The Humpridge Track

Trip Start Jun 09, 2003

169

Trip End Jun 02, 2007

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Flag of New Zealand Tuatapere, New Zealand
Saturday, June 5, 2004

We had to get up early to catch our 8am ferry back to the mainland. It was still dark as we left and we watched the sun rise over Stewart Island. As the sun came up we could see some mountains covered in snow. We were told that it was very unusual for Stewart Island to have snow. We made it back to the mainland and made our was back up to Invercargill. We stopped for some necessities - including a new sleeping bag for me. The one I had borrowed was next to useless. I had fun trying it on in the shop and boy was I going to be grateful that I bought it.

We headed out towards Tuatapere - the sausage capital of the world no less - thankfully we were spared that particular experience. The journey along the coast was great - pouring rain and yet the sun still managed to peak out through the clouds, creating fantastic views. We reached Tuatapere and checked into the Humpridge Backpackers

Graph showing Day 1 of the Humpridge Track

. As there was no one else staying we got upgraded to a unit where we had a kitchen and our own bedrooms. The backpackers was strangely like an american horror movie motel. I climbed into bed that night and was awoken much later by a huge thunderstorm. I sat up in bed and pulled back the curtains. I could see the moon glowing eerily behind big clouds and lighting up the trees blowing in the wind. Lightning made the scene brighter and eerier. It was when the whirly gig, right outside my window, started to spin and creak in the wind that I dived down inside my sleeping bag and didn't come out again until morning.

Humpridge Track - Day 1 (18 km)

It was pouring with rain when we got up - no surprise there then. I was in two minds about whether or not I wanted to do the walk. The woman at the office had said that it wasn't likely to rain. Ha, she was right, it didn't rain at all. It did hail and snow though. Anyway we set out in the car to the start of the track, put on our big packs and started our second tramp. The first part of the walk was through a forest, down a large flight of stairs and onto the beach. From the beach we could see the mountain range we were going to be climbing - covered in snow. We walked for a couple of hours before we bumped into some people heading the opposite way

Little Birdie pecking at my boots!

. Apparently they had got up to the top the previous night but the weather was too bad to continue onwards over the ridge. We were told at the top it was knee deep snow and the winds were blowing people off the path. We decided to keep going. The higher we got the deeper the snow got. At one point we lost the little orange arrows we were supposed to be following and due to the snow we couldn't actually see the path. We ended up on the edge of a ridge waist deep in snow before actually finding our way back onto the path. Apart from getting lost the walk was great. Everything was covered in untouched snow and it was so quiet. Just before we reached our hut we came out onto the ridge. We had to hold onto one another and walk bent over to prevent being blown off the path. At one point I was actually crawling. We reached the hut at about 4pm and met some people who had stayed at the hut rather than walk onwards or back. For the first time all day the cloud cleared for all of about 10 minutes but allowed us enough time to see back down where we had walked. There was no heating in the hut, all the water had frozen and we were soaked to the skin. We had to climb up on a water tower, covered in ice to get some water to cook with. Before we did anything we got out of our wet clothes and dived into our sleeping bags to try and warm up. I was REALLY glad I'd bought a new sleeping bag. We eventually braved the cold to cook some dinner and try and warm ourselves up. We ended up in bed at about 7pm

Sunrise on Day 3

. The lights were solar powered and on a timer so neither of us wanted to get out of bed to switch them back on.

Humpridge Track - Day 2 (18km)

Well there was only one side of bed I could have got out of this morning and for me it was the wrong one. Starting the day off having to put my nice warm dry feet into a pair of wet walking boots was not my idea of fun, neither was climbing up on the water tower to get ice cold water to drink. The thing that really had me annoyed though was the pesto. Yes, we had a little tub of pesto for mixing into our pasta and unfortunately the tub had burst, in my bag, and was all over everything. All my clothes and toiletries were covered in it - they smelt awful and were all greasy. Everytime I touched anything my hands got all greasy. To say I was not in a good mood would have been an understatement. We decided to head down the ridge, the wind had died down a bit from the previous night. We started walking. Before long we came to a huge muddy puddle, I grabbed onto a branch so I could jump over it, but unfortunately, it being my day and all, the branch broke and I ended up falling backwards into the puddle. Claire thought this was hilariously funny and me being in a bad mood thought it was the least unfunny thing I'd ever experienced

The Hump Ridge

. I got up and in my temper I tried to find something to kick, but other than snow there was nothing, so Claire had another giggle at my misfortunte. She then proceeded to walk about half a mile behind me and stop everytime I stopped. Once I'd stopped swearing at the mud and snow she decided it would be safe to talk to me again. My mood did improve as we headed downwards out of the snow. At times the boardwalks hadn't been laid yet so it was quite a feat trying to clamber over them, especially in the mud. We eventually reached the bottom of the path and crossed our first viaduct, one of the longest and oldest in the world - over 50 years old. We walked along the flat for a couple of hours crossing another two viaducts and realising that there was no way either of us was brave enough to do a bungy jump when we reached Queenstown. It was a relief to finally reach our hut for the night, tonight we had it all to ourselves. We enjoyed the sunset down on the beach, the first real sunset we'd seen while tramping. It was a lot warmer back at ground level so we stayed up a bit later tonight taking turns to switch the lights on.

Humpridge Track - Day 3 (17km)

We watched the sun rise on the beach this morning before heading back towards the car. It was a five hour walk and it seemed to take a lot longer

View from the Hut at the top of the Track

. We passed lots of little birds on the way, one that actually came right up to our feet and pecked at our boots - I'm surprised the smell didn't put them off. We stopped for lunch twice and both times we had to give up as we were being eaten alive by sandflies. It was my first experienceof sandflies and let me say I hope it was my last. Eventually we came to the end of the path. Claire was slightly ahead of me and I decided it would be fantastic to run the last 50m or so back to the carpark. Fantastic idea in theory and if I hadn't tripped on a rock it would have been great! I hadn't even run two steps when my foot hit a rock and I fell forwards, I ran forwards for a bit trying to get my balance, but my rucksack on my back was too heavy and it pitched me forwards - I went down and smashed my face off the ground while my hand took the brunt of the fall. Limping back towards the carpark Claire asked what had happened. She had been watching the deer in the field and hadn't seen me fall but she did wonder what had made all the deer bolt! I cleaned up my hand as best as I could while Claire got changed. In this time all the local sandflies had decided to hitch a lift with us and sneaked into the car. As we drove northwareds towards Te Anau we passed the time trying to kill them all.

On reaching Te Anau we had an early night as we were both exhausted.