A Notable Walk (2)

To say that the first day of the walk is the easiest, is something of a cheat. With much of the day taken up with the various buses and boats required to start the walk, the route itself extends for a mere five kilometres before the first hut is reached.
By now, the weather has cleared and the peaks surrounding us stand distinct against the blue sky. Crumpled rock, folded to sheer edges like vast, roughly hewn slate blades. Dark, rich grey but wrapped green at the base and dusted white at the top. The track here is exceptionally well cared for, looking more like the sort of path which which might be found in a city park rather than a national one. It follows the Clinton River through beach forests, stopping here and there to provide access to rocky beaches affording clearer views of the looming scenery surrounding on all sides.
Clinton Hut is reached after about an hour or so, and it is here that the first night must be spent no matter how keen you might be to press on. The walk is strictly organised in this respect. Each night is allocated to a different hut, camping is prohibited along the route, and so only certain distances may be traversed each day. It is contentious to some independent walkers, who see it as going against everything that walking routes such as this represent. Freedom of movement is severely restricted, beds are allocated and diversions are discouraged. For those less experienced in this sort of activity however, the benefits are appealing. From an organizational perspective, the walk is very carefully structured, and in terms of safety - being counted in and out of each hut each night, can be seen as very reassuring.
Clinton Hut is a small network of three huts jumbled together around a shared board-walk. Two huts are bunkhouses and one is the kitchen area and lounge.
We try and pick the bunkhouse with the smaller number of dead sandflies speckled on the window-sill, but it is a futile gesture.
The hut is presided over by a Ranger named Ruth, who hails from just outside Invercargill and sounds a little like Pam Ayres might do should she trade the occasional vowel with Rolf Harris.
As the weather is still clear she invites us out on a nature walk around the nearby wetlands, and points out various examples of flora and fauna along the way.
Along the path, she beings to rub the face of her wrist-watch with a piece of polystyrene making a squeaking noise which she says usually attracts the local bird life.
We hold our breaths in anticipation, but although the answering birdsong seems to get a little closer, we don't see much of the birds themselves. Ruth shrugs and plucks a plant from behind her.
"No matter," she says, rubbing the leaves, "Can anyone tell me what this is?"
She sniffs her fingers to demonstrate and the plant is passed around so that everyone else can do the same.
"Pepper?" someone asks and Ruth nods.
"Absolutely." she says, "We call it the Pepper Plant. What about this one?"
She passes another plant around and everyone greedily starts rubbing the leaves as they had done before. This time, the smell provokes revulsion however, but Ruth nods once more in satisfaction.
"We call that one stink-weed." she says matter-of-factly and turns her back on us and ambles back towards the hut, leaving us staring at our hands and cursing the lack of showers at the hut.

The huts are busy that evening, the beds were booked in advance some four months in advance. But we are wary of each other so early into the walk that we find ourselves splitting into smaller groups gathered around the fire which has been lit in the hearth at the kitchen hut's centre.
What can be ascertained is that there are walkers here from all over the world. A large group of German speakers find each other, as do a mob of Americans. Between these two poles, there are a family of Australians, the occasional New Zealander, an Irish couple and two Poles.
Tamsin and I wrestle with our hastily purchased cookware and risk our fingers on the provided gas rings. Our food has been chosen for its minimal weight as much - if not more so than for its nutritional value. But it is interesting to see what others have bought - some remarkable looking meals are being prepared and we are torn between outright envy at their results and disbelief that someone had to carry all the equipment and ingredients that they have lugged onto the counters.
Best organized are Noel and Aine, who have been working their through most of the walks that the South Island has to offer and thus appear to have the food/weight issue down to a fine art.
"It's a matter of experimenting, really," Aine explains as she pulls an entire loaf of bread out from the bag before her and sets about preparing some appealingly bulky sandwiches for the following day, "When we did the Abel Tasman trip, I don't know what we must have looked like when we were done..."
"Happy, but malnourished." Noel supplies.
"So we just took it from there, really." Aine continues, "We probably take too much these days, but we're used to the weight now... You just take what you can carry really. Anything to avoid those things."
She nods at someone unenthusiastically poking a boil-in-the-bag casserole with a plastic fork. A freeze-dried meal designed for Antarctica expeditions, yours for a mere fifteen dollars a serving.
"I mean, I can understand resorting to those if you're away for months or something, but three nights?"
She shakes her head. "What did you have?"
Tamsin and I, who have just finished a meal of noodles mixed with powdered soup, carefully change the subject.