Quintessential Fiordland trip a great Christmas getaway
When I think of a typical outdoor Christmas in New Zealand, two scenarios spring to mind, both detached from Christmas carols on repeat and hectic Boxing Day sales.
The first is camping by the ocean or river, or staying at the family bach for mellow days of swimming, fishing and barbecues. Then there’s tramping, the freedom of the hills.
Fiordland is one of my absolute favourite places on earth. When you have the skills for off-track travel, an exciting world of true wilderness opens up, piecing together remote mountain ranges and fiords, on foot and by packraft.
Two years ago, Jamie and I set off from the West Arm of Lake Manapouri on Christmas Eve with about a week’s worth of food, packrafting and tramping gear, a bunch of maps, and loose plans to make it to Foveaux Strait. For two weeks, we linked together rivers, fiords, lakes, trails and mountain ranges.
‘‘We could start on the Dusky, go down Nine Fathoms Passage and access the Heath mountaintops from there,’’ Jamie had suggested. ‘‘It’s a long way to Lake Hauroko via the tops,’’ I’d replied. ‘‘It’s hard to know how long that would even take us. I guess we could just pack around 10 days of food and see what happens.’’
We spent our first two days on the notoriously muddy and rugged Dusky Track, also famous for its healthy sandfly population and three-wired bridges. We spent Christmas camping in a moss clearing that was only just big enough for our tent. Salty slop was on the menu for Christmas dinner, followed by a couple of squares of chocolate.
The next morning, instead of wading through sections of deep bog and negotiating slippery tree roots, we inflated our packrafts and floated downstream with the resident whio on the Seaforth River.
It was a cruisy float until we hit a gnarly rapid at the end of Loch Maree. We portaged this short section before continuing down the Seaforth to Supper Cove Hut, at the head of Dusky Sound.
We caught and released a couple of wrasse and looked on as a tourist was evacuated by helicopter following an accident on a three-wired bridge. From the hut, we paddled past Girlies Island and through Nine Fathoms Passage before deflating our packrafts to walk again.
We had set our sights on the most mellow-looking ridge, but from our camp on the coast it still looked intimidating. Thick Fiordland bush was dotted with deep red rata in full bloom.
We spent several hours climbing through thick bush, gaining 1000 metres of elevation before popping out into tussock land. From there, we had two off-trail days through the Heath Mountains before reaching Lake Roe Hut on the Dusky Track.
Travel was via a mixture of wellformed game trails, thick bushbashing and tussock tops. Ranges with mellow ridges stretched away as far as our eyes could see. The mountains in this part of Fiordland are not the most formidable, but the difficult access and remoteness makes them feel really wild.
An infection on my foot was quickly spreading. We had 16 kilometres of rugged off-trail terrain to cover, and with a storm looming, we were keen to make it to Lake Roe.
We started counting tarns to distract ourselves, but gave up after counting 200 before midday. We kept focused, aiming for Lake Jane, our ‘‘home safe’’ destination. From there, we knew we’d have Lake Roe Hut in the bag regardless of the weather.
By the time we reached the hut, my feet, with swollen toes, were excruciatingly painful to walk on. Only later would I realise it was trench foot.
My need for rest coincided with a storm, so we spent an extra night at Lake Roe, celebrating New Year’s Eve with three other hut dwellers, including two DOC workers on a rock wren research project. We ate marzipan logs, had a few sips of wine, and were all fast asleep before midnight.
Instead of continuing on the Dusky Track, we clambered up on to the Merrie Range for some more tops travel. We went past Lake Story and dropped down to the Hauroko Burn shortly before the head of Lake Hauroko. I was stoked to have the last of the bush-bashing behind us.
Ahead of us, we had 33km of lake packrafting, 30km of river packrafting (grade 2+), and 30km of flat track. We pulled our sleeping bags over our heads to try to escape the sandflies, and set our alarm for 4.30am to make the most of calm paddling conditions.
Lake Hauroko, meaning ‘‘windy lake’’, has been known to flip jet boats, and we were planning to packraft the length of it. At 400 metres, it’s the deepest lake in New Zealand. Luckily, it was calm, and we packrafted the 33km to Teal Bay Hut.
We dropped another 200m over 30km packrafting the Wairaurahiri River before finally hitting the South Coast.
The Wairaurahiri is one of my favourite packrafting rivers, and is quickly cementing itself as a New Zealand classic. It has everything – it can be made into a round trip combining a lake, an amazing river, the ocean, a historic walking track, and even some tops travel on the Hump Ridge Track.
It was thrown into the limelight a few months later during Godzone Fiordland, when, unfortunately, I found myself walking the South Coast track for a second time within a few months!
After two weeks of bush-bashing, paddling and lazy nights, we finished our journey. We’d spent most of the time off-track, weaving together some stunning terrain. If anyone is inspired to repeat the route, I’d love to hear about your adventure.
Thick Fiordland bush was dotted with deep red rata in full bloom.