Catlins River Walk

Spending hours walking in the wilderness is my idea of fun.  So, when I was asked what I'd like to do for my birthday, I excitedly said, "Let's do the Catlins river walk!"

The night before our walk, Will and I inspected the map of the Catlins River & Wisp Loop tracks. It looked possible to see both tracks, so we were going to go for it.  The next day, we were up at 5am to get ready and head up north, over two hours away. 

It was dark when we left Invercargill, but the sun came up when we were just a few kilometers from the start. (I was hoping to start in the dark and make it to Rocky Knoll to see the sunrise.) 

The first hour was an uneventful, slightly uphill walk on a well formed path.  We detoured up a short steep path to catch the view from Rocky Knoll and have a little picnic. 

The sign below was handy for telling us what the heck we were looking at: 

Rocky Knoll's elevation is 500m

We walked to The Wisp, which looked like a picnic area flanked by a farm on one side and a tiny river on the other (it can be used for camping, but at the time I wasn't impressed enough to make plans to come back and stay the night).  From there we made our way back to the car by following the track along the river.  This section varied from unimpressive to Oh! That's pretty neat! I really liked how lush the forest was as we got closer to the car.

We crossed the river a few times by walking one at a time over swing bridges like this:

I don't know why, but it's really fun to walk across swing bridges - maybe it's the challenge of keeping my balance when the bridge bounces? Or, maybe it's the thrill from feeling like something will snap and I'll end up on the water if I don't hurry across. Who knows.

At one point, I did feel like it would be fun to round up some mates and hike along the river to the campground.  I seemed like it wouldn't be too challenging to get to the campground and the walk was pleasant... but, then we came upon some steep sections that wore me out!  I knew some of my friends definitely would not appreciate a few hills like that.

We reached the car after seven hours of walking.  I was pretty tuckered out, but happy that we did the walk.  

For future hikers: This walk can be done in winter, but you need to keep a pretty steady pace.  The sun was high enough by 8:45am for us to walk without torches (flashlights) and we made it to the car with just about 45 minutes to spare before the sun went down.  Do consider bringing mates who are keen to camp because I think it would be fun in the summer with a big group. 

For future sightseers: Start from the Tawanui Campground car park and walk to Franks Stream and up to an hour past that.  I think this was the best part of the whole walk because the scenery was best.

Big Hut, Middlemarch

About an hour from Dunedin, sitting at the top of the Rock and Pillar Range, is a little gem: Big Hut. 

The hut is up at the top here, somewhere

It's a place I was keen to visit because 1) I'd heard about the interesting landscape surrounding the hut, 2) it could be reached on foot in just a few hours, and 3) I could convince a few friends to come along by saying things like, It's only a short drive from Dunedin!... The views will be great!... It's just a little walk up the hill to get to the hut! 

Thankfully, on the day of our adventure, the sun was out the whole time.  Just after leaving the car park we all warmed up enough to be comfortable in just a t-shirt and shorts.  By the time we reached the hut, it was a whole other story.  We were freezing!

Correction: it's a steep little walk up a large hill to get to the hut

Down below the hut, the landscape is mostly farmland dotted with sheep.  Up around the hut, the land is dotted with large rock formations.

I just love how diverse the scenery is here!  This area around Middlemarch looks nothing like Dunedin, or Queenstown, or Wellington...

It took just under three hours to reach the hut.  Mostly, we were slowed down by steep sections like this:

This is similar to the terrain at the Northburn Station 50k I ran a few months ago

Here's a wee bit of the hike that I filmed during one rest stop:

If we were interested in staying at the hut overnight we could have slept in a large bunkroom.  The hut doesn't have any source of heat (well, there's some solar powered contraption that sort of kept the kitchen area at an "I'm freezing, but I don't think I'll get frostbite" temperature) so we would have had to play LOTS of table tennis to stay warm (can you believe someone managed to get a ping pong table up there?!).

It was c-c-c-cold at the hut!

We stayed in the hut long enough for a quick lunch and then headed back to the car.

All in all, it was a lovely day walk.  I think I'll plan to go back to run the track for marathon training.  As for my friends, I imagine they'd go back again...in summer!