Day 5 - Colac Bay to Martin's Hut, 28km, 8 hours

St Martin's Hut, my first hut on trail.  Most walkers were very disparaging of this hut, but apart from the lack of water I didn't mind it.

With the day promising to be hot, I got away to an early(ish) start, just after 7.  

I really enjoyed the cooler morning walking, taking advantage of the early morning light to go full tourist and take photos of sheep.



Despite a full water load to deal with an expected shortage, the pack felt really good. I had spent some time reconfiguring it slightly to be able to store more heavy gear low, on my hips, rather than on my shoulders.

To date I've been heading west, along the coast, but today I was hanging a right and starting to head north for the first time.
Having heard about a recently opened shortcut through a dairy farm from a SOBO, I left the official trail and rather nervously ventured down a side road, searching for the promised orange triangle. I was approaching Ardoyne farm, where the shortcut is, when a cockie came roaring up on his quad.  My visions of having to backtrack 3km evaporated as he enthusiastically pointed out the route to take through his farm. Top bloke! With profuse thanks for allowing access I made my way up through the farm to the bushline of Longwood forest.
It was here that I had my first decent view of Stewart island, no longer obscured by haze, as I stopped to don gaiters. My first bit of proper tramping since I had started awaited!

Entering the bush I first had some energy sapping bush bashing trying to pick (and sometimes make a new) path of least resistance though the forest.  I had a renewed sense of admiration for Maori and the early European explorers as I collapsed exhausted and drenched in sweat only a kilometer (as the bird flies at least) from where I left the farm, but on the track at least.  

There has been a lot written by other walkers about how muddy the Longwood track is and how washed out the route is along the water race.  At first I found it easy going, but it was to become progressively more difficult as the day went on.

Not long into the forest, I passed my first major milestone. Te Araroa, South Island is 1300km long (well 1297km, but I thought I'd take the last 3 for free), and I had just passed my first 100km marker. Queue celebratory thumbs up.

The forest was beautiful; mixed podocarp of Rimu and Matai, with kamahi and rata with an understory of tree ferns and lancewood.  To my mind rather reminiscent of West coast forest.  I love walking through forest like this, such a contrast to the Canterbury mountain beech forest mono-flora I am used to.

There were sections where I pushed through Fern groves so dense it was impossible to have any sense of where the trail went.  In these sections I proceeded very deliberately, careful to not lose my way, and breaking off fronds as I went to make the way more obvious. Nevertheless, at one point I managed to lose the trail, but was close to a stream which allowed me to re-orientate and bush bash back to the track.

The trail could best be described as makeshift, with many bridges consisting of a single log, many half rotten, and of the "I'm not entirely comfortable with someone of your weight crossing me" variety.


One particularly dodgy bit had a 1.5 meter gap, 2 meter drop to the water race, and slippery take off and landing points; fortunately safely negotiated.

Being finally into some bush I revelled in being able to have a shady stop whenever I wished, and settled into my normal tramping rythym of packs off every hour.

I enjoyed walking beside the water race, you can guarantee that they'll be flat tracks, so Karen and I often used them for walks before she had her heart op. I have fantastic memories of walking along the still functioning one in Naseby playing Pooh sticks with Karen and the boys for kilometers, so a water race walk always evokes happy memories for me. I prefer not to consider the back breaking labor that must have going into constructing them.

After about 5 hours of walking I came upon some of the old paraphernalia the race had been dug for. Gold workings!
An old boiler in the bush, I presume to drive a stamping battery.

It was as good a place as any, so I sat down for some lunch here.
As I drained the last of my water (I still had a bottle of raro made up), I suddenly realised that I was going to need it to boil up my soup. Not wanting to find out what rich tomato and orange soup tastes like, I contented myself with banana chips and cashew nuts.   Sigh.

A sting was waiting in the trail towards the end of the day. A 300 meter climb over 1.5km. here my insufficient lunch caught up with me, having to stop every 5 or so minutes as I hauled up the hill. It was a curious thing I don't know I've felt before - with each step my pack literally felt like it was getting heavier.

Eventually I came to Martin's hut, the first DOC hut on te Araroa. It's probably the first built hut on te Araroa as well. Let's just say that wall ventilation (and mice) come for free. Unfortunately lighting doesn't. It has a small window, which seemed ineffectual even mid afternoon, so I wedged the door open to provide some light.


I'd just taken my boots off when an English SOBO couple popped in. We spent the next 30 minutes looking around for a water source, before finding a trickle of a stream 200 meters from the hut, and worse yet 60 meters down! I'll try to restrain myself to only needing to fill the bottles once, but tomorrow is a dry day's walking, so I'll need to be careful. I gave myself the best chance of not needing to go back by drinking about 2 liters of water while I was there. Any way, it turns out the English couple had in the last day booked into the district Court in Dunedin to get married when they were off the trail. Congrats to them! I guess 6 months of walking will give you a fair idea about whether you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.

Late in the day Neil, the Tasmanian I met the previous day turned up, to make a full hut.