Today was probably my most difficult day so far. We walked through cow fields and sheep fields up to a forest track. Typically, despite having a day of climbing up 950m, we started his part of the track by going down. The path was that hard slippery mud which is my excuse for falling so ungraciously into the air and landing on my ass a good meter or so further down the hill with my feet flailing in the air.
We carried on, bruised bum and all, to the DOC camp site at the bottom of Mount Pirongi where we had lunch.
The weather had held out all day and continued to hold out until we were about two hours from the hut on the summit. It absolutely belted it down- the trees were dripping, the mud was getting wetter and as we climbed further up the rock was getting more and more slippery.
I was completely soaked through- the water running down my legs was enough to soak my socks through but I'd so far done well to keep the mud out of my shoes UNTIL I took one wrong step into soft mud and lost my entire foot into some Alice in Wonderland mud cavern from which it took several attempts to reclaim my own foot! My socks were muddy, my shoes were muddy, I was wet and I believe my words to Luke were 'every time the mud goes in my shoe I just want to cry!' (I didn't- but it was close.)
When we reached the summit three and a half hours after starting (guide says 4-5 hours so quite pleased with self) we found the hut and I was so so happy to see shelter, mattresses and a toilet!
It rained for the entire evening until about 8.30pm. The clouds dropped so we could see our first views from the mountain and see the sun go down which was incredible!
Am very excited about spending the night in a hut tonight and chuffed to have phone service to text home- not sure how I'll cope in the South where phone service is thinly spread!
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