From Mt Fyffe Hut to Hapuku Hut and Kowhai Hut

Looking for sunshine when the weather’s rubbish everywhere else? Of course, Kaikoura, here we come! On Friday night, Emma and I drove to the Mt Fyffe carpark and powered our way up to the hut in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. At the hut, we met a lovely traveller named Mira, who’s been wandering around for a while. She told us a tragic tale about losing her favourite sock near Kowhai Hut and asked us to keep an eye out. So, if you see a lonely sock on your travels, you know the story! The next morning, we took sunrise photos from every possible angle, and off we went towards Mt Fyffe. 

It’s still a bit of a climb from the hut. From the top of Mt Fyffe, we continued along the tops to Gables End. It’s a very straightforward track, sparsely marked with orange poles. The descent from Gables End to Kowhai Saddle is a bit steep and slippery, but there are some sections with enough scree for a fun scree run. During the descent, Emma and I had an interesting discussion about shortcuts – how they often turn into much longer journeys. I introduced Emma to my favourite Czech saying: ‘It was longer, but on the other hand, much more difficult.’

We also had what we thought was a brilliant idea: instead of going all the way to Kowhai Saddle, we’d cut across a scree slope diagonally to reach the track heading to Hapuku Hut. Shortcut! It would save us potentially 5-10 minutes! Great idea at the time. So off we went across Gables End’s steep slopes. Soon, we were on a track that only seemed to exist on our Topo Maps. Maybe it was destroyed during the Kaikoura earthquakes? That made sense to us. We kept plodding along the ridge, but the track was nowhere to be seen, apart from the line on our maps. We bushbashed through some terribly prickly stuff and traversed some slightly hairy ridgelines, until we reached a spot that was a bit too hairy for my liking. Even Emma wasn’t sure how or if to proceed, which raised more concerns in my head. We decided that the risk of slipping on the steep, screeless slope was too high and looked for an alternative route down to the stream that drains from Kowhai Saddle towards Hapuku Hut. We found an okay slope and rolled down, but half of the rocks came with us – not exactly ideal. The idea of climbing back up was not very appealing.

Oh well – we followed the stream all the way to Hapuku Hut. We came across a few rock cairns, but apart from that, the track was nowhere to be seen. It was pretty bad bushbach at places. It took us 2 hours and 40 minutes to get to Hapuku Hut from Kowhai Saddle, much longer than expected! At Hapuku Hut (which is lovely, by the way), I stretched my IT band and we started to question our original plan: going back to Kowhai Saddle, bagging Kowhai Hut, walking out, and driving back to Christchurch all in the same day. From Hapuku Hut, we saw something confusing: a huge orange triangle on the other side of the creek. Where could it lead? We decided to solve the mystery by checking it out. Behind it – surprise, surprise – was an amazing, overly clean, wide track that led us all the way back to Kowhai Saddle in an hour. Holy cow, how did we miss this on the way in? I know why – because of the ‘shortcut’! The track from Kowhai Saddle to Hapuku Hut now follows the creek the entire way, and the old track along the ridge southeast of the creek is gone and exists only on Topo Map. Oh well, at least our chosen route ‘was longer, but on the other hand, much more difficult.’

At Kowhai Saddle, I had my traditional daily fitness crisis (it usually happens in the afternoon during a hard tramp and requires a few pieces of chocolate to resolve). Emma threw a couple of pieces of mint chocolate at me, which was amazing. I’ve been a big fan of this stuff ever since.

The track from Kowhai Saddle to Kowhai Hut took us just over two hours, and it’s definitely harder than the new track from Kowhai Saddle to Hapuku Hut. Kowhai Hut is a great wee hut with endless possibilities for good camping. To get back to the carpark, we followed Kowhai River, which is a pretty straightforward affair, and for the last 3 km or so, there’s actually a 4WD track. There’s no way you can do the Kowhai River route with dry feet – there are many river crossings. The river is wide but easy to cross at normal flow.

It was a great tramp, and thanks to Emma for a fantastic weekend out (Friday night + Saturday I should say to be precise). If you decide to copy this trip, just note that it’s normally tackled in 2-3 days. We covered about 15 DOC hours on the second day. Also, don’t follow my GPX between Kowhai saddle and Hapuku Hut unless you’re feeling adventurous. The GPX does follow the correct track between these two places on our way back, from Hapuku Hut to Kowhai Saddle.

Stats

Day 1: Mt Fyffe car park to Mt Fyffe hut: 5.6 km, 1 h 30 min, 906 m ascent. Route on NZ Topo Map (download below)

Day 2: Mt Fyffe hut – Mt Fyffe (1h) – Gables End (1h) – Kowhai Saddle (30 min) – Hapuku hut (2h 40min – hard way along the ridge and in the river bed) – Kowhai Saddle (1h) – Kowhai hut (2h 10min) – bottom of Spaniard Spur (50min) – Mt Fyffe car park (1h 30min): 28.2 km, 11h 05 min, 1415 m ascent. Route on NZ Topo Map (download below)

Participants: Michal Klajban (leader, scribe, GPX), Emma Rogers
Tramped on 20-21st September 2024.

Map – Mt Fyffe carpark to Mt Fyffe Hut

Map – Mt Fyffe Hut – Gables End – Hapuku Hut – Kowhai Hut – Mt Fyffe carpark