Hollyford experience fit for Hollywood
Unwittingly following Harrison to Hollyford, Kamala Hayman enjoys a three-day trek on the recently restored track, with epic scenery, knowledgeable guides and much better than your usual track fare and accommodation.
It is day three before I learn that I am walking in the footsteps of Hollywood megastar Harrison Ford. I am on Nga¯ i Tahu’s three-day Wilderness Experience, a 43km trek through Fiordland’s stunning Hollyford Valley.
It turns out that a year earlier, at the impressive age of 76, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones superstar did this very tramp, accompanied by his partner, Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart and 18-year-old son Liam Flockhart.
It was late 2020 when I was invited to join the first guided group to return to the valley after a devastating storm in February last year.
The deluge washed away large stretches of the track, destroyed access roads and accommodation huts. It took a mammoth effort by multiple parties, including Nga¯ i Tahu, the Department of Conservation and Waka Kotahi (NZ Transport Agency), to restore access in time for the 2020-21 summer season.
Day one of our adventure begins at 6.30am when the coach arrives to whisk us from the lakeside luxury of Queenstown’s Rees Hotel, where we had feasted the night before on delights such as creme brulee made from NZ deer’s milk, an ingredient so difficult to come by it costs $600 a litre.
The four-hour coach trip into the Hollyford Valley passes quickly with lead guide Rebecca ‘‘Becs’’ Howe on the mic, sharing stories from the rich history of Ata Whenua/Fiordland and its explorers.
The road to the track end has not yet been fully repaired, so a helicopter flight whisks us over the damaged final few kilometres of road to the start of our walk.
Our packs are comfortably light, freed from the usual tramping necessities of dehydrated meals, and sleeping bags or tents, and contain only our clothes, water and a packed lunch. Packs, like waterproof coats, are provided to those who don’t have their own, and they’re so comfortable that Harrison Ford arranged to buy his to keep.
We walk at a gentle pace for chatting through native bush, the track flat and in good condition, the remaining fallen trees and washouts easy to navigate.
We have frequent stops to learn a little about the flora and fauna of the valley from our wellinformed guides.
Howe knows how to capture our attention. She is a Te A¯ nau local and gifted storyteller, with an infectious love of her region.
She translates what could be a dry history of names and dates into fascinating yarns about the swashbuckling adventurers and foolhardy folk who explored, farmed and fished in the Hollyford many decades ago.
The guided trek is owned by Nga¯ i Tahu, ensuring a rich Ma¯ ori influence on our three-day experience. We learn how Ma¯ ori survived in the dense Fiordland bush, living off the land and sea for many generations before Europeans arrived, and we hear how speedily their names and way of life were erased by settlers.
Our second guide, the energetic and charming Grace Olliver ensures no-one is left behind, helps us over difficult sections of path, and attends to any first aid needs – crucially, blisters.
Our first day of walking is broken with lunch at the Sunshine Shelter and a small detour to the beautiful Hidden Falls before we climb the modest Little Homer Saddle (168 metres). A few of the hardy ones in our group have a swim in the icy river to cool off.
We are all ready to take our boots off by the time we arrive at Pyke Lodge where we will spend our first night. It is sited at the junction of the Hollyford and Pyke rivers, and was severely damaged when the three-day storm dumped 1000mm of rain. The rivers burst their banks and flooded the lodge to knee height, forcing a dramatic roof-top evacuation by helicopter.
There is no sign of the damage now as we are shown to our rooms where we are greeted with a chocolate on our pillows, fresh towels and comfortable beds. Hardy trampers, look away now. This lodge has hot showers.
Warm, dry and clean, I join the group in the lodge’s spacious lounge where, alongside comfy sofas and a wide window seat, is the long dining table set for dinner.
After drinks and a lavish platter of crackers, cheese, smoked fish, and fruits, we dine on roast vegetables and venison (halloumi for the vegetarians). The leftover venison is later fed to a swarm of voracious eels at the nearby river’s edge.
While there is plenty more beer and wine to be had, most of us opt to head to bed early in preparation for day two.
This may be a luxury tramp, but lie-ins are not on the itinerary.
We have strict instructions to assemble outside the lodge at 8am, ready to start walking.
Our first stop is only metres away where we gather at a plaque commemorating one of Fiordland’s most famed characters, Davey Gunn.
Gunn was a cattle farmer, explorer, and a passionate champion for the region.
He has a legendary status as a hard-working, practical, and hard-as-nails Kiwi bloke.
In 1926, lured by the promise of cheap, fertile land, Gunn left his wife and children behind in the comforts of Waimate to farm 10,000 hectares in Martins Bay.
It was not for the faint-hearted. The bush was thick, the weather stormy and access enormously challenging – the journey to take his cattle to market required an arduous two-month trek through dense bush, rivers and mud.
Medical help was days away, so first aid was largely self-managed. When Gunn suffered a serious injury to his upper thigh and scrotum, he resorted to stitching the wound himself with fishing line. Legend has it he leapt back on his horse to continue working, a point that brought much wincing from the men in our group.
