In 2021, Victoria Bruce quit her corporate job, packed up her life and embarked on Te Araroa trail with her seven-year-old daughter, Emilie. Read an extract from Adventures with Emile: taking on Te Araroa trail in 138 life-changing days by Victoria Bruce, published by Penguin Random House New Zealand.

Above the wind and the rain I can hear the solid rumble of the Ōtaki River below the hut. We’re not walking anywhere today in this weather, which is good because our rain jackets and walking clothes are hanging wet and forlorn from the line strung between the rafters.

The iconic orange shelter of Dracophyllum Hut, where we scooped five centimetres of muddy rainwater from the bottom of the water tank.

Two days earlier, we had walked on along Main Ridge from Dracophyllum Hut, arriving at the solid little six-bunk shelter of Nichols Hut, complete with its full rain tank, in the early afternoon. John, the English teacher, decided to push on to Waitewaewae Hut, so we said our farewells then spent the afternoon sitting around in the sunshine admiring the expansive views down the valley far below.

The tidy green and red shelter of Nichols Hut was the nicest we’d encountered so far on this trip through the Tararua Range. After the claustrophobic evening in Dracophyllum Hut drinking boiled worm water, it was wonderful to spread out on the wide platform bunks and relax for a few hours before evening fell.

Late in the afternoon, we were joined by Vicky, a solo French walker who had walked most of Te Araroa the previous season and had returned to the Tararua Range to make up a section she’d missed. In the morning, thick mist swirled where the open valley had been, closing us off from the world and muting all sound with its cloying dampness. Vicky left the hut straight after an early breakfast, explaining that she hoped to walk all the way out to the road end on the other side of Ōtaki Forks that day, passing Waitewaewae Hut as she went.

After she disappeared into the mist, I dithered for a little while, taking my time to prepare hot water for our porridge oats and my morning dose of bitter instant coffee, and shooting furtive glances out of the hut window in the hope the sun would force its way back through the clouds. But just as the mist seemed to lift enough to view the track, another damp body of cloud would sweep in, releasing a spattering of raindrops that drummed on the roof of the hut.

This really wasn’t a good place to get stuck. Although Nichols Hut was lovely, we were four full days’ walk from the start of the track and at least another three, if not four, days from where we planned to exit the forest park at Waikanae. To get there, we still had to cross the highest point of this particular section — the long, exposed ridgeline that led up to Mount Crawford, perched at 1462 metres above sea level and a climb of over 300 metres from Nichols Hut — before we could drop down into the relative safety of the forest.

Big smiles at reaching the turn-off to the solid wooden shelter of Nichols Hut after several hard hours of tramping, climbing, slipping and sliding along the Main Ridge route.

If the weather was closing in, I would rather it be when we were down the other side of the mountain where we would be sheltered from the worst of it in a valley, rather than stuck up here with kilometres of ridgeline in either direction.

With this logic, it made absolutely no sense to dally, but I couldn’t help holding out hope for some kind of miraculous gap in the weather so we didn’t have to go out into the wet, cold morning.

After five days of stumbling through the forest and along the ridgelines, our clothes were stiff with filth, and it took so much mental fortitude to peel damp cold socks onto warm feet, lace up our equally damp trail shoes and leave the sanctuary of the hut.

In fact, I calculated miserably, it had been 10 days since we’d had a proper shower and laundered our clothes, not since leaving Palmerston North.

Emilie didn’t want to leave Nichols Hut. She rolled around giggling, a little yellow worm in her sleeping bag, but once she realised I meant business, her good humour disappeared, especially when it came time to squeeze her little warm foot into a soaking wet trail shoe. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to go out in the rain either, but we had to push on towards Waitewaewae Hut.

I was beginning to see the trail not just as an act of physical capability, but one of mental fortitude. Endless days of physical dis- comfort have a way of breaking you down. There was the gnawing hunger of never quite having enough food to match the huge expanse of energy required to walk the distance, and the uncomfortable sensation of being constantly damp and dirty with no soft place to rest except inside your sleeping bag.

One could in fact question why I was doing this to myself, I mused, as I clambered up the narrow track, dripping wet tussock kissing my bare legs. Although the thick mist sometimes gave way to a light rain, it wasn’t particularly windy and it certainly wasn’t cold, as long as we kept moving.

