[SUBW-A] REPORT - Three Passes, NZ (Feb 7th to 10th)
Danny Yee
danny at anatomy.usyd.edu.au
Sat Mar 2 00:51:13 AEDT 2002
The Three Passes, New Zealand South Island
February 7th to 10th, 2002
Joe Li and Danny Yee
Thursday February 7th
Most people do the Three Passes east to west, but that leaves
one with a difficult hitch (and/or a long walk on the road) at
the end. So with Adrienne happy to deliver us to either end,
we decided to do it west to east. We drove down to Hokitika,
registered our intention to do the walk at the DOC office (I
bought hut tickets; Joe had an annual pass), left the equipment
we wouldn't need at a hostel, and had a leisurely breakfast
in a cafe/bakery. After a drive around peaceful Lake Kaniere,
Adrienne dropped us off at the start of the track up the river
Styx around 11am. [She then went back to Christchurch via Lewis
Pass and Hanmer Springs.]
It was an easy walk up the northern bank of the river, on a
decent track (damaged in a few places by landslides), and we
reached Grassy Flat hut for lunch (and met a tramper going the
other way). On the way we saw a kereru (a kind of parrot). Then
came the climb up to Styx saddle, which gave us nice views down
into the Arahura valley and across to the mountains on the other
side. The track then sidled up the valley under Mt Browning,
crossing the Harman River by suspension bridge to reach Harman
hut, which we reached quite late. It was a reasonably long day
(perhaps 18km with a net climb of 800m) and I was pleased that
I'd managed to keep up with Joe - though that was helped by the
fact that he was carrying twice as much as I was and stopped to
take photos.
Harman hut (my first New Zealand hut) was a kind of basic model,
just six bunk beds, a fireplace, and a cooking table. It was clear
and cold overnight. I went outside with my totally ineffective
torch and still didn't realise the batteries were dying!
Friday February 8th
The next day was a relatively easy one. After a late start
(perhaps around 10, but neither of us was carrying a watch),
we continued up the Arahura, where met a group of seven going
the other way and found a dead goat on the track. It was a bit
of a climb up to Lake Browning (at almost 1400m), where we had
lunch and Joe went for a swim. That's a really gorgeous spot.
We took different routes on the easy slope up to Browning Pass,
and I got confused about the route down the other side (which
drops 400m in maybe three quarters of a kilometre) and went 30
metres down a hairy goat track before realising I wasn't going the
right way. The real track was a bit of a scramble at the top,
then switchbacked across scree and grass - Joe took a short-cut
straight down one of the scree slopes. At the bottom is the
Clough memorial cairn, and from there it was an easy kilometre
and a half down the Wilberforce river to Park Morpeth hut.
There we met a couple going the other way, planning to bivouac
at the lake, and Deb, who stayed there with us. Park Morpeth
hut had a solar-powered light and mountain radio, both of which
provided entertainment. The swarming sandflies were attracted
at night to the light, where Joe killed them in their hundreds by
squashing them with a plastic bag. And Deb, being a DOC employee,
used the DOC channel on the radio to chat to friends.
Saturday February 9th
Deb left first, planning to reach Grassy Flat or even the road
that day, but we were up and away about 9am for the hardest
day of the trip, for which I wore my boots. First came the long
haul up Cronin Stream, on rocks and without much of a track (we
walked above the cairned route for much of the time, trying to
avoid dropping into side gullys). Along the way I had my first
close-up encounter with a Kea - Joe told me it was a shy one,
but it seemed pretty inquisitive to me! - and we had great
views of Cronin glacier, hanging above the valley.
The final steep scramble up to Whitehorn Pass left me pretty
done in and we had lunch at the top, in a chilly wind, watching
the glacier calving. Then we headed down across the Whitehorn
snowfield that had had me so worried (almost everyone we passed
had been carrying ice axes). This turned out to be no problem
at all - I slipped once and slid a metre or two, but it was
a gentle slope with no cliffs around and was perfectly safe,
though Joe cut steps across a few ice patches.
Then it was a couple of kilometres of rocks down the stream
to Ariels Tarn, where Joe had a swim. Having crossed from
the Cronin/Wilberforce catchment to the Mary/Taipo catchment,
we now went over Harman Pass into the Taipoiti/Waimakariri
catchment. It was a steep but uncomplicated descent down the
Taipoiti to White's River (where I changed back into volleys
and Joe checked out the flying fox) and then an easy kilometre
and a half down to the Waimakariri and Carrington Hut.
Carrington hut was huge compared to the others I'd seen on the
trip. It had bunks for 39, two cooking areas, a watertank, and
even a hut warden, a young Czech woman called Katy working as
a volunteer (and trying to do New Zealand on NZ$3 a day). There
were maybe half a dozen other people there, but we only really
talked to Katy - we sat up late talking and writing in our
diaries, while burning (using paper wicks Joe made) every scrap
of wax we could find in the tea light, in which the occasional
fly immolated itself. (It was here I finally realised my torch
batteries were dead, and put new ones in!)
There was some explanation of complicated romances - Katy was open
and totally unaffected as well as attractive, so it was easy to see
why too many DOC employees had fallen for her. But mostly we talked
about language: Joe learning phrases to use with Czech friends back
in Sydney, me asking obscure questions about Czech grammar,
and Katy with the occasional question about English (though
she spoke it pretty fluently and was even writing her diary in
English). She made us a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows.
Sunday February 10th
I was up before 8; Joe slept in a bit longer, as usual. Katy
was preparing a love letter for a friend at Arthur's Pass -
the radio was a bit too public for some things! - which she
sealed with wax and which we took to deliver for her (she had
run out to the road the previous day to visit Arthur's Pass,
but had pulled a muscle doing that).
We sat around talking for a while but were away by about 9. With
the water level low it was an easy walk down the floodplain of
the Waimakariri, though it still took us nearly five hours to do
the 15km or so to the road. Flocks of wild geese provided the
only real distraction, though the views looking backwards were
pretty good. When we reached the campground we had a wash in the
river and changed into cleaner clothes - and immediately scored
a hitch the 2km from there to Klondyke Corner on the main road.
I went first with the hitching, with Joe coaching me. Most of
the traffic was going the other way and I had no luck for maybe
40 minutes - and I was getting a bit depressed with the light
drizzle getting stronger. Then along came Chris, a final-year
med student from Otago, who not only stopped to pick me up but
had room for Joe as well and was going to Hokitika. On the way
he and Joe talked medical shop (and we delivered Katy's love
letter at the DOC centre in Arthur's Pass) and in Hokitika he
dropped us off right at the backpackers.
A great way to finish a really great tramp.
[A web version of this with photos will be available at some point
on my bushwalking and travel pages at http://danny.oz.au/travel/ .]
Danny.
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