I was unable to drum up any co-conspirators in a big NZ whitewater trip somewhere but my good tramping friend Lara had a week off in Invercargill and proposed a trip across the Tin Range to the southern part of Stewart Island, logistically one of the harder places in New Zealand to get to if you don't own a boat built for the open ocean. My previous experience to the northern part of Stewart Island highlighted the huge weather gamble and the endless miles of knee deep mud pits passing as trails, but I was very interested in seeing the unique granite monoliths surrounding Port Pegasus and walking the Tin Range, one of the most persistent alpine ridges in New Zealand. In contrast to the northern half of Stewart Island, which has an extensive track and hut system allowing for a loop trip of upwards of 14 days, the southern half is a completely trackless wilderness of Tuolumne Meadows inspired granite knobs protruding above a vast sea of dense wind-swept scrub. As we found out the scrub is so dense and so variably stunted that it was exceptionally difficult to scout a route or gauge potential progress. It is a rough country visited only by the rare fisherman, hunter, and tramper. A ferry could get us to Oban, the only town on Stewart Island, but without additional help it would take 3 days on the North West Circuit and Southern Circuit to get to the start of the Tin Range, then at least 2 days to cross it to Port Pegasus, 2 more days to Fraser Peaks, and then you would have to retrace your steps. All that effort and clouds could afford you no views and the weather could be too poor to summit. There is a reason so few people make it to this part of NZ. Lara and I searched deeper into the logistics and happened to find a scheduled charter that could pick us up at Port Pegasus on a suitable day, and a water taxi that could get us across Paterson Inlet. It was starting to get pricey with the airfare, ferry, water taxi, and boat charter, but this was certainly a once in a lifetime trip and I happened to have two packrafts at the ready. So the plan was to get a water taxi on high tide to Rakeahua Hut, hike south over the Tin Range, packraft across Port Pegasus, summit Gog/Magog/Bald Cone, and then tag on to a boat charter back to Bluff in 7 days. The weather we of course could not account for. I flew into Invercargill in the most dramatic fashion, on the tail end of a massive storm that delivered unprecedented damage to Milford Sound, the Hollyford Valley, and Southland. It was surreal leaving sunny Wellington to descend into dark skies over Southland and flying over the terrifyingly flooded Matuara River.
Day 1: We left the campground early and ventured over to the ferry terminal in Bluff. The boat ride was rather rough with a big surging swell to contend with. We had such a tight turnaround between the Stewart Island Ferry arriving in Oban and trying to nail high tide getting into Rakeahua that the water taxi driver Rakiura picked us up at the dock and drove like a bat out of hell over to the dock in Golden Bay. In minutes we were off across the rough Paterson Inlet, clinging to the boat to not get bounced out the back. The Rakeahua River is highly tidal and only navigable at high tide. Rakiura (the man, not the island) expertly piloted up the flooded river mouth, knowing right where the channel was beneath us at all times. Once on the river proper, it was dead flat allowing our boat to zoom around the sweeping corners at great speed. In less than an hour from Oban he dropped us off 5 minutes from Rakeahua Hut, which would otherwise have been an all-day paddle (or not possible in present conditions) or a 2-3 day tramp through the swamp they call a track here. Kudos to the water taxi!
With plenty of daylight and a comfortable hut for the night we dropped gear and went for the 5km side hike to the top of Mt Rakeahua. Travel through the lowland swamp, bush, sub-alpine scrub, and tops was nice enough (even passing by a sizable tarn). The cold wind screamed fiercely in the summit area but the clear conditions allowed intricate views of Patterson Inlet's many embayments. Already my boots were soaked and a third of my clothes. It was going to be one of those trips where mental state is usually dictated by the percentage of dry vs. wet clothes.
We were joined in the hut by a Southern Circuit tramper (that planned to sleep until noon the next day!?). Thankfully sandflies were a non-issue. We hoped for clear skies and a lack of wind for our climb onto the Tin Range.