The wind picked up as we neared the summit of Mount Crawford, looming head and shoulders into the clouds. It was hard to tell where the mist ended and the rain began, except by the time we’d dipped below the tree line, steady droplets had soaked our every pore. I wanted to take Emilie’s photo beside a faded sign stating that we’d reached the summit, but her lower lip was wobbling as gusts of freezing wind blew wet curls across her face.

Emilie navigating the rain-soaked slippery tussock near Mount Crawford in Tararua Range. At times, the dense sub-alpine scrub was taller than Emilie.

We’ve been wandering around in the mist for hours! I told her. But the next hut is right down the bottom of this hill, and you can put your warm thermals back on and get into your sleeping bag.

Yeah, she replied, a damp little poppet in a bright pink and blue rain jacket. I hope you can read Snake and Lizard with me, Mummy. We’d already read the book cover to cover, but the short stories, full of humorous dialogue between the ridiculous Lizard and his friend Snake always cheered us up.

Of course, I will. I’ll make you a hot soup, read you a story and we can have a game of cards.

Anything, I thought, anything you want, my love. My heart swelled with gratitude at how this little child continued to walk with me through such tough terrain without complaining or questioning what on earth we were doing this for.

We unwrapped wet Fruit Bursts with numb fingers and sucked on the sweetness, hoping to gain some energy to help us down the mountainside.

Then began the long, slow descent some 1000 metres to the valley floor, following the steep and treacherously slippery track that wound its way down almost vertically in places. Our feet slid out from under us, landing us heavily on our behinds, or bruising our legs as we scrabbled over huge fallen trees, thick with slime.

A flicker of movement caught my eye, and then came an unusual sound, a mix between the cry of a baby and the mewl of a cat. It was a goat, a little baby goat. We paused and stared in delight as it bobbled about beneath the trees, balancing on a dark tree root, calling out with its shrill little voice.

A nanny goat responded with a deep, vocal bleat and walked up the path a few paces before registering our existence. Shaking her shaggy blonde mane, topped with a pair of somewhat regal horns, she eyeballed us with one rolling yellow eye, the elongated disc of her black pupil dilating in panic before she turned and crashed away through the undergrowth, her kid at her side.

Chattering excitedly about the goats, Emilie and I sprawled on a cushion of wet moss under a tangled tree to eat the last of the sourdough smeared with the last spoonful of cream cheese. It had been a bastard to carry this far, but I was so glad we had as sometimes it felt as though food was the only comfort I could give us on Te Araroa.

Yet eventually I seemed to transcend the physical discomfort, and I accepted that we were soaking wet and filthy, fingernails blackened by mud and earth, then my focus turned to the magic of the bush around us.

As we made our way downhill, I stared up at all the trees that were determinedly clinging to this sheer bank, silently reaching up towards the sky in a glorious jostle of long limbs and green leaves. A fallen tree had immediately been claimed by tiny fungi, slender saplings. The circle of life was right here before my eyes. It was humbling and empowering to witness the intense resilience and desire of these living things to thrive despite the difficulties they faced.

I was here because I wanted to test the very limits of my own resilience and reassure myself that, no matter what had happened to me, I was not ready to lie down and die.

Victoria Bruce is a keen tramper and writer. Her popular social media and blog accounts Adventures with Emilie documented her and her young daughter’s journey walking New Zealand’s Te Araroa trail. Victoria is a media and communications advisor with a background in journalism and nursing. She has worked for news agencies in Australia and Southeast Asia, including the Australian Associated Press, Myanmar Times and Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald, and held communications roles with a number of public, private and non-profit organisations. Since completing Te Araroa, Victoria and Emilie continue to escape regularly into the wilderness. Together they love exploring Aotearoa’s wild places, learning about the environment and conservation and doing their part to care for our beautiful country.

Born in New Zealand, Victoria grew up in Australia before returning to her country of birth as an adult. She currently lives in the South Island of New Zealand. This is her first book.

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Extract— Adventures with Emilie by Victoria Bruce

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Extract— Adventures with Emilie by Victoria Bruce

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