A Hut of Our Own

Our goal today was Hurunui Hut Number 3, a longer hike that would put us back on schedule and set up the days ahead. The valley grasslands carried us forward as we left Hope Kiwi Lodge in the early morning light, the river still our companion, the open country stretching wide and easy beneath a sky that had, for now at least, decided to behave.

But the valley floor does not last forever, and before long the forest reclaimed us. The beech woodland closed in once more, the canopy sealing overhead, and the trail entered a stretch that tested patience more than fitness. The terrain was a relentless series of small ups and downs, those undulations that never amount to a proper climb or descent but accumulate over hours into something surprisingly exhausting, each rise just enough to engage the legs, each dip just enough to jar the knees, the rhythm of it never allowing the body to settle into a comfortable cadence. And then there were the blowdowns. Fallen trees lay across the trail in various states of decay, some recent enough to still carry their leaves, others moss-covered and soft, all of them requiring either climbing over, crawling under, or navigating around through the dense understory. Each one cost time and energy out of all proportion to the obstacle itself, and together they turned what should have been straightforward forest walking into slow, frustrating work.

Somewhere through the trees, Lake Sumner revealed itself, though revealed is generous. We caught only a glimpse of it through the dense bush, a flash of water in the distance, the lake's surface visible in fragments between trunks and branches like a painting viewed through a keyhole. Lake Sumner is one of the larger backcountry lakes in Canterbury, sitting in its broad valley surrounded by beech-clad mountains, a place of considerable beauty that the trail seemed determined to keep from us. We walked on, carrying the knowledge that something lovely was out there beyond the trees, close enough to sense but too far from the trail to properly see.

When the opportunity arose to leave the frustrating forest trail and drop onto the riverbed, we took it gratefully. Anth donned his crocs once again, those faithful foam companions that had served so well on the twenty-six-kilometre day into Anne Hut, and the relief of being free from boots on the flat, open gravel was immediate. There was, however, a complication. Anth's second pair of socks was missing, seemingly left behind at one of the hotels in Hanmer Springs, a small casualty of moving between two different accommodations over three nights. It was the kind of loss that barely registers in normal life but takes on genuine significance on the trail, where every item of clothing earns its place through daily use and where a missing pair of socks means fewer options for dry feet in the days ahead.

The riverbed gave way to creek crossings, and these were not the gentle, ankle-deep fords of the previous day. The water was cold, properly cold, the kind that bites at the skin and numbs the feet within seconds, and the current ran quick and strong over the stony bottom, pushing against our legs with a force that demanded careful, deliberate steps. We crossed at several spots, each time reading the water for the safest line, each time bracing against the current and feeling the river test our balance and our nerve. The cold crept upward from our feet into our calves and stayed there, a persistent ache that lingered long after we had climbed back onto dry ground.

Then the valley opened once more, but this time into a different kind of landscape. The wild tussock grasslands of the backcountry gave way to grazing land, the unmistakable green of managed pasture replacing the natural browns and golds of the valley floor. Cattle stood in loose groups across the paddocks, watching our approach with the heavy-lidded indifference that only cows can truly achieve, their jaws working steadily at the grass beneath them. It was a strange transition, the sudden intrusion of agriculture into what had felt like genuine wilderness, a reminder that even here, deep in the South Island backcountry, the hand of farming reaches into the valleys and claims what the mountains will allow.

We spotted the swing bridge in the distance, that unmistakable silhouette of cables and timber stretching across the river, and made a beeline for it. There is something about a swing bridge on a long day that acts as a psychological marker, a visible milestone that draws the eye and the feet toward it with renewed purpose. We crossed the river swaying gently above the current, the cables singing under our weight, and Anth swapped his crocs for trail runners for the last forest push of the day.

But it would not be a push to Hurunui Hut Number 3 as we had planned. The afternoon was now late, the light already beginning its slow retreat from the valley, and the honest accounting of distance and time told us what neither of us particularly wanted to hear. Number 3 was still at least four hours away. Anth was still moving slower than the schedule demanded, his body giving what it could but unable to manufacture the speed that the original plan required. There was no shame in it, only the reality of a body still adapting to the relentless daily demands of the trail, but it meant the goal had to shift.

We arrived at Hurunui Hut instead, a shelter sitting in its clearing in the forest, and made the decision to stop. Tomorrow we would try for a big push to get back on schedule, and the reason for that urgency went beyond mere planning. Rain was forecast toward the end of this section, and if it arrived before we reached a particular stretch of the trail, Deception Gorge would become impassable. The gorge, true to its name, is a narrow, walled river passage that transforms from challenging to dangerous when water levels rise, and hiking up through it in heavy rain was not a risk worth taking. The weather window was shrinking, and we needed to be through the gorge before it closed.

But that was tomorrow's problem. Tonight, the hut was just ours. No other hikers, no hunters, no nobo trampers passing through. Just the two of us in the quiet shelter, the forest standing still and dark outside, the river murmuring somewhere beyond the trees. We cooked and ate in the peaceful solitude of an empty hut, the kind of evening that trail life offers occasionally as a counterpoint to the shared bunks and communal cooking of busier nights. The silence was not lonely but restful, the absence of other voices creating a space that was ours alone to fill or leave empty as we chose.

We talked about the plan for tomorrow, about the gorge, about the weather, about the kilometres that needed to be covered. And then we let the conversation go and let the quiet take its place, two people in a hut in the forest, resting before the push that would come with the morning light.Read more