Every year, we plan a small local expedition to discover some of the small tucked away niche adventure spots located in the top of the South. The idea is to be able to write up trip reports like this to give locals ideas to recreate locally and to give people coming to the Nelson region a bit of a better idea of what Nelson has to offer for the more adventurous.
We’ve been living in Nelson on and off for quite a while, and also driving a lot of customers to different adventure hot spots in the region. On our journeys we quite often cross the rivers that are the life blood of the region. The one that has really been sticking out for us is the Motueka river. On the way South we often cross the curving bridge at Kohatu and wonder at the length of this great river, which in turn makes us run our eyes over the topographical maps to see where this river starts its journey.
The Motueka river ends its journey on the west side of Tasman bay, from here you can trace it back 116km to where the river splits into its left and right branches. From here its prominent right branch snakes its way another 20kms upstream into the Red Hills Glacial basin in Mount Richmond forest park.
The Red hills also are worthy of a mention as they are a very unique set of hills with very unique geology in the Nelson area. Now, I’m no geologist but the basic idea of the Geology is that rocks of volcanic nature high in certain minerals have been pushed to the earth’s surface. This creates a very strange landscape studded with weird rocks, and stunted plants well suited to the high mineral content of the soil. This landscape is more generally referred to as Ultramafic, and is quite similar to the topography of the upper coppermine trail and Dun Mountain near Nelson
Our decided route over 7 days was to meander up through the Te Araroa trail via the east branch of the river to the head waters of the Wairoa river before breaking from the beaten track and into the head waters of the right river branch, to camp and climb Red Hill itself for a god like view of the landscape before heading back to Red hills hut via the alpine ridges and out via the Maitland ridge track back to the Vehicle.
Day one was a leisurely drive from Nelson to stash our bags at the Red Hills carpark before heading back up to Lowther road to walk uncumbered down the Mountain bike track back to our packs before heading past the old historic cobb cottage and up to Red Hills hut. Our idea had been to stay at Red hills hut , but as we were quite early in the day we hung our last day and halves worth of food in a tree for when we returned this way and headed on to camp where the Motueka river right branch hits the Maitland river.
The river flats here not only have evidence of the old Maitland hut, but the farming operations of the historic tophouse run. Clear indications of fencing making an animal corral are scattered along the river flats. This would have probably been evidence of the early tophouse station sheep run in the late 1800’s, when they were populating the upper Wairau with cattle and sheep. It’s super fascinating where people farmed sheep in the late 1800’s, they mostly didn’t clear land in this area , but looked for any existing natural open grass land to utilise.
Day two followed the Motueka river as it meandered down to the Motueka river Gorge where it turns west and out to the Golden downs forest. The first part of the track is fairly easy to walk, vegetation is dominated by stunted manuaka forest on the western flanks of Porters ridge. We had planned to do a mixed bag of camping and staying in huts on this trip, and being on the main Te Araroa highway made us lightly nervous about the prospect of a bed for that night at Hunters hut. The Te Araroa walkers that we passed gave us a jealous tinge as we looked at their uber light packs and camping gear, although we knew our heavy weight gear would pay dividends when we headed off the beaten path later on.
The track from here deviates from the Motueka river as the river’s path heads to the gorge .The going got tougher as we moved higher onto the side of Porters ridge and delved into valleys only to climb steeply to the other side. Each main stream we crossed gave us ample opportunity to take a quick dip or splash our heads with water to wash off some of the sweat earned in the midday sun. We arrived at an empty Hunters hut, and were joined later on by a Finnish Te Araroa walker for the night. Hunters Hut is well worth visiting as it has amazing views into and up the valley leading to the Ben Nevis range.
By Day three the monotony of the lowland badland landscape is starting to wear, but the days journey ahead gives you reprieve from this, as the track heads up the valley along the last tributaries of the left branch of the Motueka river and you then climb steeply up towards Mount Ellis. The ridge leading to Mount Ellis is a pleasant mix of high alpine beech and small clearings with views down into Tasman bay. The track opens up to alpine vista of the ochre coloured faces of the Red Hills. The track then traverses the southern flanks of Mount Ellis and then heads to a saddle at 1374m, this would be our take off point the next day to head up and over the untracked terrain into the headwaters of the right branch of the Motueka river. We considered camping at the saddle, but were quite curious to see what the Top Wairoa hut looked like at the bush edge leading into the gorge-like valley of the Wairoa river. So we packed essentials into one back pack and left the other stashed behind a rock at the saddle before descending 500 metres to the Hut.
We arrived early enough for the daily river swim and to rinse our sweaty clothes. The river is easily as cold up at the top Wairoa as it is where it pops out at the Wairoa Gorge Mountain bike park. Curiously the river is abundant with life; filling up water bottles in this river always involves removing juvenile Koura or freshwater crayfish from your bottle. Our night at top Wairoa hut was justified as a thunder storm passed over the hut that evening.
