After a long hard day escaping Mt Delta the day before, Andre and I were ready for a cruisy drive back to sunny Wanaka. I texted my mate Dan to let him know we were in Haast and would be dropping his rope by. He said his was at the Haast Cafe, about 50m away! I quickly got up to speed that Dan and another canyon mate Jethro were over for the day to attempt a first descent packraft loop from Jackson Bay, up the Smoothwater River over Macfarlane Pass, and then packraft out the Ellery Creek, Ellery Lake, lower Ellery Creek, Jackson River, and finally the Arawhata River back to the start. The Smoothwater-Ellery valleys are an interesting product of glacial erosion and Alpine Fault offset. The Ellery used to flow the opposite direction towards the sea but now is separated by a low swampy saddle. I had previously considered the route and decided it probably would not be that enjoyable, but if it was someone else's folly and an excuse to hang out with friends I could be interested in joining. Andre enthusiastically agreed to the trip. We quickly packed and headed off to Jackson Bay. They were planning a bike shuttle but with two cars we could do them one better.
We followed the Smoothwater Track steeply up from Jackson Bay, then down Saddle Creek into the Smoothwater River. The Smoothwater is a totally unusual river for the region, characterized by shallow wading and plentiful cobble bars that made very quick upstream travel. We scrub-bashed our way over the swampy Macfarlane Saddle (45m elevation). It was not pleasant but all things considered the meandering deer trails and chatty conversation made the 700m crossing tolerable. I think Andre and I both enjoyed having someone else to talk to.
We arrived at a tannin-stained swamp right where our phone GPS said we would find the upper Ellery Creek. It was a funny moment of extreme disappointment as our worst case scenario of an additional 3km of bush-bashing to the lake seemed likely. Dan made videos documenting his sarcastic excitement at finding the creek, Jethro got made fun of. I noticed bigger trees ahead and so rather than getting caught up in their discouragement I walked onward. Only a stone throw away, I let out a holler: I had found Ellery Creek. It was too choked with logs to be navigable by boat just yet and so we walked in the stream when it was shallow and traversed its shores when it was waist or deeper.
The densely forested terrain was beautiful but dragged on. The frequent crotch depth wades grew old quick. Several times we thought about inflating boats but logs still disturbed the flow and generally we could walk faster than we would be able to float. Finally about halfway down the creek we gave in and inflated our boats. It was a pretty comically shallow float with probably 30% portaging but it was scenic and felt remote. At least remote until we turned a corner and encountered a group casually strolling along the creek in sandals with no packs. We later realized they had jetboated across the lake and then went for a short stroll.
The enclosed creek abruptly spat us out onto the wide expanse of Ellery Lake. To our great fortune the lake was relatively calm with a comfortable tail wind pushing us. I set a beeline straight across the lake for the outlet, and though there was plenty of effort, I was able to cross it in about an hour. I positioned myself on top of the picnic table near the lake outlet to take photos as the others paddled in; the sandflies rejoiced at having a captive audience to bite.
Lower Ellery Creek was great, if slow moving. The Jackson River had a few nice riffles and flowed at a pretty good pace. The confluence of the swamp-fed Jackson with the glacially-fed Awawhata had quite a contrast in color, and temperature. The lack of riffles on the Arawhata made it feel slow, though our pace was actually quite good. By the time we pulled out and got to the cars we were are quite hungry. We drove back to Haast for a meal at the Hard Antler before parting and driving on to Makarora.
I didn't think it had quite enough quality boating to be a classic trip but it was worth doing once and the variety of boating (open lake, tanin creek, riffled river, glacial trunk river) was pretty unique for a day trip. Thanks to Dan and Jethro for the chance encounter and impromptu adventure.
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