Tramping the Hump Ridge Track

Glorious!

I didn’t go tramping the first time I was in NZ (1995) (because I strained a groin muscle just before the days I’d planned to do so; perfectly innocent explanation, really), so I was quite keen to do one on this trip. But we aren’t carrying our real backpacks, sleeping bags, or cooking gear, so we needed a route with a kitchen and beds and bedding available in the huts. This also meant we got to pack light, just our food and a change of clothes, yay!

I came across the Hump Ridge Track in my research before leaving Singapore, and knew it was the one for us – 3 days, lodges as needed, a variety of terrain and scenery, still relatively inexpensive. It’s also quite new, set up only in late 2001, which means it’s less-known / less-popular – handy for us since we didn’t know basic dates like when we were leaving Australia, when we’d be in the south of the South Island, etc.

HRT is 55K/34 miles over 3 days, and its profile is super-flat beach walk and steep hump (= day 1), hump ridge and downhill (= day 2), and small-hills forest and coast walk (= day 3).

The forest was simply beautiful, almost primeval – ferns and gnarled tree limbs and moss – so much moss:

A maximum of only 40 people a day go on the tramp, and we only had about 15 along with us. And everyone tramps the loop in the same direction, so you see few people on the trail.

Ah, the serenity!

Many views were filled with Dr. Seuss-esque trees:

I wanted to take this green ottoman home and put it in our living room (not that we have a living room at this point!):

HRT has lots of boardwalk – more than 12 miles! – which tends to make these parts of the trail less-than-arduous:
Although when the boardwalk is up up up, some arduousness creeps in -- we climbed to about 900 meters (nearly 3000 feet) the first day, most of it over the last few hours:

Most of the boardwalk is to protect the delicate terrain (particularly the tundra above tree line), and some of it traverses the worst of the mud fields. However, there is still a ton of mud and a lot of water on the trail – so much that I made up a song for it:

Pathmaker, pathmaker, make me a path
Cover the mud, put logs in the bog
Pathmaker, pathmaker, don’t make me wade
Just make me the perfect path

(In my defense, your honor, please note that this was after many hours of attempting to pick through mud fields in my new running shoes, and one’s mind wanders after a while.)

Though in some places, the trail was lovingly groomed by feet for great long stretches:

in others it was totally root-ridden:

The view from the top of the hump was fabulous – we were quite a way above tree line, looking down at the coast where we began (tree line is where dark turns to light in the picture, and we started right where the little spit of land juts into the water at 9:00; all of that distance was day 1.)


The lodges were fabulous – we had “premium” rooms both nights, as we’ve determined we’re too old and cranky for dorm rooms. Great kitchens, better-stocked with cooking gear, plates, and utensils than most hostels, probably because nothing disappears from the lodges since no one wants to carry out more than they brought! Hot oatmeal was included for breakfast both mornings…yum.

We got to drink water directly from nature – that doesn’t happen much in the US! And it was kinda fun to retrieve it using a billy-can on a rope on this bridge – delicious!

Aside from the blisters and knee problems (I won't go in to that...), it was an absolutely delightful tramp!

Part of me would love to get back to NZ with real gear to do one of the "great walks" in the real backcountry – but to tell you the truth, from what we hear those trails are more overcrowded than we had here, despite the little luxuries we got (chocolate mints in the room!). I'm perfectly happy to take the easy route when it leads to this much joy!