A Helicopter, a Rat and a Weka
Part 1: Helicopter
This one has been lingering in the nearly complete pile for a while. It’s been a long time between posts, but here’s a little tale from two months ago. Apparently it’s March now.
What do a helicopter, a rat and a cheeky weka have in common?
Well, they all featured on an unforgettable New Year adventure, when I hiked the Heaphy Trackr in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Kahurangi National Park.
The New Zealand bush is like home for me. It’s like wearing your favourite pair of shoes that fit just right. It’s the perfect ratio of sweetness and warmed milk in my chai tea. Immersing myself in the New Zealand bush, I feel intimately connected to the earth through the calls of tui layering the ferny soundscape. The damp soil encrusted with leaves stacked on top of each other like a warm winter blanket, their decomposing smell intermingled with moist mosses. Ferns emerging from the myriad of browns, greens and yellow tones. Sun peers through the canopy trees, speckling the foliage below while a choir of cicadas deafen the air. Sometimes the sun hides and only a cloak of grey mist clothes the tree tops. It’s still home.
So where better than to farewell 2023 and welcome 2024? I selected one of the ten ‘Great Walks’ not far from where I’d be visiting family in the South Island. After finishing the Heaphy, I discovered that it’s actually New Zealand’s longest Great Walk. Setting out on a five day solo hike over the New Year period, I knew I’d encounter others along the way, which was comforting. Setting out on New Year’s Eve, my laden pack settled heavy upon my shoulders as I adapted to hiking, trudging up the five hour virtually viewless climb towards Aorere Saddle, my campspot for the night. Arriving late afternoon, I met and chatted to the six other campers that I’d be sharing the compact campsite with for the evening.
After soaking up the last of the sun before the campsite descended into evening shade, the temperature heading towards a chilly summer overnight temp of six degrees celcius; I heated a lentil curry and greedily devoured it. Shortly after, a fellow camper began complaining of feeling unwell; which quickly progressed to a fever and delirium over the next couple of hours. By all appearances, he wasn’t critically ill, but had disclosed that he’d had covid only weeks before. Being on a mountainside about to embark on four more days of hiking, was not an ideal place for him to be.
My fellow campers and I coalesced to support the sick one, taking his temperature, talking to him and eventually calling a rescue helicopter to remove him from the hillside. We prepared a space for the helicopter by moving our tents to the other edges of the small clearing in the bush. Having never really been close to a helicopter before, fascination and excitement consumed me as it hovered overhead, lowering a paramedic down to hoist the unwell camper to safety. The ferocious winds generated by the helicopter felt like an isolated hurricane as our belongings were tossed about like a child throwing toys around a chaotic loungeroom. My fairly new lightweight hiking tent housing my pack with all my gear was lifted up, rammed against a tree covered bank.
Alas, the bottom and sides of my tent suffered an almost fatal blow, shredded in several places. Not ideal, I thought, as I had several more nights to spend in the outdoors before the end of the track. We never discovered what happened to our sick camper friend, but my tent carried the scars of that night for days after. It was definitely a New Year’s Eve to remember; as we sat round our camp stoves drinking hot tea while recounting the eventful previous two hours before disappearing into our tents several hours before the clock ticked into 2024. I covered the gaping hole in my tent floor with my sleeping mat, descending into a chilled sleep hoping that rain wouldn’t creep into my tent cooling me further.
To be continued…
Arohanui, lots of love
Aleisha
