John Tait Hut

Text taken from the club newsletter.

John Tait Hut by RAY WALKER

I hadn’t been on a club trip to the South Island for quite a number of years and had not planned on going away over Labour weekend. However, Barbara Keenan persuaded me to co-lead an easy-medium trip with her to Nelson Lakes National Park over this long weekend. Co-leading the trip turned out to be a really good option (more on this later). Having committed to this trip, I was really looking forward to getting away for the weekend. Our group consisted of six people—and all were club members. This is most unusual to for an EM trip.

The plan for the trip was to start at the south end of Lake Rotoiti and tramp up to John Tait Hut where we would stay for two nights. On the second day we would do a side trip, and on the Monday we would return to the end of the lake by the same route. Unfortunately the weather forecast for the weekend was not good—the words ‘rain’ and ‘showers’ appeared in the forecast for each day.

We chose to stay at the Alpine Lodge Backpackers in Saint Arnaud on the Friday night which we all thought was good value for money as none us were keen on camping out in bad weather. On Saturday morning we packed up our gear and met the water taxi at the jetty for the quick trip up to Coldwater Hut at the other end of the lake. Katja, who had planned on being with the medium group, joined us for the trip up the lake. She had injured herself in a fall from her bike earlier in the week, and had decided to recuperate at Coldwater Hut over the weekend.

The track to John Tait Hut follows the true left of the Travers River. It is a reasonably flat and easy route which, according to DOC, should take about five hours to complete. As we were in no particular hurry, we stretched this out to six hours which included plenty of stops for photos, snacks and lunch. The forest along the way consists mainly of beech trees with the odd totara here and there. The track also meanders through some open grassy fields which reminded me very much of the Saint James Walkway (probably due to the presence of matagouri bushes). There were some ideal camping spots, but as bad weather was predicted, we weren’t tempted to put up the fly. We had been lucky with the weather so far, but we could see that rain was following us up the valley. After feeling a few spots of rain I decided it was time to have an early lunch before the rain caught up with us.

It was not all plain sailing this day—we had a boot problem. After an hour of walking one punter reported that her boot sole was coming off. Closer inspection showed that the sole was indeed doing just that. This was a bit of a surprise as the boots were reasonably new and were a good quality brand. I initially used tape from my first aid kit to fix the problem, but after getting wet it came off. Plan B was then to use a draw-cord from a stuff sack—this worked well. We used string again when

Photos: DAVID BAKKER her other boot sole came adrift. Fortunately the string on both boots stayed in place for the rest of the trip.

We finally arrived at the John Tait Hut about 4 pm having kept ahead of the rain all the way. The medium trip punters led by Katie Glenie were already there. Their plan was to climb Mount Travers the next day (Sunday). There was no shortage of firewood at the hut. At some stage an avalanche or slip had brought down a large number of trees only a few metres from the hut. Although there were some good camp sites nearby, nobody was keen when it soon started raining.

The next day arrived but unlike the medium trip, we had no definite plans for the day other than doing a side trip of some sort. The mediums left for Mount Travers via Summit Creek. There were a couple of possibilities for a side trip: the track to Cupola Hut, Travers Falls (about an hour from the hut), or both. It was raining steadily now. Barbara decided to stay in the hut and get the fire going.

Having donned our rain jackets and over trousers, we set off up the Travers River. The river was up and flowing fast. When we reached the turn off to Cupola, it was suggested that we carry on to the falls before going up to Cupola Hut. So, that’s what we did. The falls were indeed spectacular; more so than I thought they would be. Due to the amount of rain fall over the last 12 hours or so, there was a huge amount of water cascading over the edge. We spent quite some time there gazing at the falls and taking photos.

It was time to move on. David, Anita, and Clare were still keen to go up to Cupola Hut. Meena wanted to go back to the hut but at a leisurely pace while taking plenty of photos on the way. My preference was to get out of the rain and spend the rest of the day drinking tea by the fire in the hut. Thus three went to Cupola, and two returned to the comfort of John Tait Hut. Back at the hut Barbara had successfully got the fire going. A group of three blokes arrived at the hut and had lunch before heading off to Cupola. They had been at Hopeless Hut the night before, and had shared that rather small hut with a group of nine people from the Tararua Tramping Club. They advised us that the latter group were on the way to this hut. I did some quick maths—there would be enough bunks for everyone, but I suspected that there would not be much room to move about in the hut.

A short time later a small group of TTCs who were camping further downstream arrived. I thought they were very keen to be camping out in such weather. They had decided to do a walk up to this hut and return to the tents later. The three chaps who had been in the hut for lunch had left for Cupola, but one of their party returned as he had had a fall and was not feeling too good.

Sometime later our medium group returned. They had been thwarted by the weather in their attempt to summit Mt. Travers. However, they did manage to get to 1,660 metres in altitude. The hut was starting to fill up. Clare, David, and Anita arrived back. They were very happy to have got to Cupola Hut. They brought back photos of the hut covered with a thick layer of snow.

There are some good camping spots near the hut and if the weather had been a lot better I would have camped out—crowded huts are not my cup of tea! Barbara was in charge of the evening meals on this trip. She did a wonderful job. Working out recipes to cater for the number of food allergies in our group was challenging. So we had two great meals.

The plan for the next day was to walk back down the track to Coldwater Hut and catch the water taxi back to St. Arnaud from there. As mentioned earlier Katja was staying there for the weekend. As it was still raining steadily we were not going to dawdle on this walk. We didn’t want to get cold during photo taking stops.

We set off shortly after 8 am expecting the walk to take five hours or more. Understandably there was a lot more water about. There was no chance of performing puddle-dodging dances! We all splashed through the water. Although there were a number of side streams crossing the track, none of them presented a problem. All the significant creeks had very robust bridges over them.

There was one very irritating feature of the weather that day—something I have rarely encountered before. Every now and then the sun managed to shine through, so much so that we could see shadows. However, it would only last between 30 seconds and a couple of minutes and then it was back to more rain. It was most frustrating!

We progressed quite quickly along the track. We reached Coldwater Hut in just over four hours which was significantly quicker than our leisurely stroll up the valley on Saturday. On arrival at the hut we met up with Katja who had just put the billy on (this was good timing). The water taxi was not due until 2.30 pm so we had quite a bit of time on our hands. We changed into dry clothing and had lunch. David decided it was safe to dispose of his emergency rations. So he handed out soup sachets to all the punters which went down a treat. I was tempted to get into my sleeping bag for a while, but instead lay on a bunk and put another mattress over the top of me. This did provide some warmth. The other punters were very amused and took photos of me peering out from under the mattress.

The water taxi arrived right on time and whisked us away to St. Arnaud. So it was the end of my first club trip to the South Island for quite a number of years.

Notes about the trip: The track to John Tait Hut is an easy and pleasant track. The scenery is beautiful and there are plenty of good camping spots. Fine weather would make a significant difference on this walk. There are good options to go further afield. Other huts in this vicinity include Upper Travers, Cupola, Hopeless, and Angelus.

Barbara and I co-led this trip. I found that having two people organising and leading the trip significantly eased the burden of leadership. There is a lot of work involved in leading trips, especially to the South Island. I really recommend co-leading as an option for these trips. Ray Walker (Co-Leader), Barbara Keenan (Co-Leader), Anita Su’a, Meena Kadri, Clare Todd, David Bakker. EM Tramp, Nelson Lakes National Park.