The Frau Doktorin had doubts about staying overnight at Waihaha Hut, having read old reports of a rat problem there, but I assured her that we could hang our backpacks out of reach of rodents. Also she could have a top bunk, while I would sleep on the floor after she smeared me with peanut butter as a decoy.What we didn't realise is that the hut had become one stop along Te Araroa Trail. As such, the bunks fill up with sweaty people turning up at the end of the 9-hour tramp from Bog Inn Hut. A couple from Dresden were on the Araroa pilgrimage, while another couple (an Otago student and his Texas-born girlfriend) were on a four-day tramp heading North up the trail for a few huts and then back south again.
Hut [left] comes complete with a cute little sleep-out [right] for dogs and snorers.
The Frau Doktorin was woken during the night by something tickling her face, which turned out not to be not a rat of any description, but rather a tree weta that wanted to share her pillow. Then she woke me. Then I tried not to wake the rest of the hut while I escorted the weta out the door.
There is no mention of wetas in the Intention Book which features in every tramping hut:
