This article was first published in Tararua Tramper in February 2025
Travers-Sabine Circuit
3 – 10 December 2024
We were a bunch with mixed experience of overnight trips and multi-day walks but somehow we made it all work! Perhaps it was the almost perfect weather (one day of light rain, otherwise blue-sky days) or the delicious meals produced each night ... it could even have been the beautiful scenery, alpine flowers and mountain rivers that we enjoyed every day.
We arrived at St Arnaud early afternoon and were able to leave a bag each at the DoC Visitor Centre for $1 a day, thus ensuring a clean set of clothes to travel home in! This good news was enhanced by discovering that DoC sold $3 tokens for six-minute showers at the Kerr Bay campground. Cleanliness may not be next to godliness but it does make you feel better! One of our group was brave enough to take a quick plunge in the lake instead. Our route took us from St Arnaud alongside Lake Rotoiti to Lakehead Hut where we found not too many people but plenty of sandflies. Shut the door!!
After a quick swim next morning – yes, really – we set off for John Tait Hut, a nice day’s walk away. Gerald and I took the opportunity to explore the side-track beside the rushing Hopeless Stream up to Hopeless Hut. That evening we had our first (and second) gear failure. When unscrewing one of the cookers, its little brass ring became inset into the top of the gas canister, rendering both the cylinder and the cooker inoperable. And then a second cooker did the same thing! All we needed was a Leatherman to unscrew the ring but neither we nor anyone else we met on the trip had a suitable tool. So, we now had four gas canisters, one cooker and a WindBurner for six people for the next five days. We managed surprisingly well using Kiwi ingenuity, with just the addition of a small amount of gas from a pair of trampers with some to spare.
Next day we went on up the very beautiful Travers Valley to Upper Travers Hut where we were the only occupants. A few Te Araroa walkers and others sped by. We hoped they had time to look at the wonderful mountain scenery and admire the abundance of brilliant yellow speargrass flowers. Gerald and I took the opportunity on the way to go up the track to Cupola Hut where we found the names of previous TTC parties who had visited earlier this year. It would be lovely to return and spend more time around Cupola Basin.
But the Travers Pass was calling! Fair to say we took our time, stopping frequently to remark on yet another type of flower and demonstrate our lack of ability to name them. We managed to identify hebes, parahebes, even more speargrass (thank goodness for something obvious), astelias, euphrasias, celmisias and vegetable sheep. More stops to look at the mountains all around, fill up with water, spot a chamois staring at us from the safety of its rocky hideout ... and then we were there! Up on Travers Saddle with a new world spread out below us. All we had to do was get down there.
It was quite a plod down across the scree and then steeply down through never-ending beech forest. We were very glad to see West Sabine Hut (aka ‘Sandfly Hilton’) – and so were a lot of other people! Despite the numbers, it was a quiet night.
Next day there was an optional day trip to Blue Lake and, to my surprise, no-one opted for a lazy day at the hut. On the way we saw sun orchids, green-hooded orchids, a very delicate clematis with creamy-yellow flowers and an unidentified (!) shrub with small flowers, like lily of the valley. Suggestions welcome.
Blue Lake was, of course, shimmering in the sun like a liquid paua shell. We found a shady spot and lounged around eating our lunch before going on a photo frenzy, the view saturated with all shades of iridescent blues and greens. Our trip was coming to an end. A day’s walk down to Sabine Hut, crossing several avalanche paths, and then finally, our last night in Speargrass Hut, set in a sea of golden tussock but, strangely, no speargrass. The hut was full with our party of six and a family group from Hutt Valley Tramping Club. Once again, hut etiquette was observed and we all slept well, sort of!
Out to Robert Ridge carpark where we were met by Trips and Transfers who treated us to fresh Anzac biscuits and cold lemonade before returning us to St Arnaud.
Lynne White (leader and scribe), Penny Hoy-Mack, Belynda Jack, Gerald Leather, Jane Nicholson, Tim Stone.