Our third trip to the remote huts on the West Coast of the South Island. Done one of these week long trips each of the past three years, this one was Anthony's choice. The route we choose to access Ivory Lake was the Waitaha valley, returning out the Mikonui.
The best references for this area are:
- http://remotehuts.co.nz/huts/
- The Canterbury Westland Alps by Yvonne Cook and Geoff Spearpoint
- NZTopo50 maps BV17, BV18, BW17, BW18
For identifying fungi using
Landcares Fungal Guide.
Road end drop and collection was with
Hokitika Scenic Tours, thanks Rachel and Morris.
Whisky's of the trip, Anthony bought Lagavulin 16yo and I bought Bruichladdich Port Charlotte Scottish Barley heavily peated.
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| Bruichladdich Port Charlotte Scottish Barley |
Sunday 11/03/2018
Anthony picked me up from Motueka just before 0700 and we drove South, stopping for food at the Junction Cafe. Pretty good food and coffee, had to have seconds of both. Drove to Rachel's place to be driven to the start of our walk, the Waitaha valley road end.
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| Junction Cafe and Honey Center |
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| Getting close |
The walk along the Waitaha river is tedious especially when you see the farm track we could have walked down.
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| First bit of DOCWare |
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| Waitaha valley |
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| Waitaha river |
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| Getting up away from the farm |
The adventure begins at the swing bridge, then its typical West Coast
river wander all the way to a creek crossing with the Kiwi Flat hut a hundred
meters away.
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| swing bridge |
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| Kiwi Flat |
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| Start of Morgan gorge |
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| Kiwi Flat |
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| Kiwi Flat hut |
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| Forest Service interior |
The first evening was the time to eat the heaviest meal, which for me was a vegetarian MRE and a bag of rice. As the days went by the food got worse, so difficult to find decent freeze dry vegetarian food.
Monday 12/03/2018
Got to Moonbeam Hut at lunch time with the plan to keep going and bivvy out evaporating as we relaxed in a comfortable hut in a remote location. Very nice day was had relaxing.
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| Entoloma hochstetteri |
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| Looking out over Kiwi Flat |
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| Whio again |
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| Waitaha River |
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| Waitaha River |
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| Moonbeam Hut |
Food time, relax time, a book to read. Dried our cloths and collected firewood for the people who arrive in the cold rain that is sure to come.
Tuesday 13/03/2018
The day we both looked forward to as we had read much of the difficulties of traveling up Waitaha valley.
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| Anthony ready to leave from Moonbeam Hut |
The track from Moonbeam to the swing is a scrubby wee bash passing a dry rock shelter, then out into the river for a bit.
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| Moonbeam track |
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| Swing bridge over Waitaha River |
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| Waitaha River |
Once across the river and along a bit there is a slow wander uphill, then down to the river. As you head down to Chinaman Creek there is a good view up the Waitaha.
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| View up Waitaha, dropping to Chinaman Creek |
This is the section that we looked forward to, from Chinaman Creek to Top Waitaha Hut.
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| Boulders and pools |
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| Anthony happy with the route |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Occasional bash thru the scrub |
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| Add caption |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel occasional easy meadow |
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| Waitaha River travel |
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| Waitaha River travel |
Last bit to the hut is nice and gentle.
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| Out of the river, heading for the terrace |
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| Top Waitaha Hut |
Another pair of whio in the river near the hut.
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| Whio in the Waitaha |
Wednesday 14/03/2018
This was a short day as it is not far or difficult from to Ivory Lake hut.
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| Flats after leaving Top Waitaha hut |
We walked up the river a bit then crossed Reid Creek and headed up onto the tussock benches, which apart from the occasional stab from spaniard was a relaxing walk. Views kept getting better. Pity about the changing weather.
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| Heading up onto the terraces |
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| Stag Creek |
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| Stag Creek |
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| Stag Creek |
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| Layered rocks |
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| Ivory Lake outflow |
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| Not far to Ivory from here |
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| Ivory Lake Hut |
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| Lake and glacier |
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| Anthony enjoying a whisky |
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| Lake view from hut |
It was great to be at Ivory Lake hut and celebrate with a whisky in the old arm chair.
Thursday 15/03/2018
A hut bound day at Ivory Lake hut reading the old hut book and the book on the history of the hut, while listening to the rain falling. The hut has seen some excellent maintenance and is well insulated.
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| Ivory Lake hut in cloud |
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| Low cloud and more water pouring into the lake |
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| Rain on the window |
Sleeping was a major part of the day.
Friday 16/03/2018
The weather cleared by the early afternoon, as Anthony expected, so much better to have views across the tops.
