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Published: February 6th 2011
January 28 The alarm went off at 6am and I immediately questioned if we really needed to take the early ferry from Bluff to Stewart Island. Then I remembered that every hour we saved early in the day meant more time to relax at the hut later on, and that helped me drag myself out of bed. So we had a good breakfast and hit the road by 7, driving half an hour to the ferry terminal in Bluff, the southernmost point on the South Island. From there, the 8 o’clock ferry would take us across the Foveaux Strait over the course of an hour to get to Stewart Island.
The ride was smooth and it was cool to be out on the open water. We arrived at 9am in Oban, a town of only a couple hundred people, and the only settlement on the island. It was quiet, almost creepy quiet like a town in a Stephen King novel. We stopped at the DoC office, checked the weather, and left our intentions form (as is standard), and were off by 10 o’clock.
We walked from the DoC office about 6km down the only road in town, until we
arrived at the official start of the track by a beach. Then the light mist turned to rain. It didn’t take long for the first problem to happen. About 1.5 hours in, the hip-belt on my backpack broke. The strap connecting the buckle to the belt just snapped through the stitching. Apparently after over 2000 miles of heavy use, these backpacks are not indestructible. I was momentarily stunned by this, and briefly thought about how having a nonfunctioning backpack may be a negative thing 2 hours in to an 80 mile tramp, but quickly put my years of watching MacGyver to use by setting to work on rigging together a quick fix. Using the corkscrew feature on the pocketknife I was able to make a small hole in the strap that wouldn’t fray or unravel. Then I squeezed a carabineer hook through the hole and attached the other end to another loop on the hip-belt. It seems secure enough, but just thinking that sort of thought is typically enough to ensure that it will fail shortly. It’s not pretty, but I’m hoping for the best.
The walk today was good, not too much mud as this track is known
for, and beautiful views of several bays. We traveled along the coast, alternating between the dense, lush forest and the pristine, untouched beaches. Very few people do this trek and I’m already looking forward to the isolation and unique scenery.
We arrived at Bungaree hut around 5pm and found that we’re only sharing it with 1 other guy. He’s going the opposite direction though, so there’s a good chance we’ll have some of the other huts to ourselves.
I made dinner and we enjoyed the sound of the saves crashing onto the shore just 20 feet from the hut door. This is a truly beautiful place.
January 29 Most of today’s hiking was through forest and relatively uneventful, but there were 3 bright spots worth mentioning. First, about halfway through today’s 12km total distance, we got to walk for 2km along Murray Beach. This was a spectacular beach with picturesque turquoise water and nice sand, and seemed like effort-free walking, as it was straight, flat, and free of obstacles underfoot as is not the case in the forest. There are only about 8 beaches that we come across during this 10-day tramp, so they all seem
like small treats when we get to them.
The second bright spot was the lack of rain today. The weather forecast when we started had said it would rain for the next 5 days, but we’ve been lucky enough to hike in mostly dry weather both yesterday and today. Hopefully it keeps up, but I’m sure we’ll get a good soaking before long since this island gets a LOT of rain.
And the third thing worth mentioning is that the heel lift I put in my boot appears to be easing the pain that had developed in my left leg. It was really intense yesterday, but it was so much improved today that it was a joy to walk.
We’re sharing Christmas Village hut tonight with a couple of students from Auckland named Clyde and Lara. They went out to do a little fishing tonight and cooked up some Parrotfish for us on the fire. Delicious.
January 30 It’s pouring outside as I write this, absolutely coming down in buckets, and I am almost giddy with happiness to be inside the hut, warm and dry, instead of being out there in a tent. The
rain held off for most of our hiking today, only starting to get heavy during the last 15 minutes before we reached Yankee River hut. The walking wasn’t bad, but wasn’t spectacular either. Mostly in the forest, only popping out to one rocky beach for a few minutes during the middle of the day.
Once at the hut though, I changed into my dry clothes and went to work cooking dinner and starting a fire. The river that runs just 20 feet outside the hut started as a small trickle when we first arrived, but 2 hours later after heavy rain and it has turned into a pretty substantial flow. I even saw a fairly large tree that was on the bank get overtaken by the swollen waters and dragged out to sea. The power of water is astounding, and watching this river is most entertaining that most TV. I hope we don’t have to walk in this tomorrow, but if we do at least we’ve got dry huts to stay in.
