Mt Brown Hut is a beautiful wee hut on the Western side of Newton Range, just outside of Hokitika. Kupkin and I started off at the car park by Geologist Creek. The way up is pretty steep. I wouldn’t take my mum here, even though I took her to Mueller Hut. It took us 2:15h to get up but we were pushing it quite a bit to make it to the top before sunset as we started relatively late in the day.
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What can I say about this trip: There are heaps of glowworms on the way to Cedar Flat Hut which can be a magnificent experience if you decide to hike at night as we did. The tracks around Cedar Flat are in TOP condition. Incredibly well marked and cut thanks to volunteers from Permolat.
Autumn has arrived in Arthur’s Pass. It’s much more gentle than the European autumn. There are no yellow or red coloured leaves falling towards the ground, everything stays green. Yet you do get autumny vibes from nature – the light becomes much more gentle than in the summer, the mornings are chillier and the water is very fresh once again.
It’s becoming a tradition this summer that when we want to go tramping on the West Coast, it’s raining cats and dogs (see eg. our Black Range adventure just a few weeks before). With everywhere else under the covery of rain clouds, we were looking to do something different on the Canterbury Plains where the forecast was clear. Mt Taylor (2333m) in Mt Somers Range got our attention as a special enough trip for our weekend.
Anna and I set off quite late. It was around 12PM when we left Christchurch and around 2pm when we arrived at Greyneys Shelter by SH73. We left some chips in the car to welcome us on our return, and off we went up Mingha River.
The time to lead another CTC trip had come. At the beginning, I wanted to go to Mt Winterslow. Everything looked good – there was no rain forecast, a few of the people who had signed up for my trip were experienced, the wind was due to be around 1 m/s…
Going to Black Hill Range wasn’t our first choice for this weekend. We reaaally wanted to go to the West Coast but the weather was so bad that weekend that we couldn’t do anything else but stay on the Canterbury Plains. So, we decided to do the Comnys Hut – Cookies Hut traverse via the North Branch Ashburton River / Hakatere.
Mons Sex Millia (1835m) is the highest point of Poplars Range near Lewis Pass. It was quite a lazy looking Sunday morning when 11 CTC members, yawning after the early start and being eaten alive by sandflies, appeared at the Boyle Village carpark. After a short briefing, we took an obvious path leading to Boyle Village.
I can’t remember the last time I went for a hike with my mum. It must have been over 20 years ago. And here we are – my mum, Alena, my sister, Nela, a family friend Liba and myself, all standing by a car at White Horse Hill Campsite in Aoraki National Park, ready to climb a thousand vertical meters to Mueller Hut.
And here we are again. 2019 is gone and I’m about to look back. I don’t look back very often, I’m trying to enjoy the present, leave the past at rest and be excited about the future.