Hollyford Track
Hello blog!
To answer your unasked question: yes I am a badass, and yes I did hike 37 miles in 48 hours. Its been one hell of a weekend to say the least! Tramping through the Fiordland National Park was all I could’ve asked for and MUCH more than I expected. I will start in the beginning of the story, but I will preface it by saying this was one of the most challenging weekends of my existence.
On Thursday of last week, my flatmate Sara and I decided to do some backpacking this weekend. The two of us wanted to do something challenging and cool, but not too intense. We ultimately decided on Hollyford Track in Fiordland National Park (if you’re even a little familiar with New Zealand, this track is near Milford Sound aka the most popular fiord in the south island).
We had a plan, now we just needed someone with a car (if you’re wondering what happened to the Polly van, Amy was using her to go climbing in Wanaka for the weekend). Sara ended up texting her friend Hannah who agreed to come with us and volunteer her car for transport as well. The three of us packed up with 35lbs worth of food, clothes and other supplies (cooking stove, gas, sleeping bags, first aid kit, etc.) in our backpacks and left Dunedin at 1:30pm on Friday afternoon.
We expected the drive to take us 4 hours and 40 minutes, but it actually took us 5 hours and 40 minutes - putting us at the Hollyford roadend an hour later than expected. Since we had arrived at around 7:20ish, it became too dark to walk without headlamps pretty quickly. This was a little problematic because it was a 2 and a half hour hike to the Hidden Falls Hut, which is where we were planning on staying the night. Even though it was worrisome to hike in the dark on a track that we hadn’t done before, it was a very simple walk; flat ground with clear markers on the path. We took our time, I did all of my riddles for them, and it ended up being a really fun night hike! We even got to stop on the bridge crossings to look at the stars and it was amazing.
At 9:30pm we arrived at the Hidden Falls Hut, which was unfortunately occupied with other sleeping backpackers (inconvenient). Since there were people sleeping inside, we decided to make dinner for ourselves outside in the dark (PB&Js on tortillas, yummmm). After ‘dinner,’ we went inside and quietly set up our sleeping bags and I immediately fell asleep. I LOVE my sleeping bag. There’s something about sleeping in a sleeping bag that puts me to sleep so quickly……hmmm it might be the fact that Im not looking at my phone screen right before bed!! Note to self: stop looking at screens before bed.
All three of us got a solid 10 hours of sleep on Friday night! We woke up at 8:30am to find that most of the other backpackers had already left and it was us two other people in the hut together. We politely struck up conversation with the others and discovered that the women was waiting at the hut to be picked up by a helicopter to go record bird populations throughout the park. The guy had been traveling through the fiords, staying at different huts for the past 11 days! He asked us where we were headed and we explained that we planned to hike over to Alabaster Hut. This guy proceeded to tell us how he had just stayed at Alabaster the night before and had a horrible experience. He said that there were a bunch of middle-aged, jet boat guys staying at the hut for a weekend full of drinking, boating, camping and getting rowdy together. The guy essentially informed us that the boaters had monopolized the hut and it would be against our best interest to stay there (yikes). According to this man, we were better off hiking to Mckerrow Hut (which is another 3 and a half hours past Alabaster). Backpacker-man also said that this other hut was easy to get to, really nice, and located right on the beach. It seemed like a no-brainer! We looked at the map, weighed our options and ultimately decided it was best to continue on to Mckerrow Hut in order to avoid the jet boat bros.
Since we had decided to add on a significant amount of hiking to our day (an additional 3 and a half hours), we packed up our stuff and quickly left from Hidden Falls Hut. We left the hut at 9:30am.
The hike from Hidden Falls to Alabaster was wonderful! It was as if we were hiking through a remote jungle; moss covered everything in sight and the trees were thick overhead. The air was moist, but not too hot and we were able to talk amongst ourselves because the trail was relatively flat and easy. A true backpacker’s paradise.
We arrived at the sign for Alabaster at 1 o’clock and decided to deviate from the trail and walk to the hut for lunch. We still hadn’t fully decided whether or not we would stay at the hut overnight or continue onto Mckerrow and this lunch spot served as a way for us to scope out how bad things were at Alabaster Hut.
We walked in and the entire place was trashed…there was beer everywhere, unfinished liquor bottles on the tables, an abundant food supply taking up the counters and not another person in sight. We assumed the guys were out on their boats and we took this opportunity to make ourselves lunch inside and away from swarming sandflies. We made rice and beans on our cooking stove and chopped some onions and peppers to form an energizing burrito. We each had two burritos and some Peanut M&Ms for dessert (YUM)! As we were finishing up lunch, the jet bros made their appearance on the scene. Picture this: a bunch of rowdy, drunk, middle-aged men walk into ‘their’ hut to find three small girls eating lunch. It was a bit awkward and blatantly obvious that they did not appreciate our intrusion into their guy’s weekend. So, decision made. We packed up and continued on to Mckerrow Hut for the night.
On our way out, we ran into a nice older couple who were leaving the hut at the same time as us. We said hello and they asked us where we were headed. We told them that we had decided to stay at Mckerrow Hut since this one looked unpleasant. To our surprise, they were had just come from Mckerrow and were headed to Hidden Falls for the night which is where we had just come from. They told us that the trail to Mckerrow was tough and many people have gotten lost on the way (this sounds like something out of a movie, but it did actually happen this way I swear). The couple explained that we should be on the lookout for a sandbar to cross because the hut was located on an island that was only accessible when the river was not too high. They also told us to look for a white sign and drift wood which would point us in the direction of the hut. After hearing this news, we were obviously very appreciative, but very apprehensive about what awaited us.
