Kahurangi National park
Călin / 16 February 2023
It is mid-February and it is Summer: time for a tramping trip! So a group of five of us, colleagues and friends, decided to go for a 5-day trip to Kahurangi National Park. Although two of them had to pull out before the trip, we decided that it’s still worth going even in a smaller group. For the 5 days, we planned to do the Mount Arthur, the Tablelands, and Cobb Valley tracks (tracks is Kiwi-speak for trails).
Kahurangi National Park was established in 1996 to protect the north-western corner of New Zealand’s South Island. Even though much of the area was protected before, recognizing it as a park was a long time conservation effort. And from the little corner of it that we saw (some 60km of hiking all together), it definitely paid off. The area is a peaceful combination of mountains, beech forests, and high altitude plateaus (the Tablelands). It has really cool geological features, including a multitude of sink holes, some lakes, and lots of rocks. The grasses grow tall – taller than us sometimes, since there is no grazing in the park and it’s just wild … beautiful!
Tramping is a hiking trip with overnight camping, either in huts or tents. Of course, with the 950 huts maintained by the DOC in New Zealand, carrying your tent seemed unnecessary extra work, and we used the huts. The basic idea was to get in on one side – Flora car park, and get out at the other end of the trail – Cobb Valley.
On the first day, we flew early morning to Nelson, a little town of about 50,000 people at the North coast of the South Island, New Zealand is supposedly the country with the highest number of construction cones per capita – they are everywere, including in most city photos!. Given that this was the Thursday of the week when Cyclon Gabrielle battered New Zealand on Monday and Tuesday, we considered ourselves lucky that the weather was just overcast. Moreover, the forecast for the next 5 days promissed (and delivered) good weather – what else would you expect?
We hired a ride with the Heaphy Bus Company to take us from Nelson to the Flora car park and to return us from Cobb Valley at the end of the hike. They offer a nice service and knowledgeable drivers. Craig, our driver for both legs of the trip, shared a lot of information about the tracks, the area, the history, and lots of other stories. We really enjoyed the company. He picked us up in town after we had breakfast and some coffee and we arrived at the trail head a little before noon.
Side (funny?) story: we shared the ride with two young Americans from Massachussets who were there on a hunting/fishing trip. They had all the gear, including tents and food for about 10 days, and were planning to spend closer to 20 days. When we arrived at the car park, they had their rifle on their sholder immediately. While it may have been just because they were leaving stuff (e.g., the gun case) with the driver, I did find it amusing how it reinforces the stereotype of gun loving Americans!
We had a bit of a lunch and started our climb to Mount Arthur hut through a mossy beech forest.
The plan for the day was to drop our packs at the hut and continue on the track to Mount Arthur summit, and then return to the hut. And so we followed the plan. For most of the day weather continued to be mostly overcast, with the sun occasionally breaking out of the clouds for some nice views.
On the way to the summit, it started raining, but we pushed forward since the rain was very light. I trusted that once we get to the summit, the rain will stop and the clouds will scatter. And that’s exactly what happened. And moreover, this was the last rain we had for the rest of the trip.
On the way back to the hut, we actually got to see the mountain.
We arrived at the hut well before dark, cooked our dinner, polenta with cheese – not the most successful, talked a bit, and went to sleep. Some of the huts are equipped with solar panels and have led lights, but Mount Arthur hut has no electricity. While we had headlamps and phones, we decided to call it a day early, especially given that the next day was going to be a long one.
The next day started brilliantly!
The plan was to go toward the Tablelands and link to Cobb Valley. For the day, we followed the track to Salisbury Lodge via Gordons Pyramid. This meant that we tracked back toward Mount Arthur for about three kilometers, mostly uphill and with packs this time, but with a beautiful day ahead of us, we started with gusto.
It took us longer, ~7h instead of the 5h we planned, both because we were loaded and the track was quite difficult. But since we had the whole day for this segment, we managed reach Salisbury Lodge with time to spare. There were very few people on the mountain, we met only 3 people in 7h of walking, even though the weather was good. Maybe because it was a workday (Friday).
At the lodge, we met again with Sarah, our fellow hut dweller from the Mount Arthur hut. She was visiting New Zealand on foot, hiking alone through the South Island. On this track she twisted one of her knees, so was going to take it easy for the next couple of days. Even though one of our group members kept predicting twisted joints (ankles in particular!), we managed to avoid it for the entire trip. Afterward she declared that this was the first trip in which no one got hurt, so we felt good about that – not that this is something unusual about my trips. I am quite proud that there are very few eventful trips on my record 😀.
Salisbury Lodge deserves its “lodge” name. It is spacious, has solar panels and composting toilets, and feels like a hotel by comparison with other huts. We also met Peter, the warden taking care of the hut, who recommended some side trips, but we were just too tired. Therefore, we cooked, washed, and went to sleep early. Again! Indeed, on this trip I caught up on sleep.
From Salisbury Lodge we took the track toward Lake Peel to get to Cobb valley. Another very peaceful and quiet day, with even less people than before.
The walk through Tablelands was amazing. Endless views with occasional old forest clumps. We started relatively early, as the fog was just breaking up, and we saw glimpses of peaks rising at the horizon, while walking through the tall grass, the path hiding under the dense growth. We just had to let our feet find it.
We had lunch at Lake Peel, and then we reached the man made Cobb reservoir. The hut for the night, the Trilobite hut, is very close to the end of the lake.
Our plan for the next two days was to go up to Fenella hut, do some side trips, and then come down early the next day to catch our ride back. However, none of our group felt keen on starting at 6am and lugging the packs down the valley to be back at Trilobite by 11am, so we decided to do the Cobb Valley track in one day, without the packs. It did make for a very long day, 28km of walking, but it was worth it. Cobb river valley has lots of water – there is a stream almost every 50m. There are meadows full of grass, birds, and bugs. This was a Saturday, so we saw some people, maybe a dozen all together. There are huts spread out through the tracks, some more like a lean-to built in the 1950s, for prospecting and mining. Cobb himself was a local mill owner.
We split from the track to Fenella before reaching the hut to go to Lake Cobb. An alpine lake, stashed between peaks, way too tempting to dip in, especially given all the sandfly bites I collected at the Trilobite hut!
Overall, another very peaceful day, lots of walking but thoroughly enjoyable.
Back at the Trilobite hut, we met a group of volunteers who take care of the traps spread around the park. As I wrote previously, nature conservation in New Zealand is trying to restore the native habitat which did not include mamals, only birts, so throughout the park there are traps for stouts, rats, and other mammalian pests. The volunteers were all people in their 70s and 80s. Plenty of experience and stories. It was amazing to see how active they were and how dedicated to maintaining the ecosystem.
As for the last day, we did a small detour to the reservoir, waited for our shuttle, and got back to Nelson around 14:00. The airport has showers (very nice for an airport that doesn’t really have gates!) and we took the opportunity to shed some of our accumulated grime. And we made it back to Auckland for dinner.