Te Araroa Day 70, Seddonville to Goat Creek Hut

Starting km: (1947)
Finishing km: (1979)
km covered today: 32

There's nothing like having walked 53km the day before to make a 32km walk feel easy.

My first day on the Old Ghost Road was great. The OGR is an old mining road from the West Coast gold rush days of the late 19th century. It was started but never quite finished. Eventually it fell into disuse and disrepair and was forgotten about.

Then in 2014 after several years of work it was reopened as a mountain biking/walking trail. It's on public conservation land, but the track work was done by a private trust that also maintains most of the huts and campgrounds.

Having walked two mountain bike-accessible trails already on TA, I was fairly confident that I knew what to expect. As it turned out, at least the first day was a little rougher than either of those, but still pretty pleasant walking.

At its start the trail went through cool, damp west coast forest.
Then headed across some sections that were pretty much just cut into cliff faces (and in some cases suspended in front of them).  I met lots of cyclists headed the other way, as well as a few other walkers. This being Tuesday January 2, the second of two public holidays in a row, I suspect the finishing section of the trail was about as busy as it gets.

I stopped for lunch at the OGR trust's Specimen Point Hut. It was pretty impressive. A new, tidy hut with a lovely balcony and views over the Mokihinui River.  And inside, the standard bunks and wood stove, but also gas cookers, pots and pans, cutlery, dishes... There were even wine glasses for heaven's sake!

After lunch the trail continued alongside the Mokihinui through forest with lots of rimu (with its long, weeping rows of short needle-like leaves it's probably my favourite NZ tree [except, of course for the flowering beauties pohutukawa and rata.]) There was also lots of horopito. This made me happy. Its mottled green and pink leaves taste (and feel) like chewing on pepper, and while walking TA I've taken to chewing on them, at first so that the burn on my tongue and lips would distract me from aches and pains and later just because I enjoy it.

I was planning to walk the OGR's 85km in two or three days.  My long day yesterday meant I could take three, so I'd be staying at the Goat Creek Hut, the only one that's even roughly near the 1/3 point.

However location wasn't the only reason I was staying at Goat Creek.
The OGR trust has set up a bizarre system for use of their huts where it's a flat rate of $140 for any number of nights up to four.  While $35/night for back country huts is about the same as the Great Walks, and while I really like what the trust has done, the idea of paying $140 for one night of hut accommodation rankled. (The camping situation is even odder, with a flat rate being applied for up to four nights for up to two people. Since it's DOC land you can legally camp anywhere on it, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find anywhere outside the official sites. The weather forecast also looked a bit uncertain, so I decided to go with the hut option.)

Fortunately the trust does allow single night hut bookings for the huts nearest the end of the track. This is really meant for people who want to walk in and spend the night, then walk back out. But by spending one night near the Lyell end (far end for me) and one night at Goat Creek (the only hut on the track that can't be pre-booked and is still fully managed by DOC) you can turn the walk into a pretty reasonable and not terribly expensive three day tramp. So long as you don't mind walking days of 32, 39 and 18km to do it. Which, of course, I don't :-)

So here I am, completely alone with the wood-smoke smelling four bunk hut all to myself (except a surprisingly few sandflies, three curious/cheeky wekas and a variety of other birds singing away outside.) I even arrived early enough to do a good lot of reading, write this and go for a quick dip in Goat Creek.  All with plenty of time to get to bed early before my big day tomorrow.

(This post is so ridiculously [and not entirely positively] me. I go for a beautiful walk in the woods beside a lovely wild river, and see cool stuff like a clear spring welling up into a pool in the middle of the forest and I spend 60% of the post talking about how to save $105 on hut fees. I actually feel good enough about the trail and what the trust has done for it that I'm considering making a further donation anyway. If they'll let me change my hut booking to a slightly more convenient one nearer the middle of the trail on the spot tomorrow...)