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

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.

 

Slogging through the Bogs

Rakiura Track, Lee Bay to Oban, Stewart Island.

Party: Me, Mark, Spike, Marion

8-10 October 2019

After an incredibly calm (for Foveaux Strait) crossing to Oban, Mark, Spike and I meandered up the road to the Oban DoC office to await our booked water taxi, while Marion and Hadyn jumped in a taxi to the start of the track. Our couple of hours at the DoC office passed smoothly, with the lovely ladies providing us a DVD to watch (a documentary on the Auckland Islands).

Our water taxi transfer was bought forward suddenly when the company rang to say they had a pickup to do further around, so could take us earlier if it suited (hell yes it did!) and all of a sudden we were at Port William Hut, having avoided the easy, pretty day of the track to save the 8km on little legs.

We settled in, picked our beds and had some afternoon tea. Port William hut was much more sheltered from the wind than Oban was, so it was super pleasant. We decided to wander down the track to find Hadyn and Marion, who were about 15 minutes away by the time we found them.

Port William hut wound up being busy but not packed, with one of the summer DoC rangers being in residence with his family on a familiarisation trip (and off to do some hunting). Late in the afternoon, a small white-tailed deer appeared in the clearing outside the hut, which was exciting. She was completely unconcerned by people (we were all fairly quiet so as not to disturb her) and she wandered in and out of the clearing all evening.

Wandering the beach late in the afternoon, we discovered that it glitters. It was impossible to get a good photo, but it was so gorgeous and entrancing!

After a good dinner (leftover Sweet & sour pork on rice, followed by s’mores for the boys), and some great conversation with the other kiwi family in residence, it was time for a reasonably early night.

Wednesday morning dawned cloudy and cool, with a threat of rain. We said farewell to Hadyn, who had decided he wasn’t up to the rest of the walk after all and was returning to Oban via water taxi, and headed off into the bush.

The walk from Port William to North Arm hut is really nothing to write home about. Some amazingly well constructed staircases, an old log hauler from the forestry days, and a small group of trampers met near the high point of the day. Loads and loads of mud. Eventually we got to a trio of bridges that were all marked “do not cross if water above boards of bridge” – there were only two streams marked on the map, so we presumed these were those.

This day just dragged. Other than the bridges there were no key markers as to where we were. There were no views to try and triangulate a position. You just had to keep moving and hope you were nearly there. I struggled massively. If you find a tree with a boating buoy hanging in it that says “Half way”, note that this is for the whole loop – there was a trail run on the circuit the weekend before we went, and this was up then, but we don’t know if it stays year-round – we only figured this out the next day, after consternation that “half way” for the day had seemed to take 4.5 hours of a forecast 5-5.5.

North Arm hut has lovely views into Patterson Inlet, but be warned that the toilet is back up the hill a bit, so you’ll want proper shoes and your raincoat if its wet. We didn’t actually go and explore the lovely views while we were there, because the weather was so bad. But it was a gorgeously peaceful spot and the Invercargill-based teenagers we shared the hut with were lovely, so I have really fond memories of being here too.

 

Our evening was peaceful and we all went to bed early, it had been a long day and we had an even longer day coming, with colder weather forecast.

Heading back up the 47 steps to the track junction was a great way to warm up into the tramp for our final day. From here, the track genuinely undulates along the coast of Patterson Inlet, with a few moderate uphills and descents. We made reasonable time, considering the track condition (loads more bogs again today), stopped briefly for a toilet break at Sawdust Bay, and missioned on to the Kaipipi Bay track junction, getting ever colder as we got closer to Oban.

We stopped here briefly to grab out lunches and extra warm layers. Mark and Marion whipped down the track to the bottom to have a look at Kaipipi Bay, which is described as “sheltered” to find the wind was in exactly the right quarter to render that description pointless. Spike and I got moving ahead of them to avoid getting too cold.

From here, the track climbs and has been re-located in a couple of places to make it smoother / less steep / drier. The climb is not short, but is also not sharp – its smooth and pretty easy. It becomes really clear when you’ve reached the top and it starts dropping, and doesn’t stop dropping until you get to the Ryans Creek track junction and the carpark.

By the time we got to the 4wd track from the carpark to the road (marked as tramping track on all the maps), we were all pretty shattered. The promise of real beds, showers and shelter from the wind was all that was keeping us moving at this stage. 

Stopping in at the DoC office to get a talking Tuatara for Spike (because I promised the day before that when he’d walked all the way around he could have one, and I think it was all that kept him moving), we regaled the lovely ladies there with the story of our adventure. From there we were blown in the door of the South Sea Hotel, where we desperately wanted a bowl of fries, but they didn’t have any available, so we settled for dry clothes and hot chocolates before checking in to our ferry at the wharf in between rain spells.

The ferry home was super rough and several people were very ill, which was unpleasant for the rest of us (not as unpleasant as for them, obviously), and we were all glad to get back to Invercargill to unpack, dry off some gear, shower, dinner and early to bed.

Like a mountain goat

Castle Rock, 28 July 2019

Party: Pop, Spike, Granma, Me.

Mark was away somewhere for the weekend, so when Granma offered Spike and I the weekend at the beach house, we jumped at the opportunity. After stopping for a bike ride at Avalon in the early evening twilight and a late dinner in Masterton, it was well dark and after bed time before we arrived at the beach.

Saturday dawned amazingly fine and warm, with light breezes, so we all went for a walk along the beach, watching the incredible waves being driven in my storm conditions well out to sea. 

On Sunday, another fine and warm day, we opted to go for a walk in the morning around the Discovery Cove track. Thankfully the track sides had been thoroughly cleared since our last visit, and this track was pleasant to walk up, rather than an effort to avoid too many scratches. Once we were most of the way around the ridge, I jokingly suggested to Spike that maybe we could go all the way up the rock this time, rather than heading straight back.

To my eternal surprise, he agreed willingly, and after leaving our walking bag with Granma at the track junction, we headed off up the hill, Pop and I nearly running to keep up with Spike, who it turns out is an absolute mountain goat.

 

He loved the climb, had a great time, kept a reasonable distance back from the edges at most points and posed nicely for some photos. After a bit of a play on the near-flat area near the top, it was time to head back down and find Granma.

Nearing the beach, we were warned by people coming up to look out for a seal just around the corner. We had to scramble down a bank to get around it as it was chilling out on the track, right in our way.

Having warmed up nicely with the walk, we took our shoes off and paddled in the lagoon on our walk back to the car. A really lovely walk in awesome conditions.