Day 11 - Aparima Hut To Mavora Lakes Turnoff > Te Anau, 25.5km, 8 Hours

The Takitimu's are a beautiful mountain range.  The TA traverses a spectacular basin before exiting to the Te Anau road.

Well the mind worm song guy had a new number in his head this morning, "Be my, be my baby". hmmmm.

I was itching to get into Te Anau so made another early start.  Normally when I'm tramping I get a craving for steak and chips, but I haven't really had any food hankerings yet, except maybe for a fresh apricot.  Be that as it may, food is definitely the default conversation piece around the huts at night.  All that to say, I'm not itching to get into Te Anau to have a feed (although I'll certainly be doing that), more to ring home and have a decent conversation.

To the tramping.  In short, a phenomenal day, one of the most enjoyable I've ever had.  The Takitimu mountains are a hidden gem!  Difficult to get into, but spectacularly beautiful and worth the effort.

The day started misty but cleared just as I dropped into an enormous cirque, surrounded by mountains on all sides.  It truly felt like a natural coliseum.  Every couple of minutes of walking would open up some superlative new view, to the point where it felt I was spending as much time photographing as walking.



The morning's walk consisted of traversing this cirque and was pretty easy going, tussock country mixed with some forest sections, with a bit of route finding thrown in for some fun.  I would imagine in a standard year this could actually be a very difficult route of an extremely boggy nature, but in this very dry summer it was no more than moderately challenging.  The trick was to go slow to be fast, often pausing to survey the best route ahead.

From time to time I managed to escape the chest high tussock onto mossy sections, normally easy walking, but this was so thick it was like walking on a trampoline.  Still easier than the tussock though!


The roar isn't supposed to start for a bit yet, bit I could hear plenty of stags letting go as I walked.  I can see why this area is popular with hunters!

One was used as a very effective arrow.


After 4 hours and 12km of some of the most glorious walking I've ever had, I started to climb out of the cirque towards Princhester Saddle.  Tough going!  1.5km covered in the next 90 minutes.  Spiders must love this forest.  The kayaking couple had left before me, so I wasn't first on track for the day, but I was still getting a faceful of spider web every 2-3 minutes.  Meeting a SOBO going the other way it was the first thing she mentioned too.

After some time negotiating the often treacherous route down from the saddle, and still seemingly deep in the bush, I heard the glorious sound of sheep bleating, the signal that the end of the track was nigh.

A very nice hut, Lower Princhester, sits at the trailhead, accompanied by a very pretty stream.  It'd be a fantastic place to spend the weekend if you lived close by.

From here there was an easy 6km road walk out to the main Te Anau Rd, which if nothing else provided a good view of the saddle I'd just come over.

... and the novelty of the world's most useless cattle stop.

Once on the Te Anau road I opted for an extra 3km along to the Mavora Lakes turnoff, where the next section would be starting from.  No point making Stephen and Eli, who will be joining me for Te Anau through to Queenstown, walk that bit.

Waiting for the bus at the crossroads was not a pleasent experience.  90 minutes in 30+ degree heat with not even a hint of shade.  At least it gave me the chance to go full tourist again when the local farm decided to do a sheep drive right across the crossroad in front of me, something I remember happening all the time while on holiday as a kid, but it seems you hardly see now.

I'm now into a 4 day hiatus in Te Anau, back on the trail on the 2nd of February, for 5 days through the Mavora lakes to Queenstown.

Day 10 - Apirama Hut, 0km

After 5 days on the move and a big push yesterday it was time for a zero day (track parlance for a rest day, as in 0km travelled).
A lazy day of reading, watching the Poirot TV series, and chatting with the other 3 hut residents followed, punctuated with 3 trips down to the Apirama Deep for a swim, 300 meters away.


The hole is only about 1.5 meters deep at it's deepest, but is about 20 meters long, so is perfect for a bit of swimming or just lazing around between the water and sandy/stoney beach on one side of it.
After a long lie in I went down for a morning wake me up about 8.30, a longer swim/laze/sunbath in the early afternoon, then a pre dinner refresher.

We have a merry party this evening.  6 NOBOs in total and, remarkably, all kiwis (even Neil has a NZ passport).  To put that into context, something like 20% of the people I've seen doing the trail have been kiwis. 

Some really interesting people in, including a guy (directly behind me) who kayaked with Ferguson and McDonald in the 80's and now works as a builder on Hollywood movie sets.  Made for some interesting conversation.  Alas, another who hasn't been able to get the song "Stand by your man" out of his head all day, something like a stuck record.  The conspirational part of me wonders if this is a subconscious, subliminal message to a youngish girl he has started walking with along the way, and is rather mentoring along, to the point of preparing all her food and sharing water bottles. 