Day 2: Overcast with a light drizzle and wind. We started up the Southern Circuit Track, the only 2km of our trip on a formal DOC track. Within 100m of the hut it turned into an endless swamp typical of Stewart Island. Trail maintenance is so infrequent that regular trail use creates a mud pit (often knee deep) in the middle of the trail; ever widening bypass trails mean turn the pit into a swamp with the result that the true distance walked is often twice that of the trail length. This grew old very fast. We crossed the Rakeahua River on a bridge and soon were presented with a sign at a foottrail side path: "This track is no longer maintained". This was our turnoff for the Tin Range Route. We soon agree that this unmaintained track was the best we had seen on Stewart Island. Though the trail was narrow it was clearly cut and made excellent travel; despite climbing steeply up the hill I think we were making better time than on the mud pitted Southern Circuit.
Progress was steady through the bush and then some stunted scrub. A few clearings made the trail a little easier to follow but still nothing to complain about. In the squishy moss clearings we noticed a lot of kiwi beak probe holes looking for worms. After about 3 hours up the Tin Range route we reached the bush edge and stopped for a snack. Two women passed us heading down the hill which would be the only trampers we would see the whole rest of the trip. The tops were marked with twigs and upturned rocks which made navigating easy until we hit the clouds on the flanks of Table Hill. Here things quickly turned grim.
Gale force winds, spitting rain, and 20m visibility greatly slowed our progress and chilled us deeply. We powered on past the summit of Table Hill, and then contemplated our options in the slight protection of a rock outcropping. We were both soaked and freezing. We were not going to get any views and our progress was miserably slow. At 1:30p we decided to set up the tent on a squishy moss patch for an hour or two of shelter. If the conditions improved, we could pack up and head off. There were a few teasing moments of lifting clouds and rainbows but overalls conditions greatly worsened and we hunkered down in the deafeningly flapping tent for a very long day and night.
Day 3: We awoke to find the conditions still windy and cold but the rain seemed to have eased and the visibility improved. We also found everything inside the tent to be completely soaked. Bugger! I wore many warm layers to start and struggled all day to find the right temperature balance with probably more wardrobe changes than I had ever done in a single day.
The climb to Blaikies Hill was mostly in the fog. Past it the suggested route abandons the main ridgeline and instead follows open patches between the scrub down into the Kopeka River headwaters, crosses it (best camp spot we saw), and then climbs up the prominent ridge opposite. Progress was slowed as squishy moss was replaced by tight low scrub. At Point 605 the wind blasted us head on with its full force, for a moment prompting us to consider retreating. We then sidled along the flank of Mt Allen, tallest in the Tin Range, to its lonely tarn perched behind glacial remnants, which was our initial camp goal for the previous night. We hid from the wind in a open patch between scrub to scarf down lunch before continuing on.
The wind blasting continued and the scrub became more pervasive but we were able to stick to the well marked path, only losing it a few times. We detoured to scramble up to the summit of Granite Knob, which gave us great views of some of the dramatic granite domelands to the south and east, and of Doughboy Bay to the northwest.
With our camp goal set on camping near the Miner's Dam at the south flank of the Tin Range, we wanted to make the most of our only clear day on the Tin Range and so dropped packs to detour up an unnamed granite outcropping near Saddle Creek. More grandiose views of an impenetrable landscape, truly unique in New Zealand, if not the world.
At Point 637 we got our first views of Port Pegasus and the Fraser Peaks, which both looked incredibly distant. The North Arm of Port Pegasus looked rough! Even at 10km distance we could see waves breaking high up the rocks and plentiful whitecaps. We hoped for better conditions by the time we reached it tomorrow! A little further on we enjoyed our last views of the monoliths before we dropped off the ridge line and followed the markers into the scrub at the head of McArthurs Creek.
We reached the old miner's dam at about 5p and found a spacious, relatively drained campsite thanks to an engineered ditch. We mostly successfully dried gear in the occasional rays of sun, frequently having to recollect hanging gear when a flurry of rain would descend on us. By the end of the evening we were both delighted to have most of our gear dry and a considerably more comfortable campsite out of the wind.
Day 4: More fog and light drizzle but it mattered little as we would be starting down the old miner's track to Port Pegasus. A little soggy, the tramway track was otherwise in excellent shape and made for quick travel down through the scrub and into the bush. We reached the main trail junction and opted for the track Surveyor's Track to Pegasus townite rather than Diprose Bay as it would place us closer to Belltopper Falls. At the townsite (must have been a small town...) we were happy to see the water was relatively calm, as expected in this most protected part of the bay. We were slow to shift into packraft mode, this being Lara's first experience with this one.
