where I'd left them was still about 11km from the hut. I think I was slightly delirious from lack of food - nothing but an energy drink and that fucking muesli bar all day - but I started to panic then, convinced that they'd never make it to the hut in time, the sun was nearly down and they had 11km to walk (in my state I completely forgot the 2.5 hours it had taken me to get back, which of course they'd hopefully spent progressing along the track). It was only after I'd eaten my dinner that I calmed down. Of course they'd made it. Two and a half hours from when I left them, and another hour and half until the sun went down. No problem.

The next day I strolled over to the Divide, caught my bus and spent the day at Milford Sound. I got back to my hostel in Queenstown that evening and checked in. As the chap behind the counter swiped my credit card, I glanced at the visitor's book. The top two names on the latest page were Jane's and Jill's - hurrah, they made it! A knot in my stomach that I'd barely even noticed suddenly loosened. Then I looked at the last field in the book - 'What's the scariest thing ever?'

Jane had written 'tramping'. Jill had written 'sleeping out in the forest for a night'. Oh fuck. Surely not - had to be a joke.

"Excuse me, what room are these two in?"
"Number 26 mate, next door to you."

I dropped off my bag and went next door. Jill answered.

"You didn't, did you?" I asked.
"We're never going tramping ever again. Jane can't walk anymore from blisters, she had to borrow someone's sandals to get to the end of the track."
"Jesus Christ," I said, frantically checking my memory to see if I'd ever told them about the Heaphy shenanigans. "What happened?"
"We got to a junction at 5 o'clock that said the Greenstone hut was two hours away, but we took the wrong fork. We ended up wading through a river because we thought we saw a hut - the water was up to our waists - and then the sun went down and we were off the track in the middle of the forest."
"Fucking hell."
"We built a fire and put on every piece of clothing we had, and had to sleep in the woods for the night. We were both crying all the time and thank God we had yours and Danny's sweaters. We got to the hut in the morning and this woman gave us some of her food, and then we walked straight on to the end. We're never tramping again, we thought we were going to die."
"Holy shit."

Morals to draw from this story:

The Scouts are right.
Don't let helpful bag carriers leave you before they absolutely have to.
If you're feeling guilty about something, there's probably a bloody good reason.
The O.C. is not worth dying for.
Eat more than a muesli bar unless you want to stagger back to Howden hut in a slightly manic state, face muddied and clothes ripped from the occasional lurches into the bush that come from dramatically weakened legs.
You don't need to stay at Howden hut to get to the Divide before 11.