A 5am start is sometimes what you need…
Planning a day in the mountains takes me a few days, what to
do, where to go and how to do it. Weather checks, gear checks and food prep.
Making sure everything is ready and easy to access. GPS charged, do I have the
right map?
All of this figured out the days mission was selected, Mount
Arthur, Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand. Aim was to complete a 25km loop
in a short time as possible.
Waking up in the inky blackness of 5am, with the sounds of
waves crashing onto the nearby beach, I bundled up my sleeping back, made a
quick flask of coffee and a tub of sticky thick porridge. From my location in
Marahau (close to the Abel Tasman National Park) I had to drive for 1 hour to
Flora saddle.
Country lanes in New Zealand are fun to drive, but in the
pitch black of 5am, blurry eyed and sleep deprived they are not as fun! Dodging around hopping
hares and narrowly missing a pouncing possum I met with a gravel track. 4x4
mode engaged I started to climb. Flora saddle carpark sits at 1000m above sea
level, the road goes straight up. Nearly all the way excessive vibrations from
the undulating road travelling up through my arms. Worth it, as the distant
sunlight started to lip the tops of the mountains across the bay. EYES BACK ON
THE ROAD. Up and up the road winds, until satisfied that enough height has been
gained, you reach the carpark.
Remembering the 5 P’s (Prior Preparation Prevents Poor
Performance) I necked the coffee, scoffed the now cold porridge, threw on my
pack and started my GPS tracker. Fell shoes tied tight I pounded into the bush
along the well-marked track.
There is something magical about the bush at 6am, the birds
newly arisen from slumber announcing there morning calls. The light cutting its
way through trees mottled by leaves, by a red sun as it rises from behind
distant mountains. Very few insects as the cold morning air clings to the dense
foliage.
The track, being a long up hill is easy to cruse at this
point, settling into a loping rhythm, I started to pace uphill along the track.
Dense beech forest waxing and waning into sections of podocarp, giving a
feeling of being in Jurassic park: damp ferns, big flightless Weka and impenetrable
forest.
40 minutes into the run you reach Mount Arthur hut, I found
no signs of life here so I kept on up the hill. A Short stint later the forest
gave way to an alpine landscape. A strange feeling of being at home over comes
me here; it’s like the trails of most Welsh mountains, tracks and path cutting their
way through grassy tussocks. “Dropping gear” and knowing I can travel faster in
this environment, a fresh breeze cooling my skin, I ran hard. Following the
trail this way and that along a wide ridgeline into a cloud bank.
As I look to the side away from my hammering feet I spy a
ghostly visage in the mist. Wreathed in a rainbow is my own ghostly shadow,
massive as the sunlight bends around my body through the cloud and onto the
mist below me. Fascinating, this natural phenomena known as a Broken Spectre or
Mountain Ghost, is seldom seen.
The ghost fades into nothing.
I run on!
The land changes again, alpine tussocks start to give up and
bare rock and stone start to show as I reach the limits of altitude they can
survive. This place is not devoid of life it is just different, smaller plants
cling to niches in rocks that you wouldn’t believe possible, attempting to fix nitrogen
from thing soils and rocks. Symbiotic cohabitation from lichens, mosses and
tiny pioneer species of plants with tiny flowers. I will be back, I think, to
study you later!
Quickly now the summit approaches, the 450 Million year old
Limestone bulk of the mountain now bared to the sky. Cracks, divots appear as I
cross the top of a dissolved area of karst, stretching out below me a dangerous
mix of sink holes and ridges, a place not safe for human feet.
Up and up a little scrambling and then I look back.
STUNNING, UNBELIEVABLE and BREATHTAKING, cloud flows, over the ridge-line I
have just come from. Up from the Tasman Bay the warming air of the morning was
slowly lifting the cloud up and over the mountains and drawing it back down
into the cooler mountain air. This flow of clouds is something to behold,
something special, something I will never forget. I watch and draw in breathe, turn and run. I
must get to the summit to see this.
10 minutes of hard pacing I arrive, elation, 1795m elevation!
The cool mountain air soothing my burning lungs. 1 hour and 45 minutes of pacing
hard and the reward: endless views.
To the East
cloud filled bay with Nunatak-like peaks on the far side of the bay over
Nelson City.
To the West endless views towards the West Coast, not sign of the
sea for hundreds of pinnacles block the horizon.
To the South large ridge lines halt the
procession of the rising cloud like a dam.
To the North the cloud penetrates
the ridge and flows of cloud cascade down into the basin below me.
I rang my wife (hahahaha yes signal here!). It was hard to
express my elation!
Chill air started to hit me here, no time to wait in this environment.
In little clothing waiting around too long is seldom wise. About turn I faced
and ran down. I love running down, as my brother use to say gravity is my friend!
Leaping from rock to rock I pounded the trail down into the flowing cloud along
the way I had come until a junction.
This back tracking was in aid of avoiding the area of sink
holes, now that I had reached this junction I headed west, in among the tussocks
and long grass of the alpine foothills. Poles out for some support to my tiring
legs I powered on towards my next goal Gordon's Pyramid, 1489m. Undulating up
and down the path tracked through the mist, until I see two ghostly shapes…two…well
this isn’t a form of nature. Two Spanish chaps, been up in the hills for a week
hiking, big packs on and looking nice and wrapped up in full Goretex. Feeling a
little under dressed to be stood around, they quizzed me on the path ahead and
I the same. Seems Gordon's pyramid might take longer than I had planned, 1 hour
they said… “I better get a crack on I thought”. Scoffing a load of trail mix I
said my good byes and dropped gear once again. 35 minutes later I crested the
summit of Gordon's pyramid, renewed as I left the cloud behind me and took in
endless views to the East.
Abrupt north turn off the Summit I double checked my
bearings and started to run along the ridge line down and down heading towards
the bush and the Cloustons Mine Track. Back into beech forest I ran, the sound
of birds reverberating through the trees as I paced it on and down. And down
and on and down and on and down and on and down. Jesus this path was never
ending. After 4km which felt like 6km I popped out onto the Flora Hut Track,
this massive wide path, suitable for a 4x4 was easy travelling but I was
shattered! I had dropped to 800m and was on about 20km my car was up over 1000m
and 5km away. I was stalwart and pushed on, my pace not quite running now but a
steady canter up hill, fending of pain and fatigue. I reached the carpark 5
hours after leaving, the warmth of the day starting to kick in.
I had found peace on the mountainside and I knew that Kahurangi
National Park had raised itself up into my top places in New Zealand and dare I
say it in the world? I will be back, as in Maori, Kahurangi is loosely
translated as “Treasured Place”.
