From Hail Storm to Sunburn: Hooker Hut

Date: 19-20 September 2026

Party: Mark, Mr13, Me

In April 2025, a storm came through the Aoraki - Mt Cook National Park, and finally sealed the fate of the second bridge over the Hooker River (already a replacement for an earlier model). We were gutted - we had been waiting for bookings to open for the 2025-2026 season so we could plan ourselves a winter weekend at Hooker Hut, but the hut was now unreachable, unless you were keen to pack raft across the Mueller glacier lake.

We don't own that sort of kit, so we opted to wait for the bridge to be rebuilt - its such a popular piece of track that there was never a question of it not being rebuilt.

Bookings finally opened in August, once the replacement bridge was open and the hut was inspected.

I managed to nab us 3 beds in the hut for the Saturday night of my birthday weekend and I was stoked.

 Our Saturday morning start was lazy. The weather forecast wasn't great all day for the area, but there was a promise of maybe reduced rain in the afternoon. So we packed, sorted meals from our pantry and freezer, threw our gear in the car, and headed off on the 4 hour drive to the carpark.

Lunch in Omarama, on the picnic tables outside the 4 square, was lovely and warm. 

We arrived in Mt Cook Village to rain. With our raincoats in the boot. Whoops.

We grabbed the woodshed key from the DoC office (to make sure we could light the fire), changed in the bathrooms at the day shelter, and opted to leave our car parked in the village overnight and walk the 2km to the campsite to save ourselves $50 in parking at White Horse Hill.

By the time we got to the shelter at the track start, I was searching accommodation in the village to decide if we wanted to turn back.

The wind was fierce. The rain was mixed with hail. It was cold and not particularly fun.

The good news was, the track was easy and well maintained for the most part, and then it was only about 1km from the track to the hut via a trail. This was easy walking, to a booked bed in the hut. If there was the possibility of having to tent, we wouldn't have continued.

The track was busier than we expected, given the weather. Everyone was sodden. There was a family with 3 young kids who were about the only people who looked like they were genuinely having fun.

Straight along the track, turn off at the marker, boots were wet, feet were damp, everything was damp. The marked route to the hut was a stream, and some of the puddles were unavoidable and deep. I had thought my feet were wet, until I stood in one deep enough to go in over the top. NOW my feet were wet.

We arrived at the hut to find a party of 5 in residence, with the fire going. There is no entry shelter at the hut - you open the door straight into the living area. So while Mr13 got his wet gear off and himself sorted as close to the door as possible, I went to the loo and got some water, and Mark topped up the firewood.

The hut is TINY. Which means the fire warms it up fast. So we all spent the evening opening and closing the door, trying to get it to stay open *just a smidge* so we didn't get rained on at the table. The windows are sealed shut as heritage protection, so the door is also the only ventilation. The beds and door frames are also short, so expect to need to duck a lot, and you might end up playing overnight footsie with a stranger...

The other party we were with were brilliant fun. So it was no challenge to squeeze into the space with them. We had dinner, then they had dinner. Everyone retired to their beds about 9:30pm.

The fire might heat the hut efficiently enough that Mr13 couldn't sleep on his top bunk in the living room, but the hut is also not insulated, so it got really cold overnight, which sucked a bit for poor Mr13, who was on the floor.

The sun came out while we ate breakfast, as the rain and wind had died off about 2am. The views to Aoraki from the table were incredible, worth all the discomfort of the wet arrival. We ate, packed, helped split some kindling for the next group, and made sure we tidied up a bit before we headed off.

 Rejoining the main track felt horrid. We went from the peace of the hut surrounds to a solid walkway and dozens upon dozens of people. It was a real shock to the system. We wandered up to Hooker Lake, threw some of the ice collected on the beach back in the water, and the meandered our way back to our packs, tucked just out of sight of the main track at the junction.

The last thing we felt like by the time we were crossing the White Horse Hill carpark was walking the last 2km back to our car, but we had no other real choice. Feet were sore, bodies were sweaty, and we were all regretting not putting sunscreen on that morning.

Lunch in the sunshine on the picnic tables outside the DOC Visitor Centre with some super expensive cans of coke was lovely, before we popped back to the Day Shelter to change again, then headed home via ice creams in Twizel.

Hut: 10/10 would do again, but would book out in its entirety and only take 6 people max. 
Track: 7/10 you need boots for the trail to the hut, but the main track is killer in boots
Weather: 5/10 one day good, one day absolute rubbish

Overall:  7/10

Take me to the river

Turere Lodge, Orongorongo Valley
28-29 January 2022
Party: Mark, Mr8, Me, other assorted WTMC Families Group people

Turere Lodge is so popular, that booking it for a weekend night is basically impossible. We did the next best thing and booked the entire lodge out for a Friday night - giving us capacity to take up to 28 people in for the night.

