Tuesday 11-2-10

We woke to all the yahoos fumbling about the hut and we both decided to wake up slow and stay in our bunk until most of the people had cooked and eaten breakfast and were out of our way.  Hearing the conversations though made me anxious as everyone was commenting on how beautiful it was outside.  After pulling ourselves out of the warm down bag into the cold mountain air we were both excited to see nothing but blue sky, big mountains and sunshine!  We ate a good breakfast and prepared to climb Mt. Perry for a 360 deg view of our surroundings.  The mountain hike got us about 1200 feet above where the hut sat and provided incredible views of numerous peaks, the downs, the Tasman Sea, Golden Bay, the valley we had hiked up and everything in-between.  It was a perfect view point and with not a cloud in the sky, we sat up there for about 45 minutes just soaking it in.  We then headed down to get going on our hike out to Brown River Hut. 

you can see the hut we stayed in the night before in the saddle below

Same type of "Down" grasses

As we started out trek down the mountain a helicopter came up the valley and landed right beside the hut, must be hut supplies we thought.  Mike our hut warden from the night before had packed out that morning and we figured this was his replacement.  When we reached the hut  there was no hut warden but we figured he would be up in his own hut, there were however two Australian women sitting there who were part of a large group heading up and in a round a bout way made it seem like they had scooted up the trail in about 2 hours and asked us to tell their friends they'd be making the beds for them.  We were both impressed, these ladies are animals, they flew up that trail! We chatted for a second then grabbed our packs and headed down.  

The way down was fast going but we both felt the 20 kms from the day before and the mountain we'd just hiked.  We whistled and whistled at the parrot area and think we may have heard them but they were not interested today and did not show themselves.  After a couple of hours we heard quads in the distance and came upon Ivan the new hut warden and his boss on quads heading up the trail… wait a second, "weren't you in the helicopter?!?!" nope turns out the helicopter had been hired by the Aussies because the had blisters from doing the Abel Tasman…. Posers!  After another hour or so we came across the other 7 Aussies hiking up to the hut, the tough ones!  

Got to Browns River Hut about 4pm set up the tent without the rain fly and both lounged around snoozing and reading for the rest of the afternoon.  The sandflies were all over the outside of the tent, it was a little bit scary how many and how persistent these guys are.  Browns Hut was great to sleep in, it only had a fire place so it was cold but there was no wind or rats under the floor and we both slept well.