January 31 We awoke to periods of sunshine intermittently interrupted by minute-long heavy downpours that seemed to come from nowhere. It was as if
the sky was daring us to leave the hut so that it could unleash its fury on us. But when we did leave, the downpours stopped and we would have one more day free from precipitation while walking. Quite strange.
After an hour and a half we came to the edge of a forested ridgeline where we could see Smokey Beach down below. It has high sand dunes that stretch inland for a half a kilometer, and gets its name from the grayish color some of the vegetation gives it when seen from afar. It is a beautiful beach to look at.
Once we descended and climbed over the dunes to the water, it took on a slightly different image. The wind off the water was a sustained 40mph with gusts to at least 80mph. Or maybe closer to 500mph, I’m not sure. In either case, it made for impressive 10ft waves that crashed into shore, but also whipped up the sand so that it hit our exposed skin so hard it felt like the skin was being sandblasted off. But all things come to an end, and after 2km of this we were off the beach and
back into the woods. 2 hours later we arrive at the Long Harry hut, which has got to be in one of the most beautiful settings for a hut. It’s about 100ft above the ocean on a bluff overlooking several miles of rugged and rocky coastline. We arrived here early in the afternoon so I got to spend a lot of time watching the swells out on the open ocean while I read. We also cooked our dinner on the wood stove in the hut, which is always a pleasure. This is the second night in a row we have had the hut to ourselves, and we’ve seen no one else for 2 days. Quite a good feeling.
Additional point: To illustrate the point of the random heavy downpours I’ll give you a little story. I took a 2-minute stroll down the path from the hut to use the outhouse (toilet) while the sky was bright and sunny. I’d been inside for a few minutes when I felt the outhouse begin to shake violently from the wind. This was followed by 10 minutes of rain pelting so hard I thought that the plastic roof was going to cave in.
So I waited, long after my business was finished, knowing that if I ran back in this I’d be soaked. And just like that it was over. I stepped outside to see bright sunshine and hear birds chirping. Bizarre.
February 1 We woke up to another blue-sky morning and enjoyed another entire day of hiking without being rained on. The hut logbook had been filled with entries from previous people who talked about all the kiwi birds they’d seen in the bush so we were optimistic today would be the day we’d see one too. So for the first two hours we were fairly quiet and looked around a lot as we walked, but never saw anything.
Then we came to a very rocky beach where we hopped from boulder to boulder for awhile, while the giant waves crashed on the rocks just on our right. I’ve really enjoyed spending all this time in close proximity to the ocean. It’s something I haven’t done before.
After crossing one more large bluff East Ruggedy Beach came into view. Much like Smokey Beach it was a beautiful sight from up high. But unlike Smokey Beach there was no
wind, so we were free to enjoy it without pain. Andrew and I took off our boots and packs and walked the length of it. When we returned to our packs, the sandflies had become pretty horrible so I opted to just grab my stuff and head on to the hut barefoot instead of sitting down to put my socks and boots back on, giving the flies a meal. It ended up being farther to the hut that I thought, but after a mile of barefoot tramping over the dunes and through some forest I arrived at the hut. I wouldn’t do that sort of walking barefoot again, but I’m pretty sure my feet are tougher for it.
At the hut we met Mel and Morgan, two conservation workers from Arthur’s Pass who have been doing the track and were a day ahead of us until taking a rest day today. They’re the first people we’ve seen in 3 days.
February 2 The overnight rain once more stopped just before we left the hut this morning. It’s unbelievable really, 6 days tramping around Stewart Island, one of the rainiest parts of the country, and we have yet
to experience a sustained period of rain while walking.
Our walk first brought us to the big, beautiful, and remote West Ruggedy Beach. 2km long and it was just us and the crashing waves again. (We found out that a major storm north of here is causing the above normal sea activity.)
Then we went inland for a bit, climbing up and down several large bluffs before following the final ridgeline to tonight’s hut, Big Hellfire Hut. The last hour is along the flattish tree-covered top of a ridge, but was the muddiest section of the entire track thus far. Mud pits well over knee-deep that were consistent and unavoidable. The amount of mud caked onto my boots and gaiters by the time I reached the hut made them feel 10lbs heavier. And to top it off, just 2 minutes before you reach the hut you have to cross a sand dune that seems out of place considering we’re 600ft above the shoreline and in the forest. But there it is, stretching all the way up from the ocean to here, very strange. So to add to the mud I’ve also got a thick covering of sand on
top. It reminds me of sprinkles on an iced cookie, but probably not as tasty.
