Copland Track
After being rained out in Arthurs Pass and a cloudy day on the glacier we were hoping that the weather would improve – but this is the West Coast of NZ and it is notorious for its rain (thats why there are rain forests next to glaciers I suppose!).Inspite of the rain we decided to do a three day walk up the Copland Track and based around Welcome Flat hut. You can’t do the full Copland Track unless you have good apline skilss (which I certainly don’t) so that was out of the question. Instead we did a linear walk.
The first day was spend getting up to Welcome Flat hut – which took us about 7 hours including stops. Not that Nick wanted to stop much as we knew there were going to be two groups up there (one a group of school kids) and with only 31 beds on a first come, first served basis, we wanted to make sure we had somewhere to sleep!
The first ten minutes of the walk were spend getting very wet feet crossing a river – there was a flood bridge but that would have taken an hour. Anyway, we need to get used to walking with wet feet if we want to do the Dusky Track. The river crossing wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, and the feet soon warmed up after the inital shock of the cold. We then continued up through wonderfully hairy trees with lots of moss hanging off them. Lots of creeks later we hit the Copland River, where we had a welcome chocolate buscuit!
We then continuted up – crossing more creeks, one with a wonderful swingbridge – which was incredinbly bouncy until we finally made it to the hut, and got a couple of matresses to sleep on too – phew.
The hut has hot pools next to it – which were wonderful to bath in after a long walk – every hut should have either these or a kiwi bath!
The following day we headed further up the track to Douglas Rock – with wonderful views of the mountains – I think Mount Cook is supposed to be amongst them somewhere.
We were a little worried by the warden on the second night – heavy rain was forcast for night / early morning and we had a creek to cross which has no flood bridge. This meant an early start – we were walking by 7am – to make sure we could get back before it flooded and we were stranded at the hut for a day or so!
In fact it wasn’t as full as it was when we’d crossed it two days earlier, as the rain hadn’t started, but it wa a relief to know we could get back to civilisation nonetheless! The rain came about 10 minutes after crossing and it didn’t stop. It took us 6 hours to get back down – with only two stops for 5 mins each. We were soaked to the skin and quite worried that we woudn’t manage to get a lift back into town – but luckily there was a chap at the carpark willing to drive us back to Fox Glacier – phew. The last thing we wanted to do was have to sit, soaking wet, for 2 hours waiting for the bus (which we weren’t booked on so might not have stopped for us…!
Tags: New Zealand, Travel, Trek
Jenni
Hello!
Still following your progress and antics avidly….! And I’m glad to hear that you didn’t end up in the river like the lady from Nelson in October!
Katie
Hiya – now got your blog on my favorites at work so have a new thing to read at 3am when all is quiet on the western front!!!