We wound up with about 20 people, half kids, a good balance between filling the space and allowing for a small amount of quiet.

The walk in was mostly wonderful, although we had had to leave without a couple of groups because they were running so late, and at least one of them was a bit grumpy when they eventually caught us. Whoops. 

The big kids raced on ahead, the little kids took their time, and all of a sudden we were at the banana bridge. The toilet at the bridge was clean and pleasant, which was nice. The river was full of algae and running at an extraordinarily low flow rate, which was not so nice.

After a short second afternoon tea break here, we continued on to the hut, arriving around 4pm. Bunkrooms were sorted, the baby was fed, and the kids were taken down the rope trail to the river while dinner was prepared. We had nachos from our freezer - nice and simple to reheat, made even easier by the provision of all cooking supplies at the hut.

Bedtime was a surprisingly smooth process, given the number of kids and their excitement levels, and the adults followed hard on the heels of the kids.

In the morning, we were all up and about at a reasonable time. Trying to get a group photo on the deckw was hard because the sun was shining straight in everyones faces. The weather was still amazing, the track was dry and quick, Jacobs Ladder UP was announced as more interesting than it had been DOWN the day before, Macs Hut was explored (it has a new lock on the door since the last time I was there), and we saw a lot more people walking in to the valley than we had seen the day before.

We were back in the carpark before lunch, ready to head home. Last time we did this trip, Mr8 was only Mr3.5, and he was asleep in the back of the car almost before we left the carpark. This time he was bouncy and enthusiastic and amped about his awesome tramp.

 

Lakes and Falls

Tama Lakes and Taranaki Falls
Whakapapa Village, Tongariro National Park

Saturday 23 October 2021

Who: WTMC Families - 6 adults, 5 kids

Finally, FINALLY, Mark got to go all the way to Tama Lakes. He's made a string of attempts over the years, but always ended up having the trip canned due to bad weather / lack of interest from others in the group.

We planned the entire weekend around the hope of making it, selling this to the Families Group as a tramping weekend at the lodge rather than a skiing one (which was a good call - the very upper mountain was open, but that was it), and I forced Mark to not bring his skis, especially since the forecast was for one good day.

We took the upper track to Taranaki Falls, where we waited a while for two members of our party to catch up after they had had to race back to the lodge to get a forgotten jacket (this is not an area where you can shrug that mistake off with a "she'll be right"). Not long after that, both LJ and I started having issues and lost our enthusiasm to continue on to the lakes.

We kept going until we found a decent downhill leg, where we stopped for lunch. One of the other parents pulled out her phone and advised us we were under 1.5km (about 25 minutes) from the lower lake, which was enough to keep both a tired LJ, and her exhausted 4.5 year old going. I wasn't surprised that LJ was tired, he'd woken at about 5:15am and so he and I had gone for a 3km walk to Meads Wall for sunrise.

Lower Tama lake was brutally cold. The wind was extreme and completely freezing. Everyone put on additional layers for our stop. Four of the adults continued on to Upper Tama, while the other two of us wrangled all the kids into starting the walk back after a bit of a break. The Upper Tama parents came into sight behind us just beyond our lunch spot, and caught the front of our group about 15 minutes shy of Taranaki Falls.

We clambered down the steps to the waterfall and had another extended break, where the kids clambered around the back of the falls and the edge of the pool at the bottom, before chilling out with more food.

From here, we took ourselves along the lower track back to the village, which was a brilliant idea as it was largely in shade and next to a river for a large portion of the walk. All of a sudden it had gotten exceptionally hot. The last chunk of the walk back to the village in the sunshine was sweltering.

Back to the car and up to the lodge for afternoon tea and a rest.

Sunrise at the top of the Bruce Rd

Family-Friendly Adventure

Atiwhakatu Hut track
Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park 

18-19 September 2021

WTMC Families Trip (7 Adults, 7 walking kids, one infant in a carrier)

 

Lockdown ended just nicely in time for us to go on this trip, which I had been looking forward to for several months (really, a year, I had planned to take Spike in the October holidays in 2020, but my ankle would NOT have stood for it).

Meeting everyone in the carpark, there were a lot of people around. We felt ok about that, because we had booked the hut, and nearly every space in the hut was booked by our party, so we didn't feel any need to rush just in case.

Having such a number of kids, including several who knew each other through cubs, in addition to those who regularly met on families group trips, meant the kids mostly walked super well. They kept each other occupied, talked kid rubbish all the time, and easily fell into the standard families group situation of just asking whichever parent was closest for permission to do anything.

