tramping new zealand

I awoke in a daze, despite an excellent sleep.

Where was I?

Finding myself in a hut after a long year’s break was a great feeling. My previous hut had been Nardoo Bivvy, and that felt an age away.

I was visiting another hut on my lonesome, and I don’t mind that one little bit.

The previous occupants had been more than six weeks before, with only 20 parties for the first 11½ months of the year, with 19 the year before.

That’s not surprising, considering the poor parking options on the highway, the unclear first kilometre, the lack of the track shown on the Topo50 map, and the considerable height gain, ie, 1100 m.

It takes an enthusiast.

The Victoria/Brunner Range is quite extensive, but Lake Stream Hut, at the other end, was my only previous excursion.

The forest was mostly red and silver beech with a sprinkling of big rata and mixed podocarps.

Two other species were of interest.

A few native orchids were not yet in bloom, and around the 400 m – 500 m zone was an extensive patch of kidney fern that indicated a zone of particular dampness.

I picked a decent weather window, but the morning was pretty gloomy with the fog/cloud all around the hut, cutting back on any view.

It didn’t take long for the realisation to hit me.

I had to go back down, and the steepness wouldn’t make that easy for someone still cautious on my hopefully fully healed Achilles.

The truth is that it wasn’t much quicker going down. The time was shortened by not requiring so many short breaks, although on the flatter section, more than half below the 500 m mark, it helped me to know where to point myself and certain idiosyncrasies of the track marking.

I realised I was off my intended route about 100 m from the creek crossing, but quickly changed direction and it wasn’t long before I was back at my car.

Despite being parked in a random bay right on the side of the Highway 6 overnight, no damage had occurred.

The forecast was for heavy rain the following day, so I was going to hunker down in Reefton and wait for it to pass.

Any recuperation for my body would be incidental.

Day 4 was spent mostly listening to heavy rainfall on the roof of the cabin, which I thought was a prudent choice for my accommodation while waiting out the storm.