photo credit: Liz Sullivan
all other photos: Jillian Sullivan

Leaving Martin’s Hut

I’d already learnt two lessons –
that water is the one thing

you cannot lose. And that
joy is not hand painted in nature

just for you. It doesn’t speak
out from trees, moss, sky.

It’s not something you harvest
by walking by. Not a given.

That moment you
laid down his head. Such deaths

do not transfigure in forest
light. There is only mud and

the sucking sound of each
footstep in mud and the wet silt

smell of mud. No panacea
for the upside down of grief.

Nothing means anything here,
nothing cares you are there, you

almost don’t care you are there
so debilitated by wet earth.

Whatever you came looking for does
not arise nor descend, nor bathe

your eyes. Beauty is not an answer.

If there is an answer.
There are only the trees,

their roots
in clods and moisture, living on.

Boundary Hut, Mavora Lakes

A way station here, six left early.
In the rain, another tramper
approaches. She eats with us,
shows us the food she packs: Nutella,

corn chips (squashed), couscous,
oreos (dipped in Nutella). “Where is
home?” I ask. She thinks. “Seattle’s my built
home, Utah where I was born. Now,

I don’t know where I’ll live.”
“When I hitched to the supermarket,”
I tell her, “I felt like an alien in the aisles, my big pack,
clumping boots.”     “And I don’t smell

good,” she says. “And I shop like a child:
candy, candy, chocolate, noodles. But
it’s a simple life. Walk, eat, filter water,
try to sleep, walk, eat. Maybe get to

talk to someone. Walk, eat. When I
planned the trip it seemed daunting.
But on it, it’s a small thing.
Just walking.”

Pass Burn  

Some streams are built of gravel,
fine stones a boot can safely
weigh upon, and others you come
across in a gully consist of boulders
like the hind quarters of a
slumbering elephant. Pass Burn,

unpassable just the day before,
writhes before us; the final
crossing to Greenstone Hut.
This bronze-hued water curving
and breaking; jade green, yellow,
tawny, white frothed, entrancing

if you didn’t have to slide down the bank
and enter it, arms linked behind packs,
legs almost trembling with the fizz and surge.
You slide each foot along the stream bed
as if it is unrelated to the wildness
your knees and thighs encounter. Halfway,

it seems we will make it.
Like the young people we met
on the track, who, when we asked
how the crossing was, called back,
“It’s fine. It’s fine.
You’ll be ok!”

Leaving, again. 

It’s still raining, the rivers on high
water alert. I’m grounded, read Whatsapp,

South Island section, those anxious for news:
“How is the river level?”  “How is the track?”

“Can anyone offer me a
sitting-room floor?” I’m steeped

in grandchildren, lucky to rest in
warm shelter. The reek of my wet socks

quelled by appliances. From Twizel,
’ll forge onwards, grateful then for any

lift from a stranger, a floor during rain.
I cannot comprehend it yet, this final

cutting loose – first my home, then family,
all backstops gone. The question why

am I walking this trail invokes
another question – how can I ever

return?

Things they carry

Sean carries an 11-kilogram  
log on his shoulders.
It’s glossy black with silver 
names. He’s raising
money for Make a Wish.
I ask him if the log
helps him. “Sometimes,
in the wind it holds me
in place. I can’t imagine
walking without it.
I love it,” he says.

The French woman carrying
her mountain bike on her
shoulders up to Stag Saddle
tells me it’s the worst
decision she ever made.
Riding down the ridges
on the other side, towards
the lake, she will
forget that. 

One young woman collected 
bones on the way, attached
them to her pack. A Czech
Republic man fastened
his microcloth blazened
I am William on his pack.

I missed the woman
carrying the abandoned kitten,
Tomo in his coolie hat, 
the man raising funds carrying
two golf bags full of clubs
on his shoulders (“I saw
him cross a river like that,” 
a tramper tells me. “It didn’t
look easy.”

                       And then
there are those who carry
what’s incomprehensible,
invisible, unspoken.

Comyns Hut

At Comyns Hut there is a rat,
so the hut book warns, and the app.

I don’t take the last top bunk in
a room of strangers, (southbounders)

their robust togetherness sharpens my
sense of loneliness. Fatigue.

I’m slow to raise the tent, and after those
river crossings, too tired to collect water,

too sore to walk to the long drop, too
self-conscious to talk to anyone. Grief

gets away on you when the lid of wonder
falls. I boil half my water for cooking,

lie back on my mat. When its dark,
I’ll pee outside. Always a solution to

practical matters. For loneliness, much
more is required. I have only the

consolation of the sleeping bag,
of horizontal rest. May the earth

hold me, infuse me, somehow give me
strength to move on from here.

Leading up  

The path was always leading,
it was the only imperative.

The day thankfully blue-skied,
thankfully no wind, not even

searing with heat, just that direction,
which climbed into the mineral air.

Surely, sometimes, I thought, or said
out loud, I won’t have to go up there?

That craggy summit, that narrow
lifting path? I shook with obedience,

I was my own cavalry galloping
onside, bellowing orders, ready

to rescue; that grey button always
an option, like surrender. Oh, but one

foot after another, even when the track
disappeared, even when my knees

flamed behind the bone. What was
that impulse anyway, to keep

going? Love of shelter at the
end of day, love of comfort? Oh,

mattress, I honour you. A tap for
water, a level surface to cook.

All this, and something like
curiosity, always wanting an

answer to what the track did next.

Waiau Pass

It’s a white Christmas on
my tent, as if the sky
condensed to frost (waking
in the night to pull on hat, jacket,
socks) all the while
black granite up ahead. Like
some execution you’re being
led to, but willingly. You won’t
rescind, no community or graffiti
will save you, you’re walking
right up to it, eyes wide. Besides,
there are others, younger,
clambering up to the pass. They’re not
thinking trial, it could even be a
mall for them – turquoise lake,
stone, sky, so you pretend
to be like them (but not as agile)
     pretend              pretend
If you fall backwards right now
you will die. But you have a choice
not to.

Jillian Sullivan

Jillian Sullivan lives in the Ida Valley, Central Otago. Her thirteen published books include creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and poetry. Her latest book is  Map for the Heart- Ida Valley Essays, Otago University Press.