Catlins and The Hump Ridge Trek

The way from Dunedin to the Hump Ridge Trek goes through an area called Catlins, mostly coastal scenery landscape full of touristic little spots to stop upon. Because of the time limit and the bad weather (winds!) we decided to stop only on a few of them.

1st stop : Nugget Point.
Not much to tell here, just a nice place, you walk from the car park to a lighthouse from which you get a good viewpoint over the sea, a bunch of rocks close to it's shoreline and couple of seals.















2nd stop : Purakaunui Falls.
Not much to tell here, just a nice viewpoint of a chain of small waterfalls 20 minutes walk from the car park. It felt like walking in an Israeli trail to see a waterfall.















3rd stop : Slope Point.
Not much to tell here, it's the the most southern point in the south island. It wasn't a great view point or anything just a windy spot. So windy we had to hold on to the sign!














Eventually, the most interesting part of this section for us, was sleeping in a very nice place called Hilltop. We got a fancy room in a house on top of one of the hills there with great views and 500 sheep surrounding us.

1 supermarket visit and 1 night at the local hostel on a city called Invercargill, we picked up 2 German hitchhikers and we set our sails over to the Hump Ridge trek, a 3 days trek on the south area of the Fiordland national park.

The night before the trek we settled in a very small rural town called Tuatapere, the closest village to the trek. Not much to do there, except for drinking some beers in the local bar.
When we came to the trek office to get our hut tickets, an unpleasant surprise waited for us -
the lady at the office told us we came a day earlier because, as she claimed, a woman called and identified herself with our name the day before, and postponed in one day our departure. She also charged us with the postponing fee, and told us that if we want to departure on the original date, we will have to pay that fee twice.
No matter what we said to her, she didn't believe that we hadn't made that call, not to mention how rude and impolite she was. Where is all the New Zealand kindness and innocence?
Of course when we came back from the trek to hand out the hut ticket she said an error was made, and a dutch tourist with a surname similar to ours had called, and not us, and she credit us the postponing fee. Not only she was rude again, she wouldn't agree to apologize for her behavior 3 days before. Her excuse was our nationality, Israeli, and the experience she had with Israelis who tried to deceive her before. No matter how hard we shouted at her she wouldn't take her words back. This is one New Zealand experience we would like to forget.

Anyway, about the trek:

The beginning was quiet nice, short walking trough a bush, long walking along a beautiful coastline,




























up to a junction where we started climbing up to the hump ridge. Then we had a long walk on a boardwalk (real treat comparing to our previous trek) until we stopped for lunch break in a shelter. From this point on the weather got worst, every minute that passed the rain got heavier and heavier. Half an hour later we were all soaked, including our underwear and shoes :(
We were so wet and depressed that we climbed the 900 meters of this section without any breaks or extra effort. The worst part was at the top, just 2 km from the hut, where the route was exposed without trees to block the winds, we had to hold on to each other and anything we could find, while the rain slapping our faces, so we won't be blown away from the route. Eventually, we arrived to the hut wet and shivering. Two hours later, after changing cloths and eating dinner, we started feeling our feet again. Lovely day number 1.
On this picture you can see the hut and the boardwalk that follows it. It was taken the day after when it wasn't raining...















At the second day we woke up just to find out everything had frozen by night and all was covered with ice and snow. Luckily, the weather got better and even the sun could be seen from time to time. We started with a small track around the top (called "The Hump") that gives views of the surrounding mountains and seashores. There is also a really small lake surrounded by large rocks.




























It was still a bit cloudy so we only got partial view of the area, don't know if it was worth walking in the storm the day before. The trek then descends slowly back to the bush giving you from time to time viewpoints.














At this point snow started to fall. We actually was happy about it because it's better than rain (it takes more time to get wet) and it adds nice atmosphere to the walk. The snow stopped about half an hour later. Once we entered the bush, there were no more viewpoints and the walk became monotonic, muddy and boring for another 5 hours until we got to the next hut, where we spent the night. That day Sarit's foot started to hurt and slowed us down a bit.
The nice thing about the second hut, called Port Craig Hut, is that there is a nice beach nearby (5 min walk).














But like any other thing in New Zealand, a nice experience is always accompanied by sand-flies. Just after 10 seconds of sitting at the beach, 50 of them came, and they were hungry!
Lovely day number 2.

The third day was 6 hours of walking in a bush again (nicer than the second day, and less muddy) and walking along coastline back to the car park, retracing part of the first day.
We started the walk and after 15 minutes Sarit could not continue the walk because of the painful foot. The problem was that the shoe pressured a specific area in the foot that caused the pain. Luckily we brought our sandals with us. Sarit changed her shoes with sandals and we moved on (twice as fast, speedy sandals!). The rain visited us again on that day, not as hard as the first day, but just enough to make you want to just finish the walk and get to the car, without looking at the view too much, not to mention taking pictures. Lovely day number 3.















Our next stop is Queenstown, and then to the Rees Dart 5 days trek.