Greenstone and Caples Tracks
Type: Loop
Time Spent: 3 nights 4 days backpacking
Distance: 60 km (37- miles)
Elevation change: 4225 meters (approximately 6800 feet)
<Day2>
Mckellar Hut to Mid Caples Hut via Greenstone Hut
37 km (23 miles), 396 meters (1300 feet) elevation gain
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| hedge hog |
This day the hike started in the rain forest. While I was walking peacefully in the quiet forest....oops I almost stepped on the hedgehog! Camouflage. Cute! I stopped and took a picture. He seemed to be surprised as well and he slowly walked into the fern area in the forest. Maybe the trail is easier for them to walk.
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| Rain Forest |
Early in the morning, the rain forest is very wet and quiet. It was really peaceful. The wet trail didn't make any sound by stepping on, so it was completely quiet. Sometimes birds calls happily.
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| toutouwai |
Birds. New Zealand has a lot of native birds that can be seen only there. Between 4-6 a.m. is the birds' peak song time. It is literally non-stopping. Some has really high-pitch sounds, some are low, but all are cute songs. This is one of the fun parts of New Zealand forests. My favorite New Zealand bird is toutouwai (South island robin). The picture is above. Although it is endemic, I was able to see them a lot. They really come close to humans. The reason why they come close is not because they want human food. They are looking for insects and after human step on the trail, usually insects came out. Toutouwai come close to big animals to get insects. They are very cute. Their songs are "toutoutoutoutou" I guess they were named toutouwai due to the songs.
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| Bridge |
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| Grass in the meadow |
After a while we got out of the forest and saw nice open area. The meadow was pretty. We saw a guy in the distance fishing. Nice area.
Then there was a swinging bridge. In New Zealand there are many swinging bridge. Some are more sturdy some are really built with minimal requirement. The bridge in the picture above is most frequently encountered bridge. As you might see the sign, it is one person at a time. It swings a lot when you cross. It is scary especially if it is windy. For me as a small person, it really unbalanced when wind comes from side.
In the meadow area in the valley is actually a private land is there is stock. There are cows on the way at one point. Usually cows on the trail run away to the off-trail, from my experience in California. This time they did run away, but to the way we were going to. Grr. We had to get toward them. They didn't understand we were hiking on the trail. After a while finally cows went to the off-trail and we were able to proceed. We don't want to disturb stock, so it was hard!
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| Sheep in the field |
Compared to cows, sheep was much more cautious and they immediately ran away when they saw a first sign of us in the distance. I took a picture in zoom, but only one picture was possible since sheep can run fast, surprisingly. They are cute.
The day started with clouds but soon it got better. On this day the original plan was just go to Greenstone hut. However, we arrived at the Greenstone hut very early like noon. Since the weather seemed okay, we proceeded more and intended to do freedom camp. Then we met a warden on the trail.
He was cutting some weeds to maintain the trail. He was taking care of three huts. Mckellar, Greenstone, and Mid Caples. Wow. AND he maintains trails. So much work. He was so nice. We gave him hut tickets for Mckellar huts for staying at the previous night. The huts tickets are reused. When we bought hut tickets at the visitor centre, the ranger told us some of the tickets were produced in 1996. Some are a little different design which were produced recently. When we gave the warden the old style tickets, he was very surprised.
He said, "Wow these are very old. When did you get them?"
Mr.N replied, "A few days ago at the visitor centre."
He answered, "Oh really."
Then he informed us that there is heavy rain warning that night. The warning was from 10 p.m. that day to 2 p.m. on the next day. So he recommended us to go to Mid Caples hut rather than freedom camp and sleep in and start hiking late the next day. That made sense, so we continued hiking. In that situation the hike became very long: 37 km.
He was the warden who was Japanese. I am very glad I saw him in person not only the hand-writing white board.
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| Caples River |
Despite the fact the heavy rain warning is released, the sky was blue and the view was so beautiful. The trail was along the Caples river. The green grass and mountains are over the river. The water color was greenish blue which was pretty. We saw some deer and some cows on the grass. Nobody was hiking in the section and it was quite nice.
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| Chasm |
A little before reaching the hut, we saw a chasm. Chasm is a deep and steep wall and the bottom narrow part the water was running. Usually you can see it from the top on the bridge. Because it is so narrow, the strength of water flow is tremendous. The sound of water echoes in the steep wall and says like "GGGGGOOOOOOO" I had never seen chasm anywhere else. Also the color of water was attractively pretty. Massive.
Then we reached the Mid Caples hut at 7 p.m. Loooooong day!
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