Monday 11-1-10

Woke up early and after packing and a good breakfast of everything left in our cooler we headed to Somerset Hostile for the owner Chris to give us a ride to the trailhead.  Once there we loaded our packs into Chris's Mitsubishi Montero and headed down the 30km gravel road all the while getting question after question from Chris on American politics and just bizarre stuff; "Is Obama a muslum?", "Some say he is secretly plotting with Islamic militants?", "whats wrong with everyone having health care?", etc, etc.   After that Chris explained the NZ government very quietly, we could understand about half of it, and explained how he left the UK because their gov was terrible.  At one point he took us down a side road for a couple minutes (neither of us knew we were going in the wrong direction) out to the random bridge in the middle of no were an explained how it was a prime example of the problems with big government… bridge to nowhere maybe, not really sure?  Neither of us could quite pick up what he was saying, he then quickly did a u-turn and headed back the right way.  He also explained at one point just after we had driven down into a steep gully forded a river which he "sometime wont cross" because it is too dangerous, that we could had have just driven our van out here if we were heading back down the same way.  There is no chance the van would have made it down that road but we both just nodded, yea, yea!  Anyways after about an hour drive up the valley we got the trailhead.

The hike was uneventful for the first couple hours, we hiked steadily up through typical NZ forest complete with fern trees and different types of pod carp and beech trees.  After about 3 hours of hiking we came to a shelter along the trail and stopped for lunch.  It was a beautiful spot, the sun was out and there was a nice lady Pam from Palmerston North there, very rough around the edges with a kinda deep voice, rough personality and looks, she reminded us of what Calamity Jane must have looked/acted like, she was very nice though.  After about a half hour of sunning and eating Pam's friend Peter showed up, we had passed him on the trail earlier, and we struck up a good conversation with them.  At one point there was a loud bird noise that we had not heard before and Pam mentioned she thought it was a parrot.  After a good lunch we set out again.

About 5 minutes up the trail from lunch I saw some shadows flying in the trees and wondered what it was that seemed to be flying along beside us, maybe even following us.  Next thing a green and red bird fly's right by me about 20 feet out and lands just infront of where Shabree is on the trail, we both were shocked and realized it is a parrot.  We stop and check it out while it (Shabree named him Polly) is doing the same to us, next thing you know the Polly's buddy shows up (we'll call her Ariel) and they are both checking us out.  I start whistling at Paully while Ariel is over on the branch cleaning herself and pretending not to be interested, Polly looks confused for a minute then to both of our (me and Shabree's, not me and Ariel's) surprise Polly starts talking back, answering my lame whistles with a perfect mimic of my tune followed by a string of ultra complex noises I could never make, and he knew it!  It was SO cool.  We sat there filming him, talking back and forth for a couple minutes till they both got bored and flew off.  It was so amazing to see something like that in the wild.

The last part of our hike after the parrots went quick, after about an hour of more steady uphill hiking we reached Perry Saddle Hut just as the fog was setting in.  As we rolled up all the sleeping pads from inside were outside laying all around the hut, we came in the door and the hut warden Mike was busy cleaning.  He explained how it had just been sunny and clear a couple minutes ago and had washed the pads and laid them out to dry, he then put on hot water for us and started the fire in the wood stove as we helped bring in the pads from the misting fog, this guy was alright!  We sat around and talked to Mike for an hour or so then Pam and her crew showed up.  We all conversed for a while then Shabree and I headed down for a little hike to check out the "downs" since we were not doing the full tramp as most of these people would be hiking through them the entire next day.  As we we were heading out and alone we both could not stop laughing at the conversation between all the kiwi's we had just heard, as kiwi's tell stories they fill in the gaps with "yea, yea", kinda like yeah but with emphasis on the e(really hard), not the a.  Also when kiwi's are listening to stories they let you know by giving a deeply contemplating look with "yea, yea, yea" every couple of sentences.  It was so fun to listen the the whole hut conversing with "ummmm, yea, yea" and "yea, yea" being the majority of the words spoken, we decided we are buying a mini recorder!

The downs are an alpine grassland with all these crazy plants that don't grow anywhere else and a major part of what this tramp is known for.   The fog had set in heavy by the time we made the downs but the landscape with its white rock, and brightly colored plants was really cool, it seamed to glow in the fog and mist. We were both exhausted by now after having packed in for 4 hours uphill and gone on another 1 hour hike so decided to head back for dinner.  

Arriving at the hut we found a whole guided group had arrived.  The guided crew was run by MaryAnn who was on top of her game, cooking sausages, vegetables and potatoes for dinner and she knew everything about the plants and animals on our trip, her son, a worker who had helped carry up food and some random kiwi's and one transvestite guy from Australia who was a jerk.  Turns out talking to Mike the hut warden and MaryAnne the parrots we saw are the Kaka and are endangered mountain parrots related the the common Kea's which we have not seen yet but are common further south.  It was a cozy night with an almost full cabin but we had a top set of bunks to ourselves and we slept well.

In the middle of the night I had to pee and as I went outside the mountain sky way totally clear without he southern constellations so bright above, I thought, "no way, is this a sign of what tomorrow will be… chill out go to sleep, don't jinx yourself"…zzzzzzzz