Circle Pacific 1998/99 - Day 54 - New Zealand

• Hitched to road's end in Coromandel Forest Park - only walked 5 min before pickup
• Followed Webb Creek track to Pinnacles Hut - tough! - lots of stairs - really heavy packs - carrying a week's worth of food (or more)

• Amazing new hut - looks like a ski chalet - about 40 people here tonight
• Troubles: Pinnacles Hut is a category 1, so our hut pass is supposed to allow us to camp outside it for free - hut warden Grant says rules are different depending on region - so we have to pay NZ$12 every night to camp by the old hut - if we had stopped in at the visitor's center below, we'd have found this out - bummed!