Then we relaxed in the hut and watched as it filled to capacity with people coming from the other direction. Quite a change from 2 nights ago when we were alone in a hut of the same size.
February 3 Today I realized that what we have seen up until this point is not mud. It was nothing, mere dirt mixed slightly with water. Today would define mud in a new light: thigh-deep and sloppy.
The first few ours were pretty good, we traveled along ridge tops with the sea to our right (as it always is going this way) and the inland part of the island to our left. The interior is very lush and green and gives the feel that you are on the island in Jurassic Park. I half expect to see dinosaurs in this sort of place. After coming down from the ridge, following a beach, having lunch and then climbing the last bluff for today, we began the descent to Mason Bay, the climax of this tramp.
Mason Bay is a vast section of beach,
the largest one on Stewart Island spanning nearly 15km, and is an impressive sight. From the top of the ridge, about 800ft above sea level, the waves can be seen lining up in neat rows and roaring onto the beach with sound like a freight train. Pretty amazing. Getting off the ridge to the beach was the muddy bit. I sloshed, sank, and stumbled my way down the seemingly endless series of mud pits, using the trees and branches as aids to stabilize me, to prevent me from sinking in too far, and as anchors to help pull myself out from the pits. A lot of trouble, but still pretty fun knowing we were almost to the beach.
Once at the head of the beach, there was a bit of a tramper traffic jam. It was high tide so we had to wait at least an hour for the water to drop enough to be able to get around one rocky point on the beach. So we waited here with Morgan and Mel, and Marianne the German. When we were tired of waiting we set out and began the 5km down the beach towards Mason Bay hut. We got
around the point just fine, but twice were surprised by rogue waves that came up higher on the beach than we expected. The first soaked Nick to his waist, which I found hilarious as it reminded me of my first day of tramping in New Zealand with Eric 3 years ago. And the second time got me, but only to the knees and was actually a good thing as it cleaned off most of the mud I’d acquired over the past few hours.
And from there we walked the remaining hour as a group until we arrived at the hut. We had a great burrito dinner and enjoyed the company of the friends we’ve made over the past few days on the track.
February 4
Today was a nice rest day. I slept in (or tried to as some of the other hut users, mainly ones that had flown in to this hut, were obnoxiously loud in the early hours), lounged around in the sunshine, read my book, took a side trip to the highest dune on the island, and visited the beach for sunset. It’s a beautiful spot and great to give the body a break after 7 solid days of hard tramping.
February 5 I woke up early in the hopes of seeing a kiwi during a walk near the hut. We heard some mating last night (actually sounded more like one was being murdered) so I thought the odds were good of seeing one. So after an hour of wandering around, doing some bush-bashing and dune climbing, I managed to see no wildlife AND somehow strain a muscle in my back. I just can’t seem to manage to get through even 1 tramp without injury.
So after a late breakfast we packed up and headed off on the 15km track cutting east across the center of the island, back towards our starting point. The interior of the island is very flat and swampy so we covered the distance in about 3 hours. The almost perfectly flat ground and boardwalk over the swampy bits made it a breeze.
By 2pm we arrived at Freshwater hut, which sits along a river that is accessible by water taxi during high tide. Our German friend Marianne and Danish friend Lars were catching the water taxi back to the town at 3pm. We thought about
it for a bit. The last day and a half walk back to town were going to be arduous with no views, the weather forecast was calling for heavy rain tomorrow, my back hurt more and more, and we found out that tomorrow was the biggest day of the year on the island town of Oban because it was the yearly Rugby match between the scrawny local white fisherman and the big hulking Maori guys from Bluff, the nearest small town on the mainland. Our decision was made so we took the water taxi as well when it arrived to pick up our friends.
Back in Oban we did the usual hot shower routine and followed it up with some very fresh fish ‘n chips and a few beers at the pub. The entertainment was provided by the drunk locals who were either falling asleep at the bar or yelling randomly, once at us, and also by some rugby hooligans who were loud, obnoxious, and occasionally naked from the waist down, even inside the pub. It was an interesting experience, especially when compared to our previous 9 tranquil days tramping around the island.
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Dale
non-member comment
Finally Caught Up with You
I'm finally current on your blog. Enjoyed it as always. Almost feel like I'm there, except when you get bogged down in the mud!!! Dale