A couple of the kids struggled a little bit with the massive swing bridge that marked just beyond half way to the hut, which wasn't surprising. It was long, and a long way up. A little bit of coaxing, and some unique solutions got everyone across to stop for lunch.

We arrived at the hut around 3pm. The kids all decided they wanted to share the biggest bunkroom as a group, which we allowed for the time being. It was cold and dark inside the hut, as the sun had already moved off it, and there was no dry wood around, even in the woodshed, because of recent storms.

We limped a fire into existence, all enjoyed some quiet(ish) time, the kids explored down to the river and we eventually had dinner.

Since it was my birthday, Mark carried about 3kg of caramilk brownie cheesecake mix into the hut for construction into pudding for everyone. This was devoured rapidly, with the last piece shared to the family who arrived at darkness with their 4 year old, having come down the hill from Jumbo late.

We reconfigured the kids and families into family-pod bunk allocations, especially since several of the kids had decided they wanted to sleep with their parents after all, crowding the parents spaces and leaving huge swathes of empty bunks around, and started prepping everyone for bed.

Our exothermic 8yo was cold in the middle of the night, despite the three of us crowding in to two mattresses. We wrapped him up in some extra clothes and he warmed up. Not the first time he's been cold in this sleeping bag recently, I think it is partly because its getting too short to keep his shoulders inside.

Morning came indecently early, but dry. It was still cool inside the hut, lovely and fresh outside. We spent a while hauling and chopping up more wood for the people who would come after us, leaving it in piles on various parts of the deck and in the woodshed, before taking some group photos to prove we were there and heading off.

Morning tea was had at the bridge. It really needs to be replaced, because a one-person bridge of that length, with a party of 14, takes a LONG time to get everyone across. The poor people we met going the other way who were out for a run and had to wait a good 15 minutes for us to all get across!

Some of us stopped for lunch in the shelter at Donnelly Flat, but several others just kept going the last 20 minutes back to the cars. Change of clothes, change of footwear, use the flush toilet, and back on the road. We stopped for an ice cream on the way home.

All told, we had an AMAZING time. Tramping with the families group kids is a fantastic way to get Spike out there. His new pack meant he happily carried all his own gear for the weekend (including water, but no food other than some snacks) with no complaints, no pain, and no requests to have a break.

 

It's a long way to Kohaihai

Early morning from James MacKay Hut, looking down to Heaphy Hut

Heaphy Track, Brown River Carpark to Kohaihai
Kahurangi National Park
02 - 05 February 2021

Team: Me, Marion, Ange, Jaana

 An adventure more than 12 months in the making, Marion had picked up the Heaphy Track brochure from the DoC Office in Oban as we walked towards the wharf, finishing the Rakiura Track in October 2019. It was never going to be on the agenda for 2020, because we wanted to do it early in the year, and were not going to be ready for February 2020.

With Marion and Ange locked in, we looked at all the travel options - shuttles, flights, car transfer - and decided on car transfer, since that offered the most flexibility and the least weather reliance. Plus, by the time there were three of us, even with the ferry, it was about the same cost. Doing this also meant we had a spare space in the car, so I put the call out among friends and Jaana jumped up to say she was interested.

It's a lot of travel to get to either end of this track - and the ends are both a long way from anywhere. We ended up staying the night before at Kaiteriteri, which was heavenly. A swim before dinner, burgers with a view of the beach, an evening stroll through the campground. Several of us genuinely discussed just staying put and pretending we'd walked the track it was so nice.

We knew that there weren't many places to stop on the walk up the hill to Perry Saddle Hut, so we aimed to hit the carpark at Brown River about lunchtime and eat before we started. As per the theme of the trip, being stationary outside meant two things: Sandflies and Weka.

This encouraged us to get going, so I put up all the sun shades in the car, popped the key in the lockbox, and we shouldered packs to head off. A very brief stop at Brown Hut for the toilet and the uphill started. And it just never stopped. It got hot really quickly, despite being fully in the shade, and we slowed down with our full packs. We stopped at Aorere Shelter for toilets, and the lookout at Flanagans Corner, and just kept moving towards the hut. We were about the last people in for the night.

Sunset was pretty, the guided group were doing very loud yoga in the main area that echoed through the whole hut while others tried to sleep, and I was awake before dawn. The toilets at Perry Saddle Hut were revolting, but best in the morning when the bugs were still asleep. 

We were up and out of the hut as everyone else started to stir as we knew we had a long way to go and my ankle was a bit iffy still from an injury in August. Our first fantastic moment was spotting a Takahe crossing the track as we stepped off the deck, so that was pretty magic.