As you can tell from the map I’ve included in this post, this section of the Hollyford Track is called ‘Demon Trail.’ Sounds fun right?!
So, we embark on this next section and it definitely lived up to the name: Demon Trail. The track kept taking us near the beach, then away from the beach, then up giant rock scrambles, then down giant rock scrambles. Incline, decline, incline, decline, etc. You get the picture. After hiking this section for 3 hours I began to feel really irritated, hungry and tired. All I wanted was to come to the sandbar and close the gap between me and this hut! But every time I thought we were nearing a beach, the trail would lead us deeper into the forest again. At this point, it began to get dark outside and I was worried that we would get lost trying to find our way to this freaking place! However, we finally reached the sandbar, found the white sign and drift wood that the couple had told us about. We followed footsteps in the sand and eventually made it to Mckerrow at 7:00pm. We had hiked 13 miles that day.
There were no lights in the hut, so we cooked ourselves some pasta for dinner with our headlamps on. We shared our food with a nice group of people from the Czech Republic who were also staying at Mckerrow for the night. They were really cool and even gave us their chocolate for dessert! After eating, we boiled a ton of water for next day (we each carried 2 liters in our packs). We also planned to wake up at 4am on Sunday to leave the hut by 5am for our lonnngggg journey home. I went to bed tired and absolutely terrified for the next day’s journey. I couldn’t imagine trying to walk the entire distance back in one days time.
Our alarms went off as planned at 4am on Sunday morning. We got up, packed our bags, made oatmeal for breakfast (oatmeal is still disgusting in case you were wondering), put on our headlamps (again!) and left Mckerrow by 5 o’clock. It took us 30 minutes to find our way back to the correct trail in the dark of the early morning, but eventually we spotted the orange triangle that marked our trail home and we began the first leg back to Alabaster.
Doing the Demon Trail a second time (and this time with fresh legs and breakfast in my stomach) was much better. It was still tough, but not as tough as it had been after a full day of hiking the day before. We made it to Alabaster at 9:00am and my body was definitely feeling the pain. We had only completed a third of our journey and I was already struggling!! This was bad. We took this checkpoint as an opportunity to rest for 10 minutes, eat granola bars and apples and take massive drinks from our waters. Another 3 and a half hours to get back to Hidden Falls!!!
It was comforting to know that at least we had completed the toughest part of the trail already and all we had ahead of us was a nice, relatively flat hike through the jungle. We played contact (a fun guessing game) to keep our minds sharp and our thoughts away from the pain in our feet. However, the next 3 hours passed by so slowly. I was thinking about something random when Sara yelled out in front of me and exclaims: “Guys there’s the sign for Hidden Falls!!!” I couldn’t believe it! We had made it to this next checkpoint 40 minutes before our estimated arrival!!! Apparently, we had been booking it because not one of us expected to get there in such a short amount of time! This small victory lifted our spirits and we all sat down for lunch at noon. We ate an assortment of PB&Js, hummus, carrots, granola bars and apples.
Side note: the best part about backpacking is that your pack gets lighter the more you eat :)
Both me and Hannah took off our hiking boots during lunch to give our feet a small break from the pain. We both expected to feel a revived sense of energy after lunch, but the opposite happened! I stood up and felt even more stiff and uncomfortable than I had before! I felt like a grandma; my hips were sore from my backpack, my knees were stiff from downhill hiking, my back hurt and my feet were swollen. Despite the pain, we hiked onwards and began the last leg of our journey (It was 12:45 when we left Hidden Falls and 2 and a half hours back to the roadend!).
After an hour into the last section, we came to a bridge crossing where only one person could cross at a time (if you’ve seen Shrek, it looks like the bridge they have to cross to save princess Fiona from the dragon). I crossed first, Hannah second and Sara third. However, me and Hannah were waiting on the other side and Sara was nowhere to be found. A couple minutes passed, and we finally saw her cross the bridge over to us. She relayed how she had run into other kids from Otago who were also hiking Hollyford! They happened to be a group we knew from our complex who were traveling back the same way as us, however, they had actually stayed the night at Alabaster on Saturday. When they joined us on the other side of the bridge, they told us about their horrible night with the jet boat bros and how they had gotten zero sleep. It was comforting to know that this journey, although painful, was worth it.
The other Otago group stopped for lunch near the bridge and we kept making our way to the end.
At this point in the day, we had been hiking for 9 and a half hours straight! I was ready to collapse; my feet were the only body part I was aware of and all I wanted was to be finished. I don’t know how, but I powered through and lead us back to the Hollyford roadend by 3:30pm. The sight of the final bridge crossing was so rewarding!! We made it!! A total of 10 and a half hours of hiking and 17 miles in one day. I felt like I had won a war.
We put our stuff back into Hannah’s car, changed our socks and shoes and I thanked god that I wasn’t the one responsible for driving us 6 hours back to Dunedin. The car ride home was relaxing (despite the fact that I still had a paper due at midnight that was not completed yet!).
We got back home at 9:15pm - 3 hours to finish my assignment and submit it lol.
I ended up turning in my essay at 11:30pm and feeling like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Now all I had to do was shower and go to sleep.
In conclusion to the story, we hiked 37 miles in 48 hours when we had planned to hike only 24. It was the most challenging experienced I’ve ever endured and I’m proud of myself for completing it! This weekend taught me about endurance, planning, communication and perseverance. That being said, I will never attempt to hike this distance in one weekend ever again.
Thanks for reading :)
p.s. I included a picture of my blistered feet for you guys, enjoy!
