tramping new zealand

The DOC sign stated 2 to 3 hours from Skippers Cemetery to Dynamo Hut, but you would be hard-pressed to arrive after two hours if you are carrying a pack with a few days’ food aboard.

The track started reasonably on a four-wheel-drive track, but soon I dropped down to a branch of the Shotover River, Shotover Creek, and at that point there seemed little hope in attempting to keep my feet dry.

I failed to count the crossings, but it was getting near 50 of them.

At times, I ploughed straight up the river. There’s major sections with no track, or it’s always crossing to the other side of the creek.

The old concrete dam for a small hydroelectric scheme for the Otago Hotel and Skipper Township proved quite a task to get around due to some slippery soapstone that my hiking shoes were unable to grip in the wet conditions. Despite that, a trail bike had managed.

It was strange to see a 10 m high concrete dam out in the middle of nowhere.

From there, plenty of stream crossings were required, and for a while, it even opened out and flattened.

The trail bikes had a workaround that involved a steep climb and descent around the dam, and while I’m not a fan, at least the bikes had opened up the trail from the encroaching lupins and, later, tutu.

About halfway to the hut, trail bike riders were buzzing around high up the side of the valley, attempting to climb an exceedingly steep hill.

I plodded on.

Eventually, remnant mountain beech trees covered the south-facing slopes, and DOC had installed a few orange markers.

I turned a bend in the stream, and the hut came into view high up on a river terrace in a grassy field some distance away.

By the time I reached the hut after four hours, I had had enough. No enthusiasm for another six hours of walking, and I decided to postpone it for the following day. I thought I’d just take it easy and spend two nights at Dynamo Hut.

No one was home, although the boot prints I’d seen in places along the way were from a local who had come up the day before to clean the hut.

The hut had been built in 1919 from remnants of the dynamo house for a larger hydroelectric scheme, from 1886, that powered the gold stamping battery at Bullendale, about 3 km away in a parallel valley to the north.

I planned to take the detour to Bullendale on my way back.

A large waterfall, not far away, was thundering away. It really had been a summer of moving water, acoustic nighttime accompaniment.