Saturday night was pretty special - it was warm enough to spend a couple of hours looking up at the Milky Way, telling bush stories and laughing at life. We even spotted a few shooting stars that I later learned were the tail end of a meteor shower. There is a fire pit in front of the hut, but with all the recent rain there just wasn’t any dry wood around. One by one people started going to bed, and I seriously thought about sleeping out on the deck. But I knew rain was coming too, and I was glad to be warm in bed when I heard it dancing on the roof at 5am.

This was the biggest group I've hiked with ever - four newbies and my regular adventure buddies, Katri and Tia. I organised a beginner’s overnighter for the weekend - an idea that came from some followers on Facebook who I already knew through different circles. Whakatāne is a small town with two degrees of separation after all. I have hiked most of the Kaimai-Mamaku Forest before, and Daly's Clearing Hut is definitely the most accessible for beginners. The quickest route is less than two hours from the car park.

Our group met at the Franklin Road car park around midday. The plan was to walk alongside the Waitawheta River, the same track I’ve taken to Waitawheta Hut previously. It's lovely flat terrain that's really more of a walking track. You can see remnants of the historical tramway, which were used to transport the giant Kauri they were milling. We walked for about an hour through farmland and bush until we reached the Daly’s Clearing Track junction.

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