14 January 2017 - Kohaihai DOC Camp, Kahurangi National Park, Westland

We have decided to stay a second night, that the extent our DOC Pass allows. We spent the morning out walking, picnicked out on the beach and then after returning early afternoon, have sat about reading and watching the waves roll in from the Tasman Sea.

Views of Scotts Beach from our lunch spot

The Heaphy Track is one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” with a length of 78.4 kilometres and takes between 4 – 6 days to complete. It passes through coastal groves of nikau palms to interior lush forests and tussock downs. It was the former we were to enjoy today, the nikau walk of just forty minutes then on over the Kohaihai Saddle and down to Scotts Beach an hour on.

No European set foot on this inland trail through to Collingwood until 1859 when a goldminer named Aldridge and his “mate” crossed from Aurore to the coast. A year later Collingwood goldfields warden James Mackay crossed the other way, then returned again with a party of men to blaze the first real track in 1862. Upgrading to pack track standard for use by prospectors began in 1866, but here like the Fenian tracks, regrowth and landslips posed a constant problem. By 1893 when the trail was finally benched to the coast, the gold rush had waned but interest in the area’s scenic and wildlife values was established. The Gouland Downs Scenic Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary was created as early as 1917.

Looking up the Kohaihai River

With the establishment of the North-west Nelson Forest Park in 1965, the New Zealand Forest Service cleared the track, built huts and bridged major rivers. Over the years, amid repeated calls for a Collingwood to Karamea road, the Heaphy Track has been improved, and now ranks as one of New Zealand’s great tramping tracks, passing through our second largest National Park. 

Ten years ago, Chris and I walked the first stage up to the Heaphy Hut, a walk of five hours, stayed over in the bunkroom and returned the same way the next day. I have to say that sleeping in bunkrooms, lined up on a continuous slab, without one’s own ensuite just does not do it for me. However today we did notice the pictures of the huts on the information panels and saw that the Heaphy Hut looked very different from when we had stayed.

And down over the camp

The track across to Scotts Beach climbs steeply up through dense forest, offering the odd view back down to our camp, then descends to the wild isolated Scott’s Beach. It is far less onerous when one is not encumbered by a heavy pack and today I did not even carry our lunch. It really was a breeze! We sat on the rocks overlooking the incoming tide, eating our lunch before heading back again, still feeling  fit enough to climb the zigzag track above the camp before retreating to our own space.

We passed some time at the shelter at the end of the track, chatting with those who had done the whole route and were waiting for their transport back to Karamea and beyond. There was an Australian chap who with his wife and another couple had just come through with their five or six children; the children had run off down to the sea to cool their feet. Another walker was feeling less energetic having hobbled the last few hundred metres bent over with the bulk of her pack. I recalled feeling similar when I had done but a tiny section of this Great Walk all those years ago.