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| Ivory Lake hut and no rain |
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| Ivory Lake and glacier |
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| Looking back at the hut |
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| Back down the Waitaha Valley |
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| Ivory Glacier and lake |
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| Low cloud rolling in |
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| Anthony heading up |
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| Last view of Ivory Lake |
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| Ridge starting to mist out |
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| Top stones |
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| Anthony on the top |
When we started downhill it all went downhill in more ways than one, the lack of visibility made route finding not so easy.
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| Off down the other side with no views |
From here we were concentrating on route finding so much that we stopped taking photos, as we had to sidle a bit to find a nice obvious ridge to get us down into the tussock.
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| Looking down the Tuke valley, can see the hut |
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| Slowly getting closer |
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| The shape of sleep to come |
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| Top Tuke Hut |
The last few kilometers where much slower going than expected, especially when we lost more than an hour heading into the wrong fork. Hut was made easy to find in the dark because of a nice big orange triangle.
Saturday 17/03/2018
We left Top Tuke hut having had a relaxing sleep after yesterdays longer than expected day. Good weather and good views.
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| Top Tuke hut |
Looking back up the valley we could see the way we came and the mistake we made the previous day. Sawtooth is the obvious ridge on the right, with the tributary below it.
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| The head of the Tuke |
Off down the Tuke river, stopping for an early lunch, and seeing blue ducks just before we got out of the river to head up to Dickie Spur hut.
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| Tuke river downstream from Top Tuke hut |
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| Some fungi? |
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| Possibly Hebe salicifolia |
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| Pittosporum? |
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| Whio |
Where there a pair of Whio in every river, or was this the same pair or and they followed us the whole trip.
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| Another plant to learn |
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| And another |
Map has a track marked on it heading up a ridge, not so, the gully to the left of the ridge is the way.
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| Red line is track |
The way is a nice easy route up a creek which climbs steadily to the tussock, it has orange markers occasionally, the way is obvious as it takes the easiest creek at every fork.
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| Up the creek |
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| Onto the tussock |
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| Looking back up the Tuke |
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| East towards the coast |
Once up on the tops it was the easy travel to Dickie Spur hut.
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| Dickie Spur hut door |
Nice place to relax and great views with cell phone reception, and a few weka's in the vicinity looking for handouts.
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| Evening view as light was going |
Sunday 18/03/2018
Today is our "out to the road end" day, with a 2.00pm pickup at Mikonui road end. The walk from the tops down to where it flattened out just before Truran Pass was good going, then we hit tree fall. There is quite a bit of tree fall from here to the Tuke River, lots of opportunities to loose the track. In this section we saw many specimens of
Entoloma hochstetteri. The other fungi of note was a little red one possibly
Mycena viscidocruenta.
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| Entoloma hochstetteri |
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| Possibly Mycena viscidocruenta |
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| Mikonui Flat Hut |
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| Looking back, we came from the valley on the right |
This historic homestead is a hut to bag, so we had a look and consider it private, due to the chain and lock on the door.
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| Historic Mikonui Flat homestead |
The DOCware on. this trip was almost non-existent which for me its more enjoyable to not see lots of "go this way" and "you are here".
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| Mikonui Track start, our end |
Got picked up here by
Hokitika Scenic Tours, good option for getting dropped off and picked up at the road ends this region. Black hut is the last bag on the way out.
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| Black Hut |
Location and Height Profile
Anthony recorded the whole trip on his GPS, imported the gpx file into Google Earth.
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| Info on elevation from Google Earth |
Trip Times
Sunday 11/03/2018
0653 Left Motueka, headed South, stopped for food and coffee at Kumara
1345 Got dropped off by Rachel from
1725 Swing Bridge
1748 Kiwi Flat hut
Monday 12/03/2018
0811 Left Kiwi flat hut
9855 Headlong spur turnoff
1101 Into the river
1246 Moonbeam hut
Tuesday 13/03/2018
0738 Left Moonbeam hut
0839 County turnoff
0841 Swingbridge
1056 Basecamp
1644 Top Waitaha hut
Wednesday 14/03/2018
0917 Left Top Waitaha hut
1203 Arrived Ivory Lake hut
Thursday 15/03/2018
Hut day due to weather
Friday 16/03/2018
1304 Left Ivory Lake hut
1457 On top of 1870m
1532 On top of 2084m
1612 Heading down
2103 Arrived Top Tuke hut
Saturday 17/03/2018
1009 Left Top Tuke hut
1155 Stopped for lunch
1235 On again
1341 Heading up the creek
1526 Out of creek
1624 Dickie Spur Hut
Sunday 18/03/2018
0706 Left Dickie Spur Hut
1143 Mikonui Flat Hut
1227 Left Mikonui Flat Hut
1252 Historic Homestead
1315 Road end
Huts Bagged
- Kiwi Flat Hut
- Moonbeam Hut
- Top Waitaha Hut
- Ivory Lake Hut
- Top Tuke Hut
- Dickie Spur Hut
- Mikonui Flat Hut
- Historic Mikonui Flat homestead
- Black Hut
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