I've just finished strapping my feet ready for the off tomorrow.  A SOBO has given me an alternative from second skin to use for the blisters, so I'll be trying that with interest tomorrow.  Next stop Te Anau!

Day 9 - Telford Burn Camp to Aparima Hut, 21.6km, 10 hours 35 minutes

It wasn't yet dawn when I got up, the sky just starting to lighten in the east.  I was determined to break the crux of the climb before the day heated up too much - I'd be sweating enough as it was.  

So after a quick breakfast and packup I was on the trail by 6.30, pack and, more importantly, left heel feeling great.  

It was steep country, but with an open hillside leading onto a wide ridge, it was choose your own adventure stuff.  I responded with shallow zigzags to lessen the slope and within 45 minutes had the first 300 meters (the steepest part) done, before the sun hit me.  As an added bonus once I hit the ridge leading to the summit I was hit with just about the perfect breeze to keep me cool.  All in all a great day so far!

Like what tends to happen when you're climbing mountains the view just kept getting better the higher I went, resulting in many photographs of largely the same scene.

Towards the top the ridge narrowed, a more direct route dictated.  Ironically, even though less steep than earlier, this probably made for tougher going.  Nevertheless the top beckoned. A flock of magpies and a stunning view were waiting for me on the summit.  I could just make out the sweep of Colac Bay away in the distance.  It was satisfying to say the least to survey the distance travelled in the last few days.

Once over the top it was into the bush for 4km of meandering down to the Lower Wairaki hut, reached after 4 hours from the campsite, and the normal stop point for the day.    

However I was keen to get on to the next hut to sample the wonders of the Apirama Deep, the name I have decided to bestow on this as yet unseen swimming hole further on.  Even so I had a break here for a couple of hours.

As I was sunning myself on the hill an Irish fella sauntered up and introduced himself.  He and his girlfriend are NOBOs and were camping down the hill by the river.  Apparently a refreshing place to throw yourself.  I needed no second invitation and was down having a dip a couple of minutes later.  Then back to the hut for a boil up.

2 hours into my second stint through to Apirama hut the big climb this morning suddenly caught up.  The fires went out, and from that point the afternoon was hard yakka.  This was unfortunate timing, because I was about to embark on the most soul destroying track I've ever been on.

Some background.  On a 1:50000 topomap the relief lines are drawn for every 20 meters of height.  If your trail is running perpendicular to the relief lines, you're going to be either climbing or descending.  If your trail is running parallel to the relief lines, you're in for a pretty easy time of it.  Here's the relief map for part of yesterday afternoon's walk.

It looked pretty easy going, hence the decision to push on to the next hut.  However the track was actually a never-ending series of what seemed like flood tracks.  Each was 20-25 meters high, each started immediately after the previous one had been descended.  The thing, is because of their height they didn't show up on the topomap and they were completely unexpected.  I stopped counting how many once we'd done 30.  At a conservative estimate that's an unexpected 600 meters of extra climbing.

Somewhere along the way I managed to lose my hat, which was tucked into my chest belt.  It was probably as a result of throwing the pack off my back exhaustedly.  In open country this would be a bit of a disaster, but I've largely got bush to Te Anau.  <Update: Neil's just caught me up, and found it in a stream - it must have dropped out while I was refilling bottles.  Australian Superman!>

Unlike previous days there were good sized streams every kilometer or two.  I gorged myself on clear, cold water all day.  It was exquisite!  I don't expect there has ever been a day when I have drunk quite so much water.

Not far before the hut I had a bit of a morale boost.  The second major milestone, 200km!  Somewhat manic smile ensued. 

And so to the hut.  But not before seeing the famed swimming hole.  Pack down, boots off (after spending a tortuous couple of minutes sorting out my double knotting), then into the river with everything else still on. Bliss!

A rest day tomorrow, so looking forward to a lot more of that.  More on the hut and swimming hole tomorrow!

Day 8 - Birchwood Station To Telford Camp Site, 25km, 8 Hours

Camp site at the Telford Burn

Staying in a Shearer's quarters last night I had a bit of a late start, with a shower to start the morning (luxury) before heading onto the trail just after 8.

The day consisted of a traverse of Mt Linton station, one of the larger high country stations in New Zealand.  Route descriptions were rather confusing.  I was looking forward to a shorter day of 19km, but in fact the station had recently changed the route, adding another 9+km to the day.

Early on I could tell that my left heel was cutting up badly.  I stopped to have a look and was confronted with an open wound of a blister - different but located right next to the first (which has started to heal quite nicely).  This one is more serious than the first and is pretty concerning stuff.


I've resorted to double socking the foot, which helps considerably; I'll need to buy another pair of socks in Te Anau to accommodate this longer term.  Oh and I'll try not to besiege the blog with blister photos!

