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.