Sunday 19 March: Weather 10°C to 15°C cool and a bit overcast
Collingwood to Perry Saddle Hut: 17.5k walk
Accommodation: Perry Saddle Hut
Early morning start Collingwood
Highlight of the day was the incredibly well graded 17.5k track up such a long gradual gradient it didn’t feel like an ascent of 800 metres to Perry Saddle.
Up at 7am, we pack, shower, and have a beautiful breakfast on the patio with the same magnificent view over Golden Bay from Herron’s Rest. We then a walk down to the village to await the 9.45am bus. It’s cold and the warmest place is in the Collingwood museum where the cabinet lights provide a bit of heating. The bus arrives with a collection of trampers and 30 minutes later we’re at the car park at the start of the Heaphy track. We meet a family who had also stayed at Herron’s Rest in the cottage below us. They were dropping off their son Stefan with a back pack full of untested camping gear to walk the Heaphy Track .
Start of Heathy Track
Occasional Views
Short coffee stop - with sandflies
Aorere Shelter - lunch with sandflies
Views over mountains - no snow
View from Perry Saddle
Setting out at 10.30am we’re soon at Brown’s Hut, where sometimes walkers on the Heaphy track stay for the first night before setting off in the morning. Then instead of a steep climb up to Perry’s Saddle, we’re amazed that the gradient is so slight, as though you’re not walking uphill at all. It’s only a gradient of about 1:200 metres, not the 1:10 metres we’re often do in the French Alps. It’s a pretty walk through dry forest and at 12pm , about half way up, we stop for a coffee on a bench seat with a view across the mountains devoid of snow. Anika, a tramper who arrived on the same bus as us, is there and we chat for a while. She is on a mission to see as much of New Zealand as she can in the shortest possible time and is doing the Heaphy track in 3 days, not 5.
The sandflies chase us on again, and slowly we walk up to the Aorere Shelter where there’s a gathering of people - some going up, some coming down, some staying the night as it’s also a camp site. Lunch is a cup of tea with raisin bread left over from our breakfast. We don’t stop for long - the dreaded sandflies are out in force.
Just another 5k and we’re at the Perry Saddle Hut at 4pm. We’re the first to arrive and in 1 minute have selected the best bunks - low down and away from doorways is good. I’ve checked out the washroom - there’s no showers in DOC huts - and at Perry Saddle there’s not even a wash room so we improvise with hot water in our silicon kitchen sink up behind the rangers hut.
Dinner of onion, tomato, dehydrated mince with wine carried in our coke bottles. Early to bed - there’s not much to do when the lights go out about 9pm.