Struggling to make money from farming, Gunn pioneered the idea of guided tours through the Hollyford and Pyke valleys in the mid-1930s.
By 1951, he was attracting enough interest to buy cabins once used for the men who had built the Hollyford Rd as accommodation for his clients.
This became known as Gunn’s Camp and remained in use by fishermen, hunters and trampers until it was destroyed by an avalanche of rocks, mud and trees in February. It is unlikely to be rebuilt.
But it was Gunn’s heroism that cemented his place in history.
One day in December 1936, he saw a light plane crash into the sea at Big Bay. He took off to raise the alarm, running, riding and rowing 90km in just 20 hours – a journey that would usually take four
days – to get medical help. Five of the six people on board survived, earning Gunn the King George VI Coronation Medal.
Tragically, he died when a river he had crossed many times swept him off his horse on Christmas Day 1955, and he drowned.
Filled with the exploits of those who had lived in this valley decades before, we are eager to see more of it and set off for a side walk to the shores of Lake Alabaster (Wa¯ wa¯ hi Waka). It was here that waka were once carved from the giant trees of the surrounding forest.
Towering over us as we walk is Mt Tu¯ toko, Fiordland’s highest peak at 2723m, named after Chief Tu¯ toko of Martins Bay. Ma¯ ori had lived in the area since the 1600s. The surrounding hills are named after Tu¯ toko’s daughters, though by their English names Sara and May, given to them by explorer James McKerrow who struggled to pronounce their given Ma¯ ori names.
It is here we also learn about the 460-millionyear-old ‘‘hanging fork fern’’ (Tmesipteris), a flora so unique we’re told plant spotters come from around the world to see it.
Then we’re challenged to test our balance by trying to run the longest suspension bridge in Fiordland as its 80m sways beneath our boots.
We return to Pyke Lodge for fresh muffins before jumping on a jet boat for a ride along Lake McKerrow, avoiding a notorious stretch of the Hollyford Track known as the Demon Trail.
From this vantage we can see the scars of major slips gouged from surrounding hills, and the trunks of trees still floating along the lake’s edge.
We stop at Jamestown where nothing but a sign remains of the efforts to create a new settlement.
We hear stories of hardship and tragedy, including the deaths of children accidentally poisoned by native berries, and admire the native orchids that now thrive there.
We leave the jetboat and our packs at Martins Bay Lodge where we will later return for our second night. For now, there is plenty of sightseeing to do, including hopes of spying the rare Fiordland crested penguin, which nests on a boulder-strewn beach some kilometres walk away.
The track winds through giant rimu, to¯ tara and kahikatea, some 1200 years old.
The calls of native birds – bellbirds, tu¯ ı¯, ka¯ ka¯ – all but silent six years ago, now drown out conversation. A huge trapping and poisoning effort by the Hollyford Conservation Trust and Department of Conservation has allowed the birds to make an impressively rowdy return.
In 2019, the Hollyford Conservation Trust released 41 South Island robin (kakaruai) into the valley, and they appear to be thriving.
At one point we stop for a breather and notice a small, still fluffy baby robin perched on a nearby branch. As we watch, its mother swoops in and drops a worm into the waiting chick’s mouth. I pinch myself. We’ve somehow found ourselves inside a David Attenborough documentary.
Unfortunately, another form of wildlife dashes any hopes of seeing a penguin. An imposing bull seal lies across our path to the beach and we beat a hasty retreat, enjoying the coastal scenery from a safe distance.
We marvel at our luck as we return in the late afternoon for hot showers, wine and delicious food at Martins Bay Lodge. I contemplate the potential upsides of being stuck here by bad weather, surrounded by natural beauty and largely cut off from the world of emails, phone calls and social media.
However, the weather is perfect for our final day and an 8.5km walk along the sand dunes of Martins Bay spit where we hear the Ma¯ ori legend of Toetoe the narcissist and Poutini the taniwha before arriving at the site of the McKenzie homestead.
This is where Alice McKenzie spent her childhood, and where in 1880, aged 8, she saw a moa, possibly the last recorded sighting. She later wrote about her difficult and isolated existence in the book The Pioneers of Martins Bay before ending her days in the comparative luxury of Walter Peak station near Queenstown.
The final leg of our diverse trek through bush and beach, with jetboat rides and sumptuous dinners, is a helicopter flight along the coastline and into Milford Sound. Seeing the bush-clad hills, rivers, waterfalls and steeply rising peaks from the air is an epic way to end our journey.
Highlights
■ The guides who share their knowledge of the flora and fauna with infectious enthusiasm, and who bring to life the rich history of Hollyford’s early Ma¯ ori and European settlers.
■ The birdsong, restored after years of predator trapping and poisoning.
■ The small size of the group (maximum
16 allowed), which allows for easy friendships and the sense of a shared experience.
■ Lunch on day two: I have promised not to reveal the details but it is surprising and magical, with an impressive bush toilet.
■ The helicopter flight back to Milford Sound. Breathtaking.