It is a rarity for me to find myself with an actual Saturday-Sunday weekend off, because of my unusual work schedule, so when I realised I had one coming up in October, I mentioned to one of my friends that I was hoping to get out tramping, and might she be interested? She was keen, so plans began brewing... As the time neared, plans chopped and changed, and in the end we set out for Griffin Hut, at the suggestion of her tramping buddy Scott, who joined us one our mission. Although it is a Department of Conservation hut, the tracks are maintained by volunteers, so we thought there was a good chance we would have the hut and it's fire bath to ourselves, and were all quite excited at the thought. We walked in via Rocky Creek, starting out from an un-marked trailhead near the Taipo valley track, near Jacksons (So... generally, West of Arthur's Pass). The first part of the morning we followed a forested track overlooking the Taipo river, before dropping down into Rocky Creek. From there on we followed the creekbed until lunchtime, startling many goats - or the same goast many times, we couldn't quite figure it out - and navigating boulders and tree-fall. We reached Rocky Creek Hut at lunchtime, nestled amongst Mountain Cabbage trees (Cordiline Indivisa). If you haven't seen this tree, it's a total babe, so I was pretty happy to be gazing out the window at these as we boiled the billy for a cuppa and sheltered from some light rain. Ahhhhhh... We followed the creek for awhile longer before the track wandered into the bush again. We loved the cute signs directing us on our way, complete with a wee cartoon hut scratched into permolat. As we neared the hut we were getting pretty excited, and there were some gorgeous Weeping Matipo (Myrcine divericata), elegantly draping it's branches along the side of the track - wowee. We wondered whether anyone else would be there, but hadn't seen any cars at the trailhead and hadn't had the earliest of starts, so were hopeful. Finally we made it, only to see smoke coming out of the chimney and two packs sitting outside. Damn!! It turned out there were in fact three parties at the four-bed hut that night, eight people in total. We couldn't believe it, as not a soul had visited in three months, according to the hut book. Luckily one group had come prepared to camp, and so we just had to accept that if we wanted a bath we would have six or seven-hand water. Sounds dubious, but shit it was divine!! The hut itself is a super cute ex-Forest Service with lots of old relics, and a communal “hut towel” for the bath. It's pretty twisted how your hygiene standards become in the bush... Yes, we all used it. The door to the hut was hand painted with kiwis, a tree, and a naked woman, and there's a big open fire we cooked over, it was so gooooood. We walked out the shorter route out via Harrington's Creek. After a wee bit more stream bed travel it was a grunty uphill to the Wilson Knob turn-off, before a steep descent to the road. I mean proper steep. This must make for quite a grunt heading up! We got back to the main road in glorious spring sunshine, only to realise I'd left my car keys in Ingrid's car, just when I thought we'd saved ourselves a walk along the roadside to the other trailhead, bugger!!
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I am a conservation field worker in New Zealand. I love mountains, sunrises, river swims, barefeet, cold beer, campfires, live music and whiskey.
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