Green Corridors South

We stood at the end of our street in Hanmer Springs with our thumbs out, packs at our feet, watching cars pass with that particular blend of hope and patience that hitching demands. Half an hour. In town, half an hour is nothing, a coffee, a phone call, a few pages of a book. On the roadside with a full pack and a trail waiting, it stretches. But the trail teaches patience if it teaches nothing else, and eventually a bloke named Paul pulled over with the easy generosity that seemed to define so many of the people we were meeting in this country. He drove us out to Windy Bridge, where the alternate route began, and we thanked him, shouldered our packs, and stepped back onto the trail.

The Hope-Kiwi Track stretched ahead of us, a route that follows the river valleys through some of the most remote country in the eastern ranges of the South Island. This section traces the Hope River before crossing into the Kiwi River valley, a corridor carved by water and time through mountains that give way to broad, open grasslands as the valleys widen and the rivers slow. It is quieter country than the Nelson Lakes section we had just completed, less dramatic in its alpine ambitions but no less beautiful, the kind of landscape that reveals itself slowly and rewards attention rather than demanding awe.

The first half of the day belonged to the forest. Dense stands of red beech and silver beech crowded the trail, their trunks wrapped in moss so thick it softened every edge and filled every hollow with green. The understory was a tangle of ferns and crown ferns and the delicate, reaching fingers of climbing plants that used the older trees as ladders toward whatever light the canopy allowed through. The air beneath the trees was still and cool and heavy with moisture, rich with the earthy perfume of leaf litter and the sweet, damp scent of moss that seems to intensify after rain. Shafts of light broke through gaps in the canopy in pale, dusty columns, illuminating small circles of the forest floor where insects drifted lazily through the warmth. It was walking of a meditative quality, the trail winding through this green, muffled world where sound was absorbed by the soft surfaces and the loudest thing was the rhythm of our own breathing.

At one point, the sound of fast footsteps behind us broke the forest quiet, and another sobo tramper appeared, moving with the long, efficient stride of someone carrying a lighter pack and a faster pace. Liam introduced himself as he passed, exchanging the quick pleasantries of hikers meeting on trail, and then he was gone, disappearing around a bend in the track with the kind of speed that made us both glance at each other and smile. We had been constantly thinking we were the last southbound hikers on the trail, the final stragglers of the season, and Liam's appearance was a reassuring reminder that we were not quite alone in our direction. The season was winding down, the gaps between sobo encounters growing longer with each passing week, but there were still a few of us out here, moving south through the shortening days.

The trail crossed numerous small side streams, those shin-deep fords where the water runs quick and cold over mossy stones, each one a brief interruption to the rhythm of walking that requires boots to be assessed, crossings to be read, and balance to be trusted. At one of these crossings, Torrin stepped onto a large boulder that appeared solid and stable, the kind of rock that looks like it has been sitting in the same spot since the river first carved its bed. It had not. The boulder rolled slightly beneath his weight, that sickening, slow-motion shift of something you trusted suddenly betraying you, and before he could adjust, gravity made its claim. Torrin sat down unceremoniously in the water, the cold stream rushing around him as his pack pulled him backward and his expression shifted from surprise to resignation to laughter in the space of about two seconds. He sat there in the creek, water soaking through everything from the waist down, and the forest absorbed the sound of our laughter the way it absorbed everything else, softly and completely. He hauled himself up, wrung out what he could, and walked on. The trail giveth and the trail dunketh. There was nothing to do but keep moving and let the walking dry what the river had soaked.

We stopped briefly at Halfway Hut, a small shelter sitting in its clearing where a father and his children were camped, their gear spread across the grass with the cheerful disorder of a family enjoying the bush together. Liam had also stopped here for lunch, and we found him eating on the porch with the contented efficiency of a hiker who knew exactly how long he intended to rest before moving on. We chatted briefly, swapping notes on the trail ahead and the trail behind, that constant exchange of intelligence that keeps the hiking community connected across the distances that separate them. But we pressed on after a short break, the afternoon still young and our destination still some hours ahead.

Gradually, the forest began to thin and release its hold. The beech trees grew sparser, the canopy lifted and broke apart, and the world opened into the broad, rolling grasslands of the valley floor. It was a slow transformation, the bush retreating to the margins as the valley widened, and in its place came tussock and open sky and a sense of space that felt almost startling after hours enclosed by trees. The river ran beside us through the grasslands, no longer hidden by forest but visible in its full, wandering course, its waters catching the light as they spread wide and shallow over beds of pale stone. The mountains stood back at a respectful distance on either side, their flanks still forested but their hold on the valley floor surrendered to grass and wind and the long, uninterrupted views that open country allows.

The trail followed the riverside through this gentler landscape, the walking easier on tired legs, the ground softer underfoot. One brief spot of rain passed through, a shower that lasted barely fifteen minutes but served as a reminder that the weather out here operates on its own schedule and answers to no one. We passed a couple of hunters heading in and a few nobo hikers along the way, those brief trail encounters that were becoming rarer as the season wound down, each one a reminder that the window for walking was slowly closing.

Hope Kiwi Lodge appeared as the valley grasslands opened further, a solid, well-maintained DOC hut sitting in a clearing beside the river. Liam was already there, settled in with his gear unpacked and that particular air of relaxation that fast hikers achieve by arriving early and having the luxury of unhurried evenings. A couple of hunters had been in the hut when Liam arrived, he told us, but had headed out not long after, their rifles shouldered and the valley swallowing them into the bush beyond.

We unpacked and settled in, hanging Torrin's still-damp clothing near whatever warmth the hut offered, cooking dinner with the renewed enthusiasm of fresh supplies from Hanmer Springs. It was a great first day back on trail. The legs had remembered what was being asked of them, the packs felt familiar on our shoulders again, and the valley grasslands stretching away from the hut offered a different kind of beauty from the forest we had walked through that morning. The hot springs and pizza and water slides of Hanmer Springs already felt like they belonged to a different lifetime, replaced by the simpler rhythms of walking and eating and sleeping in huts with strangers who were becoming less strange with every passing day.

Later, just as we were settling into our bunks for the night, the hunters returned in good spirits. We chatted as they unpacked and stowed their gear, and they had had success out there in the bush. There is a particular satisfaction that hunters carry when they return with something to show for their effort, not dissimilar to the quiet pride of hikers arriving at a hut after a hard day, and their energy added a warmth to the hut that lingered as we finally drifted off to sleep.

It was good to be back. The trail had been waiting, and we had returned to it rested and ready for whatever it intended to ask next.Read more