We enjoyed the peace and coolness of the still dim bush section in our early morning, arriving at Gouland Downs Hut in time for morning tea hot already from the exposed section we'd already walked through. The whole rest of the day was largely like this, with small sections covered by trees, so it was super hot going for 24 long kilometers. While here, we met a couple and their three kids (all under 5!) who were walking the track over about 11 days - stopping all over the place and having multiple rest days.

Lunch at Saxon Hut saw most of us take our boots off for a rest, which felt amazing and allowed our feet to cool down a bit. The rest of the afternoon for me was a bit of a loss as my ankle became unbearably painful - every step hurt, and the pain spread through my whole body, leading me to a total mental collapse just under 1km from James MacKay Hut when Ange came back to offer to take my pack off me. I was entirely broken. And we were only just over half way there.

While Ange took my pack into the hut, I stumbled down the hill to the "Mountain Spa" to soak my feet. I spent a full 30 minutes with my feet in that ice-cold water and it was heavenly. Back at the hut, I took some painkillers and anti-inflammatories and lay down to rest while they kicked in, before enjoying dinner in the sun-drenched living space. In addition to the ankle, my overheated feet had developed deep blisters on my little toes, so I also tended to these as well as possible before hitting bed for an early night.

I realised the next morning that I probably wasn't eating enough. I had no salty snacks (I'd forgotten crackers or pretzels) and desperately needed them. But I also wasn't hungry - I was caught in that bind I sometimes have when tramping of not eating enough, then losing my appetite to go with it. I've decided that when I replace my current pack, the new one will have pockets I can reach while wearing it, so I can pack snacks in them.

From here our day was mostly down hill. My ankle had eased overnight and with a small amount of painkillers on board (plus a stretchy bandage) seemed to holding up. Marions knee decided it wanted to play up going down the hill instead, so we both took it super slow and gentle. We heard the daytime kiwi below James Mackay hut, but didn't see it.

This day was gorgeous. The bulk of the stretch down to Lewis was gentle gradient and all in the shade. After lunch at Lewis Hut (to be demolished as its falling over and being undermined by the river), we crossed the massive Heaphy River bridge and headed along the flat to Heaphy hut.

I want to go back and do that section in particular again. The flora is AMAZING. Stupendously enormous trees, really interesting rock formations, just wow. 

I arrived at Heaphy Hut limping a little and definitely uncomfortable, but in far less pain than the day before. Or so I thought, until I tried to climb the ladder into my bunk. I basically couldn't put my left foot on a rung of the ladder at all with any weight on it - if I did, the pain screamed all the way up to my knee like a red-hot poker. Bugger.

I limped down to the river for a swim, where the best way to avoid the sandflies was to go as far into the river as possible. Swimming in a tidal river is a strange sensation, as the water is constantly changing direction, vanishing and surging. But being fully submerged felt amazing.

Our whole bunkroom went to bed early to read, while some of the others went and had a driftwood bonfire on the beach for the evening. I had an absolute rubbish nights sleep and woke in the morning deep in a fug, wanting nothing more than to just stay put, unable to eat from exhaustion, absolutely convinced that the others were wishing I had never come and that I was a stupid burden on them that they didn't deserve.

Eventually I forced down breakfast and some painkillers and managed to get myself packed and ready to head off. I put my earbuds in and started listening to podcasts, because I knew I needed to not walk in my own silence for the day if I wanted to make it out in one piece mentally. It helped so much. Having my poles back from Marion was another great assistance in keeping moving, she had borrowed them the day before for her knee.

We never spotted clear indications of which beaches could be walked on if the tide was low enough (which is was), so we presumed none were suitable / had clear access back onto the track at the other end, and stuck to the track instead. It was amazing watching the coast go very suddenly from soft, light coloured sand, to massive boulder fields. The constant noise of the surf carried through the podcasts on my headphones. We enjoyed several reasonably new bridges, and had fun with the other non-bridged stream crossings.

Eventually we reached a point where we could see what I was pretty certain was the Kohaihai Bluff. While the others stopped for a toilet break at Scotts Beach, I opted to just keep moving, knowing they would catch and overtake me pretty soon. Which they duly did.

Marion and I opted to take the detour to the lookout at the saddle - it was barely 2 minutes each way, and then it was all down hill. Just before we got there we met our first day walkers - a pair of ladies in lovely pretty dresses off to Scotts Beach for a picnic. We hoped they enjoyed the sandflies and the DoC worker mowing the lawn there with his weed whacker. The last section with the loop track and high water detour felt like it was forever, but Ange and Jaana appeared around here to cheer us in to the carpark. If they had caught us earlier, I might have given them my pack, but the signs all said we were super close (we were not that close).