We inflated and headed straight for Belltopper Falls, a wonderfully picturesque plunge into the sea. We noticed the tide was interacting strangely with the current at the base of the falls in long period surges. We snapped a few photos and then paddled out past Rosa Island to see what North Arm had in store for us. On the shore of Rosa Island we saw several shags and half a Fiordland crested penguin (its top hidden by is small hole).
The North Arm coast was rugged and the waters became rougher the further we proceeded. There were many small indents in the coast that allowed us to duck into wind shelters for a brief break before bearing the brunt again. We even found an interesting sea cave spacious enough to paddle into. The waves were breaking hard against the exposed side of Albion Inlet. Lara was not feeling very comfortable about the conditions. I was less worried by the sea swell but admit the occasional high gust of wind was completely unnerving and it was hard to paddle against its force. We stayed close together crossing the exposed 500m of sea at the mouth of the inlet. In looking at my photos I recall a curious fact of life: photos taken of rough seas always look much milder than reality!
Lara requesting a break, we paddled around the corner to the first embayment of Albion Inlet where we found a petite beach and a nice campsite. Over a quick snack we discussed our options. Lara was lobbying hard for us to paddle around the next corner and into the head of Bens Bay where a 1km bush walk across a low saddle would put us into a branch of Cook Arm and would allow us to bypass Pegasus Passage. Despite the epic feeling nature of the swell and wind, we had managed to go 4km in an hour (good!). Another 3.5km of paddling would get us to North Pegasus Hut, and another 3km to South Pegasus Hut. I argued that I thought the waves would be worst where we just crossed and should get better as we approached Pegasus Passage as it becomes progressively sheltered by Anchorage Island, and that we could always backtrack. I gave in, lamenting the missed opportunity to check out Red Beach and the rest of the coast. It seemed like a long way to get to this waterworld to opt to carry boats on our backs! The only bright spot is that I admitted it would be useful to demonstrate the utility of this crossing for future packrafters.
The bush was open but also a confusing mess of deer trails with poorly drawn contours, resulting in a couple wrong turns that were aggravating. Eventually we made in to the northeast armlet of Cook Arm where we met Bruce the hunter. All the hunters we encountered from here on loved to tell us about the enormous sharks when they looked at our petite boats...The tide was draining fast and so we got moving as quick as we could to avoid getting beached on mudflats. Despite going with the strongly outgoing tide, we were still against the raging southerly so paddling was still quite miserable. Again we adapted the strategy of tightly hugging the coast and ducking into a sheltering indent when we needed a break from the onslaught. Progress felt slow but we eventually reached the main junction with Cook Arm and proceeded to attempt to paddle up the inlet. Now thoroughly against the outgoing tide, progress was incredibly hard-won. We took it section by section, realizing that it seemed futile trying to make it to the head of Cook Arm in these conditions. Consulting the map we identified one of the few marked creeks nearby that also had a patch of bush marked extending to the coastline. We decided to try our luck there, hoping we could find some suitable campsite. One more inlet crossing and we beached ourselves to scout. It took us about 1.5hrs of effort to go 3km.
Good luck for a change, we found a great campspot that was probably better than we could have planned it (dry, unsoggy, sheltered from the wind, good water nearby, amazing view of Gog and Magog) just into the trees. We set about forging a track to it, pitching the tent, and laying out gear to dry. Periodic checks out to the coast hoping for clearer views of Gog and Magog revealed a dramatically rapid evolution from a paddlable inlet to a vast mud flat. I have never been anywhere so dramatically affected by tides! Quite comically we noticed a sea lion that "missed the bus" on his commute home. It must have napped its way through the outgoing tide and now was high and dry well away from the sea. It would awkwardly flop a few paces to gain speed and then attempt to slide along the mud flats, which seemed like more effort than it was worth. We had a leisurely dinner, managed to dry nearly all gear, and even strolled across the mudflats to the rockpile island we paddled past earlier. Throughout the evening we monitored the status of the tides to pinpoint low and high as the tides would be crucial to coming up with a good plan to reach Gog and Magog.
Similar view as previous but from high tide the following day.