Whereas the past few days had been a mixed bag of overcast and sunny weather, day four’s weather heralded clear blue skies. The climb back up to the saddle therefore offered different views as the morning sun cast shadows into the emerging the ridges and valleys. From the saddle we ventured into the moon like landscape of the Red hills proper. The higher the elevation the more ultramafic these rocks become. The rocks are super dense and hard with a crystalline nature and an abrasive-ness akin to rough diamond sand paper. My boots were a testament to this as although the rock is ultra grippy, edges of it still managed to slice off a portion off my new vibram soles!
The mountain heights flattened as we crested onto a saddle that overlooked the mighty right branch of the Motueka river carving itself down the valley from its glacial roots. It’s a pretty awe inspiring view and feels quite moving to stand at the birth place of this mighty Awa as it starts its journey to the sea.
Originally our plans had been to ascend Red hill itself from the valley floor and then traverse out over the next two days along the tops to the Plateau. But looking at the valley below we decided to extend the day out and drop packs in the valley and head for an unencumbered day trip up over the saddle to the south of Redhill to visit a large mountain tarn, before returning to camp for the night.
The way up to Red hill appeared to have a lot of bite while looking at it from the valley floor, however it turned out to be more bark than bike as we easily reached the flat alpine bowl under Red hill in just over an hour. The route’s terrain from here transcends into a scree slope over huge boulders which ascends steeply to a rocky saddle on the main ridge, before winding its way down over steep boulderfields to the solid bedrock slopes which descend down to the mountain tarn.
It’s a curious thing seeing this azure blue mountain tarn enclosed in the dull brownish red faces of the main Red hills ridgeline. The alpine weather at 1700m was surprisingly settled and we enjoyed soaking our hot tramping feet in the cool alpine waters and seeing the various alpine butterflies flutter about in the boulder fields. The curious thing about this sparse landscape, is as there is little distraction because of its monotony, it tends to pull one’s focus to the smaller things… skinks, grasshoppers and small flowering alpine plants suddenly become very noticeable, and you remember that life exists on an entirely different scale up here.
We returned to the lower valley after the end of a long day and set up camp as the sun’s shadows deepened the valley. The resident goat we had spied earlier with our binoculars held vigil over our evening activities until the sun disappeared.
We awoke early but tired on day five. Our idea was to escape some of the valley heat by heading down the valley in the earlymorning. We had two options that day. First was to crack a pace and head down the valley then tackle a reasonable climb up on to the Plateau or second was to meander down the valley and enjoy the scenery and strike camp where the vegetation thickened and the valley narrowed into a gorge. We chose the latter and arrived at a potential campsite on a narrow river flood bank at 2pm. Our problem was the sun at this time of the day was scorching and the shade was negligible , so we found the only suitable tree in the area to shade under and headed down to the river to cool down. Unfortunately on the way down to the river the strenuous tolls of the journey so far came to a head and an ominously felt clunk in my back pointed towards a partially slipped disc. We hobbled up to the semi shade of our tree and downed ibuprofen and paracetamol to alleviate the pain. Once the fierce heat of the sun had lessened we hobbled down to the river camp site at the end of the day. From the campsite we had a view of the boulder field we would have to ascend the next day to the main ridge… quite a daunting task with a barely functioning body. We camped down for the night and had a reasonable sleep despite the circumstances.
The morning of day six offered no reprieve from the back pain and on attempting to exit the tent I quickly ended up face down in a shrub crying with no quarter for pain free movement. What to do? Out with the personal locator beacon, as it seemed unlikely that I would make it in the next couple of days, and although we had extra food, the weather was due to change, which could have lessened the chance of an extraction at a later date. This is the first time we’ve set one of these off and we are certainly glad we had it with us.
As the helicopter crew had not yet been called out we had an impressive response time of under 2 hours from setting off the beacon to the helicopter landing on the narrow ledge of river bank and whisking us off to their base at Nelson Airport.
The rescue helicopter offers a fantastic resource in the top of the South, and they have a very amiable crew of pilots and medics in their helicopter. I explained to the pilot how I run a small business getting people into the outdoors, to which he wittily responded that they run a small business getting people out of the outdoors!!
So the trip was slightly cut short, but to be honest we actually saw most of what we wanted to see, and more importantly got our dose of a quiet time in the mountains at the end of a busy year. We look forward to returning to Red hills hut, probably by bike , to explore the alpine meadows of the plateau at the end of the range
Do I recommend a journey up here… absolutely!! It’s an amazing landscape with out of the norm flora, fauna and geology. Spring and early summer are the times to do it, hut space will be limited at this time , but the wealth of alpine flowers and other wildlife you’ll see will easily offset the weight of a possible tent camp on the Te Araroa segment of the journey.
Want to know more about the other places we go, look at some more of our blog posts or go to our interactive map that may inspire you to visit some of the less popularised locations for great adventures in the Nelson area
photos: Scottish Express & Rosie Horn
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