Mt Linton station is very beautiful further in towards the mountains - it is good of the owners to allow access (from what I understand they are very reluctant to do so).
However some of the routing is pretty farcical, to the point where it feels like they are taking the mickey a bit.  Remembering this is all high country station, grass country; the route goes over large hills where a route around them is available within the same paddock, it religiously follows fence lines which means many 90 degree turns where the paddock could easily be traversed diagonally, and worst of all sends the walkers 400 meters up a hillside away from the destination, where a pleasant riverside walk leading directly to the destination is available.  I get that the station has requirements completely foreign to the average walker, but it felt so ridiculous at times that I'm fairly sure many walkers will just ignore the route, which is good for neither the trail or the station.  Rant finished, back to the route.

Having taken time to sort my foot out, I now walked the day solo.  It was enjoyable to set a fairly leisurely pace with frequent climbing stops now that I didn't have a fit young bloke to keep up with.
With climbing comes views, and some pretty spectacular ones of Fiordland were opening out to the West.

Perhaps bovines find body odor attractive.  On my stops I attracted quite the herd.

With water again non existent, I pushed on to have a mid-afternoon lunch.  I had spied on the map that the route forded a biggish river, the Wairaki, which would provide drinking and cooking water for lunch, and (I hoped) somewhere for a swim.
It did!  A nice little meter deep runnel, nice and warm.  With lunch in between I mucked around here for about 40 minutes before moving on.


Throughout the day the Takitimus were getting closer and more impressive.  Towards the end of the day I skipped the 400 meter climb previously mentioned and followed the river banks.  There was DOC signage there, so it's bizarre it's not allowed to be used for the TA.

I'll sleep well tonight with a river bubbling along directly beside my tent.  Just as well, tomorrow is a hard climbing day.  I've heard rumours of an excellent swimming hole at the hut past where the usual stop point is tomorrow.  If I'm up to it I may do a double stint to get to that hut, then have a rest day swimming.

Week 1 Summary

6 walking days, 1 rest day.
167km covered from Bluff.
That's a much higher average walking distance than I want to maintain long term, but this is largely dictated by the route until the Mavora lakes between Te Anau and Queenstown is reached.  Unfortunately my feet have paid a heavy price, especially in the first few days.
I have found the lack of water in Southland challenging.  Tramping in Canterbury there are streams to help yourself to water from on demand, but here I have tramped entire days without finding any water source.  As someone who sweats a lot tramping, this has been very difficult, especially when climbing.

I've been thrilled with how well my back has done, with only 2 Voltaren consumed on the day after the bush bash into Longwood forest.

The Southland geography had been surprising.  I expected rounded hills, but instead the climbs have been short but sharp.  It seems that unlike further up the country the mountain chains run east-west here, but that could be just my impression, I haven't verified this on a map.  Further north there will be a lot of valley following, here it is more up and down ranges.

The second week sees an adventure into some proper mountains, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Day 7 - Merriview Hut to Birchwood Station, 29km, 8 Hours 35 Minutes

I have a new definition for the word "optimism", air freshener in a longdrop.

(Not to put too fine a point on it, it wasn't effective).  But while on the subject of ablutions, I find I really don't need any.  My body seems to be consuming almost everything that's thrown down its gullet.

A nasty shock awaited me this morning.  Hanging my pack away from the mice a couple of nights ago by the side handle had been a bad idea, and one corner of my pack frame had broken the material and was hanging 2 inches from it's normal position.  This obviously destabilised the whole pack, and I was amazed I had not noticed the issue yesterday.  Out came the jury rig material - some very agricultural sewing, some souped up repair tape, and finally a big safety pin right through the whole lot.  It looks like it'll hold, but may need to be fixed properly in Te Anau.

My feet are feeling a bit sore, and half the walk today was on road or pine forests, so on went the sandals and into the pack went the boots.  The only problem was, on the first 200 meter climb through a forest, I got them covered in biddy bids.  This didn't seem to affect my feet and I carried on irrespective.

After this first climb we (Neil and I have stuck together) had an hour or so on country roads, before embarking on another 300 meter climb, this one with a 1 in 5 gradient.

I've decided that climbing with a pack is rather like interval training:

Keep going until you reach max heart rate.

Then go for as long as you feel ok.

Collapse to the ground (preferably on some moss) and slurp some water.

Wait for the heart rate to return to some kind of normality.

Rinse and repeat until the top of the hill is reached.

The whole process leaves me looking pretty drenched!

The top of the hill marked 5 hours walking and lunch time.  I found a moss beanbag that I could sink into and enjoyed some hard boiled, free-range eggs from Merrivale farm.  Water being in short supply again today, no boil up was possible.

After some time walking along a ridge we came into another exotic (well, pine, so perhaps not so exotic) forest, before missing a turn, fortunately in an area that wasn't too steep and only 1km off the trail.

