Paparoa track - Ces Clark Hut to Moonlight Tops Hut for New Years

 I awoke at 5am to a stunning sunrise. It seemed rude not to lie in my sleeping bag and just watch the rich reds and oranges spread over the eastern horizon and the mountains in the distance slowly turn from grey silhouettes to having depth and shadow. 

Slowly others stirred. Suzanne emerged to take photos and then disappeared again. 

7am, long after sunrise

I got breakfast and coffee on and brought Angela breakfast in bed to murmurings of jealousy from our hut mates. Breakfast is instant scrambled eggs in a wrap, with extra salami for me. (I tried serving up the leftover instant scrambled eggs when we got back - it was not a popular decision. It's pretty good - but compared to the real thing, not so good.)

The older group headed off super early. Their plan was to get to Moonlight hut, then an hour or so past, and then back again to Ces Clark today.  A long long day! They'd been here earlier and saw nothing but murky insides of clouds, so were repeating the journey to get the views this time.

We were off by 8:20am and thirty minutes later reached the side trip to Croesus Knob. Dropped packs and headed up, along with the group of friends (Seb, Brendan and three women we never got the names of). A fairly steep and ill defined track got us to the top with spectacular views. (I think DOC will need to form and mark the track - the ridge face will get hammered if all of us make our own route up and down.) 

Setting off

I guess this is the top

stunning

ridgeline stretches off

Paparazzi

We carried on along the main track, getting passed by a steady stream of bikers - most in their granny gears, some walking the steeper bits. The track is amazing. Plenty of viz so no issue with bikes and trampers clashing. A great gradient and surface for biking, some fist sized rocks to bounce over but really nicely done to keep the gradient steady and gradual. 

The wind was a bit fresh so the jackets came out

This looks like so much fun!

Onward

Hello Angela

I love these trees, they look straight out of Dr Seuss

We stopped for 'elevenses' an hour out from our destination, on a grey rock slide. 

We reached Moonlight Tops hut at the stroke of noon. The "1km to hut" marker seems to give me implausible energy so I ran ahead, dropped my pack and came back to walk with Angela and carry her pack. Better not make that a precedent.

The hut was impressive. "Hut" isn't really the right word for it. Brand new, with lighting, USB charge points, gas hobs and plenty of space. Two bunkrooms (an 8-bunker and a 16-bunker) and a spacious lounge. Deck space front and rear.

Mansion

Luxury

Soon who should turn up but Sharron's running buddy David, for a water stop, hut log book entry and onward. He was puzzled why Sharron hadn't written in the log book too since he was sure he was behind her.

Then half an hour later, this was explained by Sharron appearing. Again, a quick water refill, a line in the hut log book and off again. They're doing our 4 day hike in just 1 day. Makes me tired thinking about it.

Slowly but surely, the entire hut headed off for Nana Naps. That left Trevor and me with nothing to do. So we went off exploring. We headed up the track and down the Moonlight track. Advertised as a shared walk/bike path, it rapidly turned into a boggy route with no defined track. No way to bike this! And if you did, you'd cut waist-deep grooves through the wetland. Looks like it's a 'carry your bike' route for a km or two before anything rideable emerges.

We wandered down as far as the bushline where it looks like a 'proper track' starts; though looking at the map I think that's false hope, it rapidly gets steep down to the historic hut where the actual track begins. Great little explore though.

Coming back, around 3pm, we bumped into two blokes from the older group, on their way back. They'd made it a long way past Moonlight Tops Hut and were cheerfully wandering back. Still many hours to go to get back to Ces Clark. But lots of daylight to do it in. They'll sleep well tonight!

A little excitement now - after chatting to the somnambulant Angela, I noticed a waft of smoke outside the room. Did someone have a candle lit? Then the smoke got denser and I realised that one of the USB sockets was pouring greyish smoke. Gah! I quickly unplugged everybody's devices. Before I could react much more, there were two loud bangs and the socket stopped smoking. Hmm. Seems the problem solved itself and something inside the socket played 'fuse' to sort the issue out.

Still, we worked out where the fire extinguisher was, and kept a close eye on the socket.

Now it was time for dinner. Malaysian Curry for Angela, and I traded with Janine to have venison stew instead. Verdict: the malaysian curry is the worst of the backcountry vegetarian meals - it's mostly rice and blandness. The venison stew is alright, especially with extra seasonings - I'd learned my lesson and brought chili flakes and cajun seasoning to throw into every meal. 

The can of ginger beer tastes extra good when you've carried it for two days

Followed by chocolate steamed pudding with Janine's custard. The custard made it better, but it was very, very sweet and didn't really taste like custard at all. At least it moved from a 3/10 to a 5/10 I reckon. 

Another couple had turned up, and the fact that their dinner was home made burgers accompanied by pinot noir in glass mini-bottles didn't help us appreciate our dehydrated boiled food too much.

We amused ourself by taking selfies using the new big thing that's usurped 'duck face' which is 'horse face'. At least we believed Janine when she told us this, after at least an hour of idiocy she admitted that her and a friend had made it up.

Neigh!

Then onto games night, and bananagrams. This really showed me that thinking had become really, really hard as I struggled to make the sea of letters in front of me join into anything coherent. We even had Angela playing though I think we wore out her tolerance for group games by the end.

And then, abruptly, I realised that everybody had slipped off to bed with the exception of me and Janine. Travesty! There are two rules of new years eve - you stay up until midnight, and you always have it in a different place. (That last one is just me I feel).   

What to do now? It was only 9pm or so! We went for a walk to fill in some time - again heading out towards the Moonlight track. The mist had come down over the hut and it was damp and atmospheric. The mist cleared to let us see stars, as we moved away from the little gully that the hut was in. We could hear ruru and kiwi and other wildlife calling to each other as we walked. It was atmospheric and beautiful.

We got back to the still, quiet hut and snuck out to the front deck to avoid disturbing others. Janine had rum and I had whisky. We sat and chatted in the wet mist until 11:50pm when it was time to wake up the others. Angela sleepily emerged but Allyson played dead and didn't stir for me. Angela got an emphatic 'NO!' from her when she tried.

At the crack of midnight Janine cranked up the 'Auld Lang Syne" but inadvertently picked the Boney M version. Which was slightly surreal. It was followed by the Rod Stewart version which was a bit more appropriate. Anyway we all hugged and kissed and saw in the new year.

Now we were all awake, and Angela in particular wanted to go do something before we went back to bed. So off we set for a 1am walk. Janine had her red light head-torch which meant that we disturbed the wildlife less. And that paid off after a while when a kiwi ran across the path in front of her. It headed into scrub and Angela and I heard it blundering around in the scrub for ages. Alas it didn't emerge. But we "saw" it wandering about the scrub.

We all finally sloped off to bed around 2am - certainly a different New Years that we'll remember for ever.