The Good Life
Greg Dixon
It was about the time I found myself clinging to a fence post, eyes clamped shut and teeth gritted, that I finally remembered: tramping isn’t for sooks.
For most of the first morning on Wairarapa’s Tora Coastal Walk, I’d been rather enjoying myself. I’d been the last of our party of 10 to leave Whakapata Cottage, the pre-walk accommodation, hoping forlornly that, by leaving later, the swirling wind and misty rain might have cleared a little.
It hadn’t. But once I was out in it and pushing up splashy farm tracks and ducking under dripping kānuka, I quickly rediscovered the forgotten thrill of tramping with the elements against you. Wind may blow and rain may pelt, but having a clear path, a place to get to and great views always makes for a good walk. Even my aching ankle and dicky ticker seemed to be whistling happy tunes.
However, a couple of hours later, as I ambled up and onto the narrow, exposed, fence-line walk that dominates the second half of the first day of the tramp, the elements evidently decided I wasn’t taking them seriously enough.
The southwesterly wind, which had certainly been strong and cold all morning, now became a howling, screaming, caterwauling gale, with sudden gusts – some well over 90km/h – threatening to toss me off my feet and blow me from the ridge into the paddocks below.
I improvised. At first, when a gust threatened to have its way with me, I braced myself with my walking pole and crouched down, making sure to hold onto my glasses. Then, I tried getting down on all fours, still holding onto my glasses. Eventually, I clamped my eyes shut, gritted my teeth and held onto that fence post, all the while clutching my glasses.
This worked all right, but did nothing to stop icy needles of rain stinging my face and hands, though my greater concern was that, each time I stopped for a few minutes to brace myself against the tempest, I could feel my temperature dropping like a stone.
Eventually, it dawned on me that someone might get into trouble out in such high winds and biting rain, and that someone might be me. My natural inclination was to panic.
But as I said, tramping isn’t for sissies. So instead – between clinging to fence posts and crouching and bracing – I moved forward as quickly as I could, eventually and gratefully arriving an hour later at Stony Bay Lodge, the accommodation for night two. I had a windburned face, but also the exhilarating sense of having survived one hell of a test in a wind tunnel.
What a relief. And more, still, when Frankie, my mate, who likes to walk at her own gentle pace, arrived – minus a beanie blown off her head – at the lodge, safe and well, about an hour later.
Not long after, another of our party arrived in a frozen and panicked state to report that her friend was very cold, too, and still on the ridge – someone actually was in trouble, and there were two others behind her who were yet to be accounted for.
The Tora is a private walk; it’s $505 for the three days, including good tucker and transport of your bags, and it’s owned by two local farming families. After hurried phone calls to one, search parties were dispatched by both.
As we waited in front of the fire at the lodge for news, we lucky few were all desperately worried, but
I’ll spare you the same: within an hour, all were safely off the hill.
Over wine and dinner that night and the next – after a marvellously fine day two – our party of 10 couldn’t help replaying our hairy experiences on the ridge, marvelling at the wind, but also wondering if we’d been given fair warning of the forecast.
The subtext of all that was this: scary wind and stingy rain on high ridge lines weren’t what they’d thought they were paying for. But I couldn’t help thinking: the worse the weather, the better the story – so don’t be a sook.
Someone actually was in trouble, and two others were yet to be accounted for.