Views opened out just before we descended a ridiculously steep hill - I'm pretty sure the steepest I've ever done.  It was 1 in 4 or steeper.  400 meters of that was hard yakka on the feet!

By the bottom of the hill water had become an issue, yet again no streams were to be found during our day's walking.  I found a sheep pond at the bottom of the hill, and so a first use for the water filter on this trip.  Tasted a little daggy, but all in all not too bad. Waking across the last paddocks there was some watching of the bulls.  But fortunately no running of the bulls, so my skills at the pack laden fence high jump remain untested. Tonight we are staying at the Shearer's quarters at Birchwood Station, a couple more beers provided along with an excellent home cooked meal.  I'm fairly sure I'm putting on weight on this trip. Tomorrow we head into the Takitimu mountain range, and away from any known civilization, before coming out near Te Anau.  Not much of Southland to go!

Day 6 - Martins Hut to Merriview Hut, 28km, 9 hours.

On top of Bald Hill, harvesting water!

I'm getting into the groove of walking early.  Up at 6, quick breakfast, forced back inside by passing shower, then on the trail by 7.  

Water was going to be an issue today.  There was none to be had on the 29km to be covered.  Not willing to go back down to the stream from last night, and not trusting the water from the tank at the hut (it looked like brewed tea), so I did a couple of boil ups from the tank water, having a cup of tea and another of coffee before leaving, to get my fluid levels up as high as possible.  Apart from that I was just going to have to get by on the 2 liters I had squirreled aside from last night.

The walking day started with a 400 meter climb straight out of the hut.  What a difference a night makes!  It was a similar gradient, but much easier going than the end of the day yesterday.  I usually power my way up hills but was more measured here, trying to keep sweating, and hence water loss, to a minimum, alas with limited success.  My shirt was still a mess of sweat when I got to the tops 40 minutes after starting.

On the tops the topomap promised easier going.  I stopped to setup the solar panel and was immediately rewarded with the satisfying glow of the charging light.  However even while I was setting it up a mist rolled in.  It was the kind of day that could go either way, weather wise.

Within minutes the day decided which way it wanted to go, a light shower starting.  No solar panel charging on the go for me today.  The rain worsened, at one point becoming somewhat haily, necessitating donning the jacket for the first time.

We had been assured of magnificent views on this day, down to Stewart Island and Bluff hill, and west to the Fiordland mountains; instead we could just about make out the trig point 20 meters away.

I say we because Neil, the Tasmanian from yesterday, had caught up and we paired up to tackle the inclement conditions together.

The rain wasn't all bad, it was easier to stay cool, and so the water situation was eased somewhat.  Also, I enjoyed playing catch the falling drop from my hood visor with my tongue.

There was a bit of up and down today, 3 hills with probably about 900 meters ascent in total.  Off the tops it was real goblin forest, with moss like I've never seen before, hanging off the trees, and on the ground up to a meter thick.

To further ease the water situation I took to sucking spagnum moss, which is essentially a very effective sponge.  As long as you didn't suck too hard you could get a decent mouthful of water from a handful of spagnum.  Suck too hard and you'd get a mouthful of dirt.

Coming down to an abandoned quarry, we started up a service road to the summit of our final hill for the day, after 5 hours walking.  Here we struck gold, a stagnant hole of semi-potable water.  It was good enough for me.  I immediately drained a good liter of it before refilling bottles.

Shortly afterwards we reached the top of Bald Hill, where there is a biggish communications station.  It had a convenient nook to get out of the wind, allowing a boil up for lunch.

The afternoon was fairly non eventful.  A couple of hours through more goblin forest, slowly losing height, then another couple of hours down a four wheel drive track.

And so I say goodbye to the deep, deep South; we're now in central Southland.  Our accommodation tonight is fabulous, a private hut setup on a farm, run by a really friendly family.  I bought a couple of bottles of beer, a can of Coke and some farm fresh eggs for breakfast tomorrow.  The whole thing is run by an honesty box system - the TA walkers I've met so far seem a really decent bunch, so I trust that this system works out for them.  It's a pleasant change to have that level of trust.  If you're doing TA stay at Merrivale huts!

One other item if note, Merrivale farm had the most pet-like sheep I've ever seen.  Honestly, it was more like a dog.  When you rubbed her tummy she'd start wagging her non existent tail, and if you stopped she'd start pawing your arm with a hoof to continue!

Anyway, when I arrived at the hut there was a very chatty Swiss couple already in residence.  They are SOBO South Island only, and blew my mind when they told me they had not had to use their jackets once on their whole trip South.  Amazing!  They also got amusingly lost at one point, ending up at Lake Benmore on the section between Lake Ohau and Twizel.  This was a 50km detour, that would have taken at least 2 days walking! 

Tomorrow we head on through Southland farmland to a similarly setup private camp tomorrow.  This one holds the promise of a huge meal for $15 if other walkers are to be believed.