Long Hilly Track to Martins Hut

The Long Hilly and Water Race tracks were smooth going!  (At least the segments which were in good repair.)  The track today wound through some cool damp woods all day, and excepting the first 10 minutes of the hike, I didn't see another soul until I made it to the hut.  There was a sprinkling of rain off and on, and even when it wasn't raining, the cloud cover and deep woods kept things pretty dark.

For 20k of the hike, I was traipsing alongside and occasionally across a 5-7 foot deep trench dug by Chinese gold miners.  20k dug out of mud ages ago, and it's still holding up perfectly!  Those were some hard-working guys.  The stream and water race crossings were about 50% unbridged, so my quads and knees finally got some climbing workouts.  In sketchier news, there were plenty of crossings where I'd be at least 6 ft above the stream/water race/muddy crevasse, with one bendy sapling bridging the two sides, no way to climb down into the pit and climb back up the other side, and so I engaged in the old favorite, chuck-your-pack-across-and-take-a-running-leap.  There were also a bunch of blow-downs for me to navigate today.  Huge trees would block the path, and I'd scramble over and through some woody, spiky brush.  It certainly required all four limbs, and I'm exceedingly glad that I stuck with my GoreTex shell rather than looking for something lighter.  

Even with the rain today, my feet and ankles are feeling stronger.  I ended up at the hut after crossing the non-terrifying, non-swollen creek I've heard so much about and climbing the world's longest mud pit, ahem, a forest road up to the smoky, smoldering little fire Sam & Ann had built in a quaint and rather dilapidated hut.  I've heard about and seen pictures of many nice New Zealand backcountry huts.  This is not one of those.  But it is still kind of cute, and I won't complain about a roof to keep the rain off my head tonight (even if it does come streaming through under the walls).