Te Araroa – The Long Pathway. 3000km from the northern tip of NZ to the southern tip. I have wanted to do this walk since I first heard about it. It has taken a while to convince Pauline, and to organise. After talking to a lot of hikers that have done the whole trip we have decided to only do the South Island. This is still a 1300km journey that will take about 80 days and traverses some of the more remote areas of New Zealand.
Begginings – Picton
We arrived in Picton on the 6.00am ferry. Pretty tired after travelling all night. Been busy buying 18 days of food and boxing it up to post off two food drops. Great town, good Fresh Choice supermarket and lots of restaurants.
Off tomorrow morning on the 8am water taxi to Ship Cove, the start of the walk.
Geoff sorting out the food drops.
Ship Cove to Havelock
Taking it easy for the first leg. Did 17km to Madsen camp the first day. 15km to Bay Of Many Coves camp the second day. We have already met a few other walkers doing Te-Araroa, some doing both islands, and some like us just doing the South Island.
Docs have a wildlife refuge at Bottle Rock Peninsula, it’s sealed off with a row of hundreds of traps. Mainly trying to kill stoats. They are serious traps, I think they would break all your fingers if you put your hand in.
We have just arrived at Smiths camp ground near Anikiwa. We camped last night at Cowshed Bay. The plan to ramp things up is working OK, 15km yesterday, 22km today. The Queen Charlotte track that we have just finished is a fantastic walk. Great scenery and beech forests.
From Smiths Campground it’s 22k to Havelock along the side of the main road. At Havelock we stocked up with 8 days food ready for the tramp through the Richmond Ranges. We also pigged out on the best mussels in the world at the local mussel restaurant. Overnight the weather turned nasty with high winds and horizontal rain. We survived the night in the Blue Moon backpackers with the walls shaking😜.
Havelock to St Arnaud
We headed off into a strong headwind for the 21km trek to Pelorus river camp. The forecast was for rain and strong winds. Turned out to be a fairly pleasant wander through farmland with just a couple of showers.
We played the grey card (old farts) at the Campground. They offered us an empty store room for the night, same price as a tent site😄. The Cafe here has excellent home made pies, pastries and milk shakes, no contest with peanut butter on crackers. Going back just before they close for some carb loading (being pigs).
It was a long trudge from Pelorus camp to the end of the road. A few lucky trampers got a ride in the back of a Ute (not us) 🙄. The track from here to Captains Creek hut is quite rugged and slow going. We missed out on a bed in the hut so had to weather the overnight rain in the tent.
Off to Rocks hut today. Only 10km, but takes 5 hours. Three, or was it four, suspension bridges and 600m climb. This is the last of our easy days. From now on it will be 9 hour days to make it to St Arnaud where we have booked a room.
We managed to move our booking at St Arnaud a day later. We wouldn’t have made it. The Richmond Ranges are quite slow going, lots of roots and mud😩 Now that we have an extra day we have stopped at Hacket hut for the night. Ready for the 1200 meter climb tomorrow morning.
Today was our biggest day so far. Only 10km but took most of the day. Started out with multiple river crossings. Geoff finally got wet feet😉. Then a long climb up over Mt Starveall.
Fantastic views for 360 deg. We can see all the way to Mt Taranaki on the north island, 250km away!
We stayed overnight at Slatys hut. Had one other walker. He was from France, lived in the Pyrenees which explains why he did in one day what took us two 🤔. I might even copy his breakfast recipe – take a wrap, coat in a thick layer of peanut butter, then lay six squares of chocolate along the center, roll up and eat, simple🤣.
The usual early start for what is the most challenging day of Te-Araroa. Over Mt Rintoul. The forecast was for rain later in the day. Three climbs!
Ignore the times on the profile. The two peaks at the end are covered in frost shattered rock and would be quite dangerous in the wet.
We had fantastic views for most of the day. With some cloud moving in as we crossed Mt Rintoul, no views, but no rain.
We had the Mt Rintoul hut to ourselves so we spread out. Lots of mist overnight and rain forecast for the next day.
Mt Rintoul to Mid Wairoa hut was supposedly an easy day. It still took us from 7am till 3pm with a 20 min break for lunch, long days. We walked in clouds most of the day so no views or pics. Tomorrow we will do from Mid Wairoa hut to Hunters hut. Only one hill for the day, unfortunately it’s a 1200m climb. Pauline and Geoff are both happy about the climb, they don’t like the steep descents. I hope they like river crossings as there are eight tomorrow morning😩.
