Day 41 – Royal Hut to Mesopotamia Station

Today would be a long day, I knew from the start. My trail notes indicated seven and a half hours, and the man who wrote them is quite fast – he listed yesterday as four and a half hours. The sign outside the hut gave a more realistic estimate of nine hours.

The trail descended Bush Stream all day, with a diversion around noon up behind a ridge to follow what looked on the map like a parallel valley. In reality, that “parallel valley” was just a series of tussocky valleys connected by high saddles. So all day it was up one saddle then down the other side.

On the plus side, the route was marked with waratah standards the whole way down. Unlike the Mavora Lake Walkway though, the poles were not spaced perfectly so from any one, you could just barely see the next. Instead they were spaced cruelly so the next pole was always just barely *out* of sight. Eventually I figured out that the absence of a pole meant “continue on same bearing, but not before losing a lot of time to second guessing myself.

I had to keep up a strong pace all day, so I tapped into my iPod to give me a marching beat. First I listened to some great dance mixes my sister gave to me at Christmas. Then The Kleptones’ “24 Hours,” a long double album. The last time I listened to it in full was on the back of Roxane’s motorcycle, riding home from an afternoon in Santa Cruz.  The music built slowly, and I was back home, arms around my sweetie’s waist as we accelerated into the curves of the redwood forest.  When the music got stronger, we were bombing down the foothill’s into the furnace of San Jose, and as the last few tracks lowered tempo, we entered a wall of chill fog at San Francisco’s southern border.

It was good cruising music, and it made the kilometers pass quickly. Listening all day was draining my battery, but I planned to stay at Mesopotamia Station’s hunter’s cottage, so I would be able to recharge. Of course, if I wasn’t so determined to reach Mesopotamia I wouldn’t need to wear down the battery to give myself energy. Sort of a reverse catch-22.

At Crooked Spur Hut the route turned into a proper track, and I was flying downhill now. I startled a pack of about eight chamois (pronounced “shammy” – by Kiwis anyhow), a species of goat introduced to New Zealand years ago as a game animal.

I reached the main dirt road about half an hour after sunset, and just in time, as it soon became too dark to navigate a trail. The road was easy to follow even in the dark, and as the stars came out I was pleased to recognize the Southern Cross ahead of me, plus Sirius and Canopus to my right.  Then I noticed a new star to the left. It was as bright as Sirius, but I hadn’t seen it before. Then, even as I watched, it started getting dimmer.  Less than a minute later it was gone. I wondered, had I seen a distant supernova?  Or a gamma ray burst?  The last message of a dying civilization?  A weather balloon?  If you have an idea what celestial phenomenon this could have been, please leave a comment.  It was in the southeastern sky, maybe 45 degrees off the horizon, about 8:30 or 9 PM NZT.  My latitude, longitude is approximately -43, 171.

I found the side road to Mesopotamia Station. Dogs barked in the darkness, making me unnacountably nervous. I was trying to use my flashlight as little as possible, to save its battery. Just before I reached the homestead, I spotted the full moon bubbling its way slowly past the eastern ridgeline.  I paused briefly to admire it before walking up to the house. There were no lights on inside, so I was glad to see a note on the door telling me I was expected, and giving directions to the hunter’s cottage.

When I got there, I gloried in the simple convenience of electric lighting. A night that had been a race against darkness suddenly had no urgency left in it, and I cooked a wonderful dinner at leisure while I listened to an old fashioned AM radio drone about a recent flower show. Were the queues too long?  The host cajoled his listeners to phone in their opinion.

I fell asleep with moonlight streaming in through the bedroom window.