The weather forecast was pretty poor for the weekend so I postponed my Mt Norma trip and offered a local Mt Herbert adventure instead. In the morning, we left a couple of cars at the end of Monument Track and one at the start of Packhorse Track where we all started.
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.
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.
Wharfedale Hut is a standard DoC hut with a nice, easy-going trail going all the way from a carpark at the end of Wharfedale Track Road to the hut. To get to the carpark, we had to cross a couple of rivers. One of them could cause troubles to the non-4WD vehicles so if you’re heading up there, make sure the water level is not too high. The crossing would be impassable and you’d have to leave your car by the river and hike about 5 km to the end of the road.
Another trip with the Christchurch Tramping Club. It was me and 3 more guys. This is a great number to travel safely and efficiently in the mountains.
After my last trip with the Christchurch Tramping Club to Boundary Creek Hut, I felt pretty motivated to try out something harder this time. Just clearly based on its name, Mt Misery sounded hard enough to me. There were 18 of us that day. It was Sunday morning and we arrived at the parking lot at the corner of West Coast Road and Cass Road.
East Sooke Regional Park is my favourite hiking destination within the Victoria regional bus network. It’s wild, hilly, with great ocean views and big enough for day long hikes.
Let’s be clear from the beginning: Sidney Island is not a hiking destination. If you try really hard and the tide is low, you can do a walk which is about 10 km long. But let’s face it, a lot of us go hiking because we want to get away, and in this respect, Sidney Spit is a very good place to get away from Victoria
We didn’t choose the best day to start the trail. It was Friday, 29th June 2018, the beginning of a long weekend thanks to Canada Day, by far the most popular camping weekend in Canada. But, we didn’t have much choice since we had been offered a ride to China beach on that day from Victoria and didn’t want to lose the opportunity.
The Juan de Fuca (JDF) trail is one of 3 classic, long coastal trails on Vancouver Island (the others being the West Coast Trail and the North Coast Trail). Unlike the other 2 trails, neither campsites or transport need to be booked in advance on the JDF. Furthermore, from what I’ve heard, all 3 hikes offer similar experience. So, for me the JDF was number 1 on my list for hiking on Vancouver Island.