From Stack Conservation Area to Highland Creek Hut
Hiking time: 10:00a.m.-12:00p.m. and 02:00p.m.-05:00p.m.
Daily/Total distance: 10km /916km (230.5 hitched/skipped, 84 biked)
Steps: 18619
Weather: clear

After last night I had a lazy morning today. I didn’t get up until just before 9am and got moving very slowly. Upon packing my stuff I let my tent groundsheet dry a bit while eating before finishing up. While I was doing this, the girl from the couple from America walked past on the trail below me. She told me that her husband forgot his phone charger in Wanaka so he has gone back from Glendhu Bay to retrieve it, while she goes on ahead and they plan to meet that evening at Roses Hut.

I didn’t have as high ambitions for the day. I woke up a bit under the weather and feeling generally sluggish. If I hadn’t already booked adventures in Queenstown, I would stretch this section even longer than originally planned. But I have bookings to get to and need to get moving.

By 10am I was back on the trail and moving. After I flew through the first half on this section until the hut, I expected the second half to go similarly fast. I had not taken into account though, that there would be considerably more up and down to surpass. So the first 3k’s of the day went past quite slowly.

I came upon a group of 5 trampers, coming back from the next hut. As we were talking, I mentioned sleeping in the forest the previous night and my encounters with the animals. From my description of the noises I heard the were guessing that it was possums that I heard. They also told me about quite a few of them going around the hut and fighting very loudly with each other during the night. I guess I heard possums then. Hopefully.

At noon I reached Fern Burn Hut. This would have been nice to reach last night, but considering that it took me another 2 hours to get here, I would have had to do a lot of night hiking, which I am not to keen on.

Considering my lazy mood, I made a big pit stop at the hut. I also took the opportunity to hang out parts of my tent again to make sure they really dry in the sun. While I was on my break, other people started arriving. There was a couple from Australia, who are doing this track hut to hut. At a later point we were also joined by two girls from Latvia, hiking the TA and doing their lunch break here. There was also another couple that only stopped shortly. I head a great time talking to the two from Australia, while they were getting set up and preparing lunch. After nearly 2 hours though I decided that it would be a good idea to continue on. As I was getting ready outside, the husband from the couple from America arrived. He was at that point 3 hours behind his wife. We had a short chat and then I ventured on towards the next hut.

Now the path continued to gain altitude. The path was still very clear but contained some steeper sections going up and sometimes a little bit down again. I could see ahead of me the two girls from Latvia, as well as the couple that only stopped for a short while. I caught up to the couple and surpassed them, but the girls stayed far ahead of me.

Halfway up, I saw the husband catching up to me in the distance. When I finally reached the top, Jack’s Saddle, he caught up with me and overtook me for the downward section. While I was only planning to get to the next hut, he and his wife are planning on meeting up at the hut afterwards. That will be a further 5h from the next hut. I wished him luck and then we were on our way downwards.

The path leading downwards from the Saddle was mostly a ridgeline walk, on a sometimes very narrow felling ridge. While tough, it was great though, as it brought great views of the surroundings.

The ridge walk while nice also was a bit annoying for me, as I couldn’t go down to fast, due to my knee problems. So I took a bunch of small steps trying not to aggravate my knee. The surrounding mountains though looked very nice and rugged, and made the whole track downwards still enjoyable. Though I could see from the speed of the American, how fast you can be if you are not hindered by you knee.

At 5pm I arrived at Highland Creek Hut. The American was just about to leave when I got there. The two girls from Latvia were already set up and another guy, an older Kiwi was also there. I set up my sleeping back and got out my food and then joined the others outside on the deck to enjoy the last rays of sunshine for the evening. It was quite nice outside and we had a great time talking. I retold my experiences from the previous night with the local inhabitants and learned that the girls had started that day from the Wanaka, hitchhiking to the trail head, while the Kiwi came from the previous hut. He is taking his time. Then the other couple arrived as well. they set up their tent outside, preferring to have their privacy.

We had a lively evening, with all of us talking until it started getting dark. Just as it was about to get dark, a French guy doing the TA joined us. As I saw him setting everything up, I noticed that he was using hut tickets. I asked him why he was using them and he answered to pay for the huts. When I informed him, that they have the backcountry hut pass, which ends up being cheaper on the thru-hike, he was baffled, telling me that he was told to use these and noone ever told him about the pass. Poor guy, he could have saved about 50% on accommodation along the trail. I guess the person working in the DOC office wasn’t aware that he was walking the length of New Zealand and assumed he only wanted to do a weekend trip.

Then we all went to bed, where I spent some more time reading. While I was reading, I heard the possums running and fighting all over the roof. Sounds like there are 3-4 of them out there. They are quite noisy I must say.