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Te Araroa

20.4. Windy day!

Today we started hiking from the Old Man Hut with the intention to reach the Starveall Hut. For his tramp we needed to cross a few peaks: Old Man, Slaty Peak and Mt. Starveall. It was a beautiful hike and we had good views at all times. Unfortunately, it was just quite windy and at one time, the wind even blew me over and I fell on the ground.

Beautiful view but it was really windy

The Old Man Hut was a little bit off trek. Yesterday, we descended quite a bit from the ridge to reach the hut and these were exactly the meters we needed to climb up again today. Once we were on the ridge, we followed it towards Old Man. On top of the 1514m peak, we enjoyed a good view. Nevertheless, it was quite windy! And it seemed like the wind would increase even more… We continued our hike and crossed the Ada Flats. Here, the wind just blew me over and I fell on the ground! A little bit later, we seeked shelter behind a big boulder to be out of the bad weather for a little while.

The trail towards Old Man
On the top of Old Man!
Ada Flats
Windy!
Getting shelter from the wind  🙂

We more crossed the Slaty peak than climbing it. The trail followed the flank of the mountain and a little bit later, we arrived at the Slaty Hut. We sat down in the hut and had lunch here.

The last steps towards Slaty Hut
Lunch in the Slaty Hut

With our bellies filled, we continued hiking on the trail. The next big ascent was Mt. Starveall. As we were on the top, we were done with hiking uphill for today 😊. From here on, it was only going downhill! So it didn’t take long until we reached the Starveall Hut. When we arrived, nobody was there. A little bit later, 2 hunters joined us.

Starveall Hut
Cooking over the fire in the Starveall Hut