Mount Somers Track

Mount Somers is a mountain in the Southern Alps range, about an hour’s drive across the Canterbury Plains to the south-west of Christchurch. There is a tramping track here which forms a loop of 25km around the mountain and I am going to walk it over two days. I am very lucky that the good ‘Indian summer’ weather is continuing to hold. As I leave my campsite in the early morning and drive the last 25km along the straight road across the plains towards the mountain range, a hot air balloon floats gently in the morning sky. Leaving Josephine parked in a small car park the track begins, as so many do, by following and crossing a stony river and climbing steeply through the wooded valley.

Following the River Upstream

After a couple of hours of clambering over rocks and tree roots, the path breaks out of the forest and I get my first close-up views of the mountain along whose side I have been climbing. This is the sunny north face and its rocky cliffs, beyond which the summit is hiding from my view.

Mount Somers North Face

I stop at Pinnacles Hut and sit on the sunny veranda to have my lunch. The views from here are across the forest in one direction and over to the north face of the mountain in the other, where there are pointy rock formations, which gave the hut its name.  Inside the hut there is evidence of people staying here and I guess they are rock-climbers as I can hear occasional voices in the distance from the direction of the pinnacles, although I can see no-one.

Lunch at Pinnacles Hut

Views from Pinnacles Hut

After lunch it is another steep and slippery climb up to a saddle, with views of the mountains to the north and also a good view back the way I have come, with the Canterbury Plains forming a flat line to the west in the V of the valley.

Looking Back

Mountain Views to the East

After the saddle I am grateful that the path sidles more gently around the mountain and without having to watch my footing quite so carefully I can take the time to appreciate the grandeur of the rocky open scenery in all directions.

Path through a Rocky Landscape

Grassland and Mountains

Then the path starts to drop and I stop for a rest at a small stream crossing in a sheltered valley and take my boots off and cool my feet in the water. I can only put my feet in the water for a few seconds at a time, because the water is so cold it makes my bones ache.

Stream

The stream then drops steeply into a deep gorge and the rocks close in on either side.

Approaching the Gorge

Then after 6 hours of walking, I can see my hut for tonight sitting on a flat terrace on the other side of the stream.

Woolshed Creek Hut

As  I cross the stream I notice a collection of beer cans and wine bottles cooling in the water. When I arrive a large Kiwi group of adults and children is sitting round one table in the main room. They look well-established here already at 3pm. They are playing cards and the adults drinking. The hut sleeps 26 on sleeping platforms in 2 rooms and has the usual communal kitchen/dining area with a great wood-burning stove that is already going a treat. The hut fills up rapidly, mainly with Kiwi families with young children and I discover that this is a very popular hut, because it is only about an hour’ drive from Christchurch and there is a relatively easy 3 hour walk in to the hut from another car park along an old miners’ track. It is also the last weekend of the school Easter holidays, so families are taking advantage of the great weather to get out and about before the new term begins and winter draws in. Just before dark another family of four arrives and find that all the bunks are taken. Luckily they are planned enough for this eventuality and have brought tents.  As it gets dark the large Kiwi group play a raucous drawing game and the line of empty bottles gets bigger.

I chat to a Kiwi couple, Mary and Alan and discover that he spent 6 years living in Devon, as an overseas player for Bradninch Cricket Club.

Fortunately in my bunk room people settle down pretty early and the bunk rooms stay cosy and warm from body heat, but it is a long night, with several professional snorers and many coming and goings of people going to the toilet.

Day 2

In the morning I am glad to be up when the first people start moving at dawn. There is a light frost on the ground and the kitchen area is cold and the fire has gone out, but is soon started up again. A Kiwi mum and her two young sons have slept on 2 mattresses on the floor underneath the counters. She is struggling to contain the growing tantrum of her younger son. He is complaining firstly about the colour of the leggings he has to wear. She tries unsuccessfully to persuade her other son to swap leggings. Then the tantrum escalates to complaining about pretty much everything, including that she is being mean to him. This little drama dominates the whole hut as people make their preparations for the day.