This was to be four nights away but things turned out a little differently. I had picked up Alan at the airport the evening before and the next morning we were headed for Courthouse Flat to park the car at the start of the track to Mt Owen. Yes, there was a courthouse in the gold rush days but now a grassed area with a sign and a toilet. One car was parked nearby.

Alan peers down a issue on the track.

Mt Owen is the highest peak in the Kahurangi National Park at 1875 metres and with its unusual karst landforms, eroded rocks in this alpine setting, certainly makes an interesting place to visit. Just have to get up there. We chose the track that followed the Blue Creek for about 20 minutes or so then the climb began. One hour forty minutes later we sat down for a spell at the junction of the ridge track. We came out into the open alpine tops in 1¼ hours and stopped for lunch. Then after a 15 minute walk through a patch of bush came out onto an open saddle before heading down The Staircase, passing limestone bluffs along a narrow track to come to the old Taplin Hut remains 45 minutes later. Later the track soon comes out into scrubby patches and then descends into the boulder clogged, dry Blue Creek bed. One just has to keep balance when hopping from one slab or boulder, to another and to keep an eye out for when the track exits the creek bed and back to more even land. An eye also watched the spur on the right getting closer as once we passed around that, the Granity Pass Hut was practically in sight. It was about five and a half hours since we had left the car. It’s a good walk, in anyone’s language.

Granity Pass Hut.

The next morning we were up early, leaving the other hut dwellers having their breakfast, heading for the summit. From the hut a short climb to the top of the Railway Embankment and it looks like that too climbing steadily over tussock grassland towards Sentinel Hill. It was freezing and when we came to the saddle and gazed down at the tarns and up towards the huge mass of rock that was Mt Owen, I had to warm fingers enough to operate my camera. The mountain didn’t loom so much but just seemed to be sitting there: grey rock of all shapes with guts and channels that descended to the grassland and the tarns below. Which one do we climb through to reach the top?

We followed the well worn track through the tussock and reaching the rocks of the mountain, wended out way up through the marble rock formations, over the alpine herb fields to finally come out on a ridge that led to the summit. Somewhere in this area parts of the filming for the Lord of the Rings was done so it was easy enough to imagine and Auk wandering about. On the way up we had passed a couple going down who had been married on the summit earlier that morning. They all had arrived by helicopter, had been married, and while they walked out, the rest of their party had returned home via the helicopters. On our way up through the rocky landscape we had noticed some pink ribbon that was tied around the odd rock cairn. I know they shouldn’t have done this but it didn’t seem out of place somehow.

Heading across the tussock.

On top met up with another small group for lunch. Settling down with them out of the cold wind, one of the others said that he had just retired and at 63 years old he thought he was great to be able to tramp up this far. Alan looked at me grinning, so I said well, I’ve just had my 79th birthday a couple of days ago so he had a few more years left in him yet. They all looked at me in amazement which made me feel like hanging onto something in case I fell off. I think it’s 79 but they keep changing it every year so it’s getting hard to remember. Anyway, the legs keep going although a bit slower, and that’s good.

Otherwise the view was great. In the distance the tussock tops of the Lookout Range to the East, over towards Murchison could be seen The Haystack and the Matiri Plateau, to the North was Mt Patriarch and beyond the tussock slopes where the John Reid Hut rests. Mt Owen came be seen from nearly all the surrounding area of Richmond and the Waimea Plains so the view from the top on a clear day is quite something. It went through our minds that the closer view of the nearby area probably hadn’t changed for perhaps several hundred years. I hope it stays this way.

Looking South towards the Haystack and the Matiri Plateau on the left.

Others came by but we ‘hung’ around and were the last off the mountain. We wended our way back through the rocks and fissures, stepped across large ‘gaps’, admired the water sculptured limestone boulders, past the tarns and up to Sentinel Saddle. Here we spotted a couple chamois making their way across a scree. We watched them for a little while and then made our way back to the hut. We were welcomed back at the hut with the words “Things are a bit different from last night” and indeed they were. The hut was overflowing with people with some sleeping on the seats and others out on the verandah. I wondered how many had paid their hut fees? Even though it was quite cold, we cooked and ate our tea outside rather than put up with the cramped, stuffy and noisy conditions inside the hut. As in the past, we decided to pack everything except our sleeping gear, into our packs for a ‘wake and go’ the next morning.

Campsite remains of past visitors.

Overseas people should really be charged extra for hut fees in my opinion. Not fair? Well, yes, that’s right and I agree, as the mountain huts are subsidised by the New Zealand taxpayer why shouldn’t they be. Listening to ‘campfire’ talk it seems that many visitors are abusing the system, basically travelling around our parks, and staying in the huts for extremely cheap accommodation. As the system relies on honesty, it also seems that many dodge paying any fee at all. Stealing in other words. We can’t do the same thing in their countries! Hut fees depend on the status of each hut and fees are from $5.00, $10.00 and $15.00 per night per person. The likes of the huts on the Heaphy Track average $32.00 per night while remoter huts are cheaper. Stealing is bad enough but unfortunately these overseas people, and many New Zealander too, don’t seem to understand hut etiquette. Just common sense really, but that seems to be very limited in today’s world.

Fluted Mt Owen rock.

We rose in the semi dark the next morning, stuffed our sleeping bags into our packs, on with our boots and off we went. We tramped for about and hour or so until we came to the old Taplin’s hut site. It was an old gold prospectors hut they say and I had heard that it was an old deerstalkers hut. Probably both as the hunters might have used it after the gold seekers had gone. Once the commercial people had killed off all the deer, the hunters went too and so it was left to rot away. A real shame I think. Not so much as to a hut to stay in but, heavens, it’s part of our history.

The old fireplace, Taplin Hut.

The old slab hut has collapsed and the site looks so forlorn. The walls and roof in a heap while nearby the remains of the fireplace. An old camp oven, a blackened aluminium pot, a rusty billy and even an old spade lay around the stones of the old fireplace. A sad spot for breakfast maybe, but it felt relaxing to me. Even the sandflies kept mostly away. We couldn’t spend too much time though as we had this Staircase to climb. There was no staircase of course, just a very steep climb through the bush and out onto the tussock saddle high above. We stopped for a break here too and then Alan spotted a large billy goat standing on a rock, watching us.

From here it was a long downhill walk. Which is worse; going up hill or going down hill?
Coming down nearer to Blue Creek, the edge of the track gave way and I stumbled over the side, putting a gash on my right upper shin. Fortunately, I was wearing long (below the knee) canvas putties so the wound would have been much worse without them. The putties helped keep the wound clean too.

Alan heading down.

It wasn’t long before I came to a weepage and was able to bathe the wound and the cold water helped with any swelling. At every little creek that crossed the track I did the same, mainly to use the cold water as an icepack before I was able to give it a good wash and clean in Blue Creek. As it was so clean with hardly any swelling, the wound healed up very quickly.

I was thankful to hear the Blue Creek and reach the level track that followed the stream back to the car at Courthouse Flat. Here we didn’t need to wonder where the people were who owned all the cars parked on the flat – no doubt trying to find a bed in the Granity Pass Hut!