Noah on the cliff by the sea

Hello! I've returned from my 5 day tramp on the Heaphy track. It was unbelievable. It was a 3 hour drive from Nelson and the hike began. I was on the shuttle with 7 other people and we all started around the same time. I took off first and for the rest of the day I was hiking alone. It was all uphill and the landscape was similar to the sawtooths. after about 5 hours of hiking I got to the top and everything changed. I was on top of this really spectacular mountain range. There was a hut at the top. But I just booked campsites. I didn't have a tent, just a small tarp that I slept under. It was crazy in the evening when the fog rolled in. I sent up my makeshift shelter on the edge of a drop off and had an amazing view of misty mountains. When the rest of the people got to the camp, we all walked down to the river and went swimming. It was freezing but really refreshing.
Each hut has a bird that lives there called a Weka. They are huge flightless birds similar to Kiwis. The first one I saw I was blown away at how cool of a bird it was. I stood really still and it came really close as was pecking at my shoes and pants. Then I realized they're just really inquisitive and aren't afraid of humans. The next morning I woke up early and did a 2 hour side hike to the top of perry peak. From the top I could see the sea and the cook strait. The second day the environment changed. I was walking though an area called the Gouland Downs. It was a sort of a high mountain desert landscape with camel coloured hills. It was a short day that day, so I stop at a river and swam and layed in the sun for a few hours, and met up with the other people who where also hiking the trail. Then continued on to the next hut. Here I had to sleep on a raised platform because it was sort of a marsh area. As the next few days went on the landscape changed dramatically. It turned from being a mountain desert with huge boulders into the most lush jungle I've ever been in. The whole time I was singing the Indiana Jones theme. It felt alot like Jurassic park. My favorite thing about the jungle section were the swing bridges. They were really long bridges made of wire, just like you would see in indiana jones. They cross huge gorges and bounce and swing when you walk across. For the last few days I walked with a few other people, they took pictures and are hopefully going to email them to me, I'll post them when they do. The second to last night I was lucky enough to stay inside one of the huts. There was no ranger there, and only 3 people staying inside, the same 3 whom I was walking with. It was a good place to sleep inside because of the sandflies. Sandflies are the worst thing to happen to anything. Mosquitoes are nothing. Sandflies a little bugs that fly around in huge masses and give you itchy bites. They're crazy. From then on we were closer to the coast. Stop along the track at beautiful jungle pools for a swim, and got to the last hut. This was on the coast next to one of the most beautiful beaches i've ever seen. It was amazing white sand and a crazy sea. It was at the mouth of the Heaphy river where it meets the sea. A really exciting place to be. We all walked along the beach for a while and it started to get over cast. We went back and sat in the hut for a while, but since I rarely see the sea I went back out. I've never felt more alone, and free, not even on solo. It was great. I walked for a few miles down the beach by myself singing and dancing as loud and crazy as I could, it was a good feeling. The wave were huge and crashing but it wasn't very windy, or cold. Perfect. That night however it rained really hard. The campsite at this hut had a shelter for the campers. It was basically just a roof with a floor. I slept under that and felt like a pirate by the sea. As I hiked out it rained all day. The last stretch was along the shore. Up cliffs and through super lush forest. The rain made all the streams and river start to flood. We had to ford the river and it was a very wet day. I acted as a bridge for most of them, standing in the middle anchoring myself and lending my hand/arm.
Now, I'm back in Nelson. Zach and myself are waiting for one of Zach's friends to get here, and the three of us are going to do Able Tasmin, another multi-day coastal hike. I'll most likely post photos from Heaphy before I leave for that, but well see!
Noah, over and out!