Well the river crossings were OK, only knee deep. The traverses along muddy ledges 50m above the river for hours were very slow going. Not Pauline’s favourite. One slip and it’s all over. To add to this Geoff and Pauline both grabbed some stinging nettles for balance and I was stung by a wasp 🥴.
Following the river ended at Top Wairoa hut where we had lunch. Then the climbs began, up and over Mt Leslie. In places the track was just rock hopping over boulder fields to the next marker. Yes, the route goes through the middle of the photo.
Over the top of Mt Leslie was a white out that deteriorated to rain😩, so no views from the top. We finally dragged ourselves into Hunters Hut for some dinner after an 11 hour day.
From Hunters Hut to Red Hill Hut via Porters hut took most of the next day. When Pauline and I arrived all the beds were taken so we had to put up the tent. Rained most of the night.
Some parts of the track were OK, others were rock scrambling over boulder fields. I lost track of how many river crossings we did. If the rivers were up it would be impossible to do this route!
The last day of the Richmond Range had three 200m climbs, followed by a long descent and a 10km road bash to St Arnaud. The route takes you through kilometres of Alpine Beech forest covered in moss. Straight out of Lord of the Rings.
Of course once we reached the road bash and Pauline produced the sunnies, it rained the whole way to St Arnaud. Tonight we are holed up in the Alpine Lodge. Pizza, showers, food drop, washed all our clothes. Ready to head out tomorrow for another 6 days. The highlight of this is crossing the Waiau Pass 1870m, which is the second highest point on Te-Araroa.
St Arnaud to Boyle Village
After a big breakfast of bacon and eggs we headed off into the wilds again. An easy day for us, only 10 km to Lakehead hut. Nice big hut. Problem is it’s too easy to get to. About 20 other trampers turned up. One ended up sleeping on the floor.
The next day was a long uphill following the river to Upper Travis hut, with lunch on the way at John Tait hut.
Met a few more TA walkers at the hut. Most are aiming to get over Waiau pass by Tuesday night. The weather is supposed to close in by then and make it impassible for a couple of days.
First we need to cross Travis pass which is a 250m climb from the hut.
Spectacular views from the pass. Followed by a looooong descent to West Sabine hut. We stopped here for lunch. Would have stayed the night but we need to make it over Waiau pass the next day, so we trudged on to Blue Lake Hut. This hut was packed, so we missed out on a bed. It’s actually more peaceful in the tent when the hut is packed.
Up early again for the big climb over Waiau pass. The climb starts with a difficult traverse around a lake. Then it’s a 500m climb straight up a scree slope. We were lucky with the weather, clear views from the pass😊.
The descent from the pass is down a rocky spine and is much more difficult than the ascent. Quite a bit of rock scrambling and route finding. So slow going. I think Pauline’s hair has gone a bit greyer since!
We camped the night at Upper Waiau Forks, partly because we were exhausted and also to let the other 8 TA walkers that came over the same day go on to the next hut.
18-Dec
The promised rain started about 1am. Only a short day today to Waiau Hut. Bucketing rain all the way. The rivers have started to come up so the three river crossings for the morning were deeper than expected but still OK. Up to mid thigh on the deepest.
Our plan to drop behind the TA pack has worked perfectly. We have the hut to ourselves. There were 7 in the 6 bed hut the night before and 8 the night before. The heater is going and we are lazing around for the rest of the day drying things out. 😉 Might still be raining tomorrow, we just take is as it comes!
We passed the 300km mark today. Only 1000km to go😒.
Three more TA walkers came over the pass in the rain yesterday and ruined our solitude. They arrived at the hut late afternoon. They had the scars from a couple of close shaves. One had a deep cut about 70mm long on her calf. Crazy🙄 to cross the pass in bad weather!
19-Dec
Off to Anne hut today. 26km all up and in Anne hut by 2pm! We lost count of the river crossings. The largest one was the Ada river. We were concerned it would be too deep with all the rain. It turned out to be straight forward and mid thigh deep.
Lots of wild flowers out, mainly daisies and blue salvias.
20-Dec
From Anne hut we headed up over Anne saddle to Boyle Flat hut for the night. Met up with the same TA crew as last night.
Geoff spent most of the evening teaching other TA walkers how to play 500. Very funny to watch from the side lines.
21-Dec
Easy day today, from Boyle Flat to Boyle Village, only 17km. It’s an outdoor center so has lots of beds and Showers 🤗. We are all clean again, washed our clothes and picked up our food drop. It also has Wi-Fi so we can talk to the world again. Food choices are limited to frozen pizza, OK, but not what we hoped for!