Mount Brown Hut, near Lake Kaniere, has just been relocated and renovated by a group of keen trampers and sponsors. So a few of us decided to head up there to see if we too could help out and cut and mark some of the track. Our group combined with the Cedar Flats trip for transport, and after picking up a hammer and a slight misunderstanding about whether Ian was coming to the carpark or if Volker was picking him up, we were on our way towards Hokitika. Volker had agreed to pick up track markers and nails at Lake Kaniere from Julia, the lady leading the Mt Brown project, and once we'd found her house, collected the note, and dropped off everyone heading to Cedar Flats, we were making the steep climb up to Mt Brown. It was 3 hours of steep uphill, with very few flat sections to get a breather. Tom, Volker and Nodin, all tall boys with long legs, were off and Tobi wasn't far behind them. Ian and myself were bringing up the rear, not quite managing to keep up with the pace of the boys in front!
The track was well marked and cut, so we didn't feel the need to put many more markers up. We may regret that decision in a few years, when the West Coast bush begins to take over again! Although steep, it was a rewarding climb through forest, scrub and tussock to the hut. Mt Brown hut is in a great location, overlooking Lake Kaniere, and is painted an awesome orange colour so it's easy to spot through the tussock. Tom and I put the tent up next to the hut, as there were 6 of us and only 4 bunks in the hut. After a quick cup of tea, Volker got out the smoked salmon started for himself, Tom and me. Yum! Following the smoked salmon was cheese fondue, with bread, capsicum, carrot and tomato for dipping into the cheese. Tom had even brought caramel sponge pudding for dessert, but after so much cheese fondue none of us could eat it! We spent the evening relaxing by the coal fire, trying to digest all the food!
The keas woke us up nice and early, so we'd had breakfast, mended the lock on the toilet door, cleaned the hut and were ready to go by 8:30am. We'd agreed to meet the Cedar Flats group at 3pm, so decided there was no rush to get back down from Mt Brown Hut. We'd decided to make the trip a loop and head down the new track to the Styx River. Some cutting and marking of the track was required, so we felt good being able to do something for the community project. Once we'd run out of markers and nails, only Volker and Tobi had the track cutting equipment, so Tom, Ian, Nodin and myself headed off to get the car leaving the other 2 to finish some track maintenance. The track seemed to get more and more overgrown - if only we had a few more markers! We came across the site of the old hut, and continued on down through very dense West Coast bush. This is when we began to loose the markers - I thought this track was newly cut?! It turned out that there was a new track and an old track, and we'd obviously taken the old track. I still don't know where we went wrong! It became a game of spot the marker, climb over trees, and slide down the mud. Multiple times we had to retrace our footsteps to try and find the next marker, so Ian decided to make us call out when we'd found the next marker before he moved on. Eventually we made it out to the river, with only a few scratches and a bruised bum. Unfortunately it was only a side river and not the Styx River, which is where we would have ended up had we found the new track. It was then a 1.5hr boulder hop down the side river until we reached the Styx River, and finally a walk out along a 4WD track back to the car, where we met Volker and Tobi wondering where we'd gotten to as they'd been waiting 2 hours for us!
Volker kindly whipped out his cooker and made some tea so we could have some timtam slams, and Tom managed to hitch a ride with a couple in a campervan to go and collect the car. We met up with the Cedar Flats group, one of whom had very sore feet because the soles of his boots had fallen off - were those boots from Katmandu??? I think Volker was secretly jealous of our adventure in the bush, because although he and Tobi made it down 2 hours quicker than we did, his story was no where near as interesting as ours. Apparently the new track was marked, but obviously not well enough for the four of us!