Day 5: A little less windy, a little clearer. It was low tide in the morning and so our plan was to hike up the mudflats 2.5km to the head of Cook Arm where we would stash our packraft gear and if we timed it right, could paddle back to our camp on the outgoing tide. The mudflats provided wonderfully firm travel (only require occasional calf-deep crossings of its central channel) and great views of Gog and Magog. We made the 2.5km in about 30 minutes. So far so good, now we had to find the track or suffer miles of thick scrub. Lara wandered off for ages but returned with a smile and a thumbs up. A great relief!
Generally speaking the marked route provided excellent travel as it cut its way across swamps, low scrub, and rock outcroppings. All the time we had to be on high alert for the next subtle white tie marking the route. We gained elevation up past a waterfall to the edge of a truly heinous patch of scrub. Here unfortunately we followed misguided trails that beelined towards Magog (we later found out the real route turns away from Magog to follow better scrub). For the moment out of options, we powered on through the untracked scrub which greatly upped our suffering level. We climbed as high as granite outcrops on the east flanks of Magog without encountering a track. Unable to climb the granite we proceeded to sidle around the north side of the peak. This also thoroughly sucked. Just as despair peaked, we stumbled across the cut route! We followed it upwards in a crazy zig-zag fashion, eventually realizing it was taking us to the top. We topped out onto the eastern slabs of Magog for a lunch stop with a killer view out over Port Pegasus. As we ate we could see Cook Arm gradually refilling from the incoming tide. It was still windy but with a little sun and views a plenty, things were finally looking up.
After lunch we wandered around the rocks a bit and followed the most obvious route up towards the summit. As we stepped through patches of wind-stunted vegetation I noticed at least four skinks eking away a rough existence up here. A dramatic slab led to a steep vegetation-filled crack up a rock wall. It looked bad but the vegetation was well-rooted and made for a good ladder. Lara stopped here. Above this was a short 5m section of slab, low angle but incredibly exposed. Occasional blasts of wind and the exposure did little to quell the nerves and it took serious contemplation before I decided to go for it. This turned out to be the crux of this route to the summit. The rest of the way was quite a cool intricate route wrapping around under overhangs, climbing up tree routes, stooping through boulder caves, and traversing razor edge summits. The summit consisted of a bizarrely potholed boulder clearly carved by the sort of aggressive wind conditions I was currently experiencing. The summit of Gog looked impressively difficult to reach from this vantage, which compressed the approach ridge into a seemingly steep wall. I spent a few minutes enjoying the summit views (and a sense of pride in reaching this location) and then retraced my steps before Lara became concerned. I tried to coax Lara up but she was not pleased with the same slab section the initially caused me pause. Retracing it was now a trivial move for me.
Back at the lunch slabs we decided to take our chances traversing south of the summit. This turned out to be the cut track and so good travel got us to the wonderfully whimsical sculpted rock piles west of Magog. I nicknamed this area the Sculpture Garden. Some of the rocks had deep water-filled potholes to drink from, some were sculpted in unusual forms, some were balanced precariously, and one even looked like a giant rock cairn (frontispiece), and beyond all of these was the imposing peak of Gog. I took many, many photos with Gog in the background and had great difficulty paring them down. It really is a captivating peak. The Maori name for Gog is Kaka-Kaka (red parrot), while the name for Magog is Tu-pouri ("standing dark and gloomy"). My experience would prompt me to give Gog a more formidable name but what do I know. We took our time enjoying the natural sculptures. Given the ferocity of the wind and that Gog was in the clouds more than half the time we opted against trying to stumble our way over to it. Not summiting Gog was probably the greatest disappointment of the trip but I suspect it is the sort of peak that is more picturesque from afar than on top of it.
Too much good stuff! After we were satisfied we had checked out every accessible rock, we made our way up the summit route on the west side of Magog. This proved to be considerably easier than the route I took earlier (which deflated some of my excitement and the uniqueness of the peak), but meant that Lara got to summit and I got to enjoy the view yet again.
We retraced our steps back down the trail past where we joined it. It led us to the saddle between Magog and Heilanman and then took a wider path through the thickest scrub to where we lost the path earlier in the day. From here it was a quick jaunt back down to our boats at Cook Arm. The 3km from the summit took us less than 1.5 hours.