Quick team photo at the sign, collect the key from the box, toilet break, dump gear in the car and we headed off, killing thousands of sandflies that got in with us as we went. We stopped for "lunch" or snacks (salty chips and coke for me, to wash down more painkillers) at Karamea, then at the Pool and Rec centre in Westport for showers (Oh they were amazing).

More food purchases at New World Westport, stops in Murchison and St Arnaud for snacks / toilets, Blenheim for dinner (and to buy me new jandals, I just could *not* manage sneakers), and we finally made it to the Top10 in Picton for the night as the receptionist was doing up late arrival packs.

Despite the exhaustion, I couldn't get to sleep. I was up for the bathroom several times, and then to hunt out safety pins to pop excruciating blisters, before popping a codeine at midnight and finally being out cold (for the all of 5.5 hours I was allowed before we had to be up for our 6:30am ferry check in).

Two weeks later, I've lost one toenail from the blister, my ankle is still an annoyance (and it feels like I may have plantar fasciitis in the other ankle), but oddly, I think I'd do this track again.

I'd got the other way though - the first day with the heavy packs would then be flat, the uphill to James MacKay is nicer than the uphill the other end was, and despite what the DoC altitude map suggests, there's actually heaps of uphill in the southbound direction. Also, I'd overnight at Saxon Hut, and make it a five night trip. That said, I'd also be keen to take Spike, and do 2-3 nights at Heaphy Hut with a daywalk to Lewis Shelter, or up to James MacKay for the night and back. While seeing the wild Takahe was AMAZING, I don't know if I *need* to do the whole track again...

Race The Dark

Paekakariki Escarpment Track, Paekakariki to Pukerua Bay
14 February 2020

Party: Mark, Me

At late notice, my parents offered to take Spike for a weekend to give Mark and I some time to chill out.

So while they collected him from after school care, we took the train to Porirua together to collect our car, before joining Friday night rush hour traffic to Pukerua Bay, where we parked again to jump on another train to Paekakariki.

The wait at the Beach Road Deli for pizza was about half an hour, but we decided it was worth it, and grabbed a seat in the shade outside to wait, where we enjoyed watching traffic and trains go past.

About 7pm, we finished dinner and were finally ready to start walking. It was gloriously warm, and we were walking in to the sunshine. The best thing about walking at this time of day was that we saw literally no one else the whole time. It was just us, a chance to chat and be together, and a small flock of sheep who kept us entertained.

The views were beautiful, and we got most of the way south towards our car before it got dark enough that we needed to get out our head torches. The experience of walking in the dark with just us, on a track above the road, was different and fun for sure. That said, it was nice to get to the more solid footpath alongside the train track coming in to the old Muri station, and to have some streetlights.

We were just about clear of the railway tracks at the south end of Muri Station, when a freight train came barrelling up the hill and past us. HOLY WOW was it loud, that close to a pair of engines hauling a lot of freight up that large hill. And there were houses literally 10m away from the track at that location.

Arriving back at the car at 10pm was a great feeling. We stopped at McDonalds Jville on our way home for ice creams to enjoy when we got home. This was an amazing adventure, and I’m so glad to have a husband who is as keen on silly adventures as I am.

Stats and Maps: Rakiura Track

Two solid days of walking, one day with decent tracking and one over-excited tracking (sigh, despite promises from Map My Walk that they are improving accuracy, my iPhone still records about 30% extra distance).

DAY ONE: While a couple of kms only had very small elevation gains, all of them had climb, and some climbs were sizeable - up to 136m at a time. Unsuprisingly, the 136m climb was our slowest split, taking nearly an hour to do 1km (we might have also had a stop or two where I kept tracking). Our fastest section was the start - where we opted to stick to the beach as we knew where it would re-join the track and avoid starting with a solid hump to go up and over.
Fitbit: 30,016 steps
Map My Walk: 13.71km, 366m gain, 34,991 steps while walking, 5879kJ
DoC: 13km

DAY TWO: My tracker was way over excited this day, there are heaps of little bonus loops in the tracking, so while DoC says its 11km from the hut to the road end then 2km in to town (13km total roughly), Map My Walk reckons we did an extra 2km for the day.
No 100m+ climbs this day, thankfully, and our pace stayed pretty steady (even if over-stated by MMW).
Fitbit: 31,116 steps
Map My Walk: 15.01km, 255m gain, 27,338 steps while walking, 5104kJ
DoC: 11km track + 2km back into town

Really need to get around to uninstalling and reinstalling Map My Walk, as I've heard a rumour that's how you stop this happening: