This turned out to be a big day, starting at 5 30 am, half an hour before my alarm went off. It was just 6 am when I hit the road, after speedily packing up the damp tent and sleeping gear because I didn’t want to get stuck by roadworks.
No chance, because it was just getting light when I made it to Picton Road and found the road wouldn’t close until 9 30 am.
The early start meant I rummaged through my bag and found I had enough spare change for breakfast; scrambled eggs and mushrooms washed down with coffee in Picton.
I popped into a cafe to write my blog from Day 1 and check my itinerary and the weather forecast for the following week.
Five days of food should be sufficient for the Isolation area. If you head into Sawcut Gorge, you might as well see as much as you can.
Unfortunately, by the time I reached Blenheim, it was drizzling, and it stayed that way for much of the day. I was well wet when I reached Isolation Hut.
But there was some drama prior to that.
I’d seen the turn off at the Waima River a few times, and headed up to the end of the road, which was a bit over 10 km, most on the dirt.
It just ended as someone’s driveway, with a sign that read “Access Prohibited.”
I needed to drive back 4 km down the hill to where a DOC sign to the old car park said that Sawcut Gorge was “closed”, although the DOC website said the huts were open. The website didn’t say the route was closed, just that you have to navigate your own way in.
I did.
Just followed the Waima River upstream. It wasn’t very deep. It took an hour to walk up the gravel/small rock riverbed to just below where the car had driven, only 100 m away.
It was a case of crossing the river on numerous occasions, choosing the side with the fewest boulders and easiest gravel underfoot. After a couple of hours, a few hundred metres before the Sawcut Creek turn off, there’s the most difficult part, where you have to scramble across a scree slope with quite a drop to rocks below. Well, maybe 5 m.
Someone had strung a rope between the trees, but I was on the wrong side and had to do some gymnastics in the middle of the scree to continue.
A bit further on, I had to take my pack off to scramble over a gnarly part, but that was sort of expected.
Sawcut Creek meanders around, at one point almost going through a tunnel about 2 m wide, where you just walk straight up the river. This then becomes a stretch where you really don’t want to look up.
Just seeing the newly broken massive rocks in or around the river is enough to maintain momentum.
By this time, I was soaked and in no state to stop and admire the view. It made me think about getting up the streams to Fidget Biv and Limestone Hut, not so far away, just on the other side of the Clarence River.
Eventually, I staggered in after around four hours, which didn’t seem so long for an old bloke. I’d occasionally seen footprints in the sand, and found they were from someone who had walked out the day before.
Despite DOC’s confusing information, which must have discouraged people from coming, it seemed that quite a few people visited over the summer, many on day trips.
But no surprise to find I had the hut to myself midweek.
It had been a big and somewhat stressful day. The weather was supposed to improve, and I planned to go to Zoo Hut for the next night, or Napoleon Bivvy.
A guide to the night’s accommodation: Isolation Hut