We timed the tide perfectly to paddle back to our camp. Between the outgoing tide and tailwind it took a mere 15 minutes to return the 2km to our camp.
It was just after 5p when we reached camp which left us with a decision: we could rapidly pack up camp and ride the outgoing tide to Port Pegasus now or wake up very early to catch the outgoing tide then. We both really liked our campsite but moving camp to South Pegasus Hut would put us in a much better position to take a stab at Bald Cone the following day. We packed in record time, filled my boat, and launched by 5:45p.
It was good to finally have the tides figured out! It took us 20 minutes to get to South Pegasus Beach where we greeted a couple hunters having a day off. One of the guys was quite friendly and we went up to the hut to check the hut book for route descriptions. It sounded like we made the right choice going up Magog from Cook Arm- half those that tried from the hut gave up! We set up camp in a muddy bush alcove at the opposite edge of the beach. The rest of the hunters returned by boat later, well drunk, rowdy, and rough. They stayed up late and played music loud which echoed its way down to our beach campsite. Earplugs saved the day again.
Day 6. We set off from South Pegasus Beach towards Bald Cone. The first part of the paddle out of Islet Cove was calm and clear and I could see abundant sea life as we hugged the coast. At Kelp Point we were more exposed to the wind and so strategically paddled behind Dryad Island and crossed the mouth of Evening Cove to the prominent beach at the point. Here we stretched our legs as we looked out over Shipbuilders Cove and contemplated our route to the summit of Bald Cone. The north side would be much less paddling but we were unsure of a trail and would have to largely pick our own path through scrub burnt a few years ago that might be in a annoying stage of regrowth. The southwest side would require an additional 3km of paddling but sounded like it had a straightforward trail to the top. We decided to go for the longer paddle and set out across the kilometer-wide entrance to Shipbuilders. Along the coast we saw a changing 180° view of Bald Cone, noting that only the northeastern vantage offered a tidy conical appearance, all others showed the summit to be a complex jumble of enormous boulders and cliffs. I saw many jellyfish (moon jellies?) with blue-purple iridescent or glowing accents, which were cool to stop and watch. After what seemed like ages, we turned into the mouth of the creek draining the swamp south of Bald Cone and found the start of the cut and marked track with a few minutes of searching. This track was some of the best travel anywhere on Stewart Island and quickly got us through the coastal scrub to the burn area where we surprised two deer. Here we lost the trail (as the day before assuming it headed straight for the ridge) and so forged our own route up through unburned bush and scratchy burnt scrub remnants. It was not a desirable route but once we gained the ridge the travel was completely open and we could walk from interesting rock formation to interesting rock formation. The wind was still howling and there was a light dampness to it and so we stopped for lunch in an interesting wind-sculpted taphoni cave.
After some rejuvenating food we continued on up towards the summit, choosing interesting scrambling routes. As we climbed the views of the surrounding port improved, especially into the calm clear covelets of Shipbuilders Cove. We explored our way past more sculpted rocks towards the summit. A hint of a worn trail led us off the east side down to a steep gully with fixed ropes. Perhaps a way down but not to the summit, we retraced and took another route. We skirted around and then under the largest boulder and then had to do more scrambling.
A mere 25m from the summit, there was only a very exposed slab climb to contend with in the unnerving wind. I started up to a scoop in the rock only to discover the scoop was a death plunge off the side. I immediately retreated back down to safety. Lara certainly had no interest but I looked at the slab captivatingly, only two tricky moves from being at the summit. I made several more attempts, each time coming back down. One last time I started up, sure that I was not going any further but then something clicked in my brain. Muscles and adrenaline took over for a few terrifying seconds as I got through the exposure onto the lower angle slab top. The summit had a pothole divot that provided minor reassurance that I would not blow into the void below but it was a very uncomfortable and exposed place in the high winds. My brain was not really capable of processing the view and so I rapidly snapped photos to be able to reconstruct the 360° summit view and cautiously but carefully retreated down to safety. As is often the case, returning felt much safer and less foreign.
With that out of the way we decided to see whether the fixed ropes were a viable way down. Fortunately, they were and the excellent trail led us all the way back to our boats in no time at all. Along the way we came across the most dramatic tannin-stained pool I had ever seen.
