tramping new zealand

After a day drying my tent, sleeping bag, clothes, mat, pack, clothes, etc, I was in a relaxed mood packing up in the end and didn’t leave Murchison until almost 10 am.

I left the Matakitaki DOC car park just before 12 pm. I had thought it worth visiting Mataki Lodge for old time’s sake. It had new concrete poured and a new roof over the barbecue area, so it must be getting used.

I set sail, but my pack weight was different from my Nydia excursion earlier in the week. 10 days of food, still the tent and sleeping mat, plus the 1.5 kg hut book for Burn Creek, and some cleaning gear. It all added up, but I marched on.

I stopped for lunch at the old Matakitaki Base Hut site at 1 pm. Couldn’t find any sign of the piles.

Shortly afterwards, once I was in motion once again, a young hunter on a quad bike cruised past. We had a chat, me thinking that the track would become overgrown before he got to McKellar Stream. As it turned out, I was proved correct.

Some sections of the forest were boggy, churned up by multiple four-wheel drives or quad bikes over the years. Some were just superb. Some wound their way through the trees, avoiding deep bogs.

At times, I contemplated camping, but there was a novice hunter wandering around, and he might not be expecting me randomly out in the forest.

Plod on.

I took my pack off at McKellar Stream and checked the distance. Another 4 km to go, and it was after 6 pm, having stopped for plenty of breaks in the course of the afternoon. I had camped there the previous time, but it was better to keep my tent dry.

On I went.

Then, I ran into the hunter. He was returning, having found the McKellar Stream route filled with windfall and quite overgrown. He would hunt the flats at dusk and dawn instead. Seemed like a good option to get that deer he was after, but not so good for me.

Once, you could drive a small truck to Downie Hut, and the track was completely navigable. Now, with World’s Best Practice, it was everyone for themselves.

But someone had recently cleared the track from that point on, and then I was on the river flats. The last few hundred metres were tough once I saw the hut.

No one else was around. Nice to have the place to myself.

35,000 steps for the day.

Just scoffed dinner and straight to horizontal position.

That was well earned.