With time in abundance we planned on paddling back to South Pegasus the long way hugging the coast through Shipbuilders Cove and Evening Cove to check out all the islands. We saw lots of shags and then at the western edge of Shipbuilders we came across a sizable sea lion in the water. I initially did not think much of it but it immediately thought we were the most interesting thing around and relentlessly pursued us. For over 1.5 km we steadily paddled in terror as the mouthful of teeth made aggressive passes at us. We felt delicate in our thin-walled inflatable boats and being high tide there were no beaches for us to land at and so we continued on at a steady pace hoping it would lose interest or we would pass out of its territory.
It was just past Proclamation Islets that the sea lion gave of chase. We had just long enough for me to snap the photo below looking back at Bald Cone before we came upon three sea lions! Surely three sea lions would find us less entertaining than one? Nope! The three sea lions together were even more aggressive, ganging up on one of our boats all at once, powerfully bumping the floor or rear of the boat, and attempting to bite the paddle blade as it forcefully propelled us. It was a stressful situation (I heard Lara yell rare curse words) and there was nothing we could do but to paddle in a frenzy, hoping they would lose interest. The three considerable more aggressive sea lions followed us a solid 3km until just before the South Pegasus Beach where they finally turned away. I landed at the beach in a sweat, paddling non-stop for 4.5km in less than an hour, a feat I surely have not done before in a packraft. It was early enough in the day and the conditions quite calm that we contemplated leaving the boats inflated to go back out for an evening paddle. We ultimately decided we had enough of the sea lion abuse and cleaned, dried, and deflated boats, choosing to stick to our terrestrial domain. We had a tasty dinner of fresh blue cod fillets courtesy of the hunters and one last dew-y night in the deep south.
Day 7: We had a 10:30a pickup time from Ian at Aurora Charters and so had a slow morning of packing, walking out to the point, and scouring the beach for the best shells. They arrived a touch early but we were ready and wasted no time. It was now revealed that the charter we hopped onto was not a tourist or birdwatching trip but instead was a changeover day for many of the hunters at the huts. This meant a slower ride back to Bluff with multiple stops but we did get a grand tour of eastern Stewart Island. We went through Pegasus Passage, stopping to swap hunting parties at North Pegasus Hut. Ian was the real deal and a certifiable one man crew. He was super friendly and professional and clearly knew the waters exceptionally well. He fixed the steering wheel as we crossed Big Ship Passage towards Chase Head as he went around the boat tidying things up for ten minutes, which was amusing to watch. We went out Whale Passage into violent seas and strong winds. The albatross and other seabirds were incredible to watch as they surfed centimeters over waves and glided for miles without a single wing flap. We past close by offshore rock formations The Brothers and Black Rock, which I was surprised to find were comprised of coarse tilted conglomerate probably of Tertiary or older age instead of the volcanic and metamorphic rocks, which I thought solely made up Stewart Island. Consulting the GNS geologic map later confirmed that indeed, these three random pieces of rock are the only known exposure of this rock anywhere- I was impressed they identified them! As we went along the coast the sea became calm enough for a little nap. Near the Lords River we took a shortcut between a narrow rocky passage between offshore island, and then turned into Port Adventure to pick up another hunting group at Kellys Hunters Hut. This group was not quite ready and so it took some time before we were off across Foveaux Strait for Bluff. At Bluff we were able to grab our two bags and quickly leave after an adios to Ian, while the hunters probably had a lengthy struggle to unload their mountain of comfort gear. We ended with fish & chips at the start of State Highway 1 and Te Araroa before driving back to Bluff to camp the night.
A warm shower and dry clothes were great things after a week of cold weather and soggy feet. The weather was pretty lousy 90% of the time, which threw off some of our plans (particularly summiting Gog and paddling Pegasus Passage) and meant very little birdlife seen. The windows of clear skies did allow us to see nearly every view I hoped to along the way even if briefly. Easy highlights were the granite domes off the southern end of the Tin Range, the sculpted rock wonderland west of Magog, and summiting Magog and Bald Cone. Easy low points were the horrendous weather and desperate camp on Blaikies Hill, fighting headwinds and aggressive tides, and being chased by mouthfuls of teeth for nearly an hour. It was certainly a trip of a lifetime. Thanks to Rakuira and Ian for making it happen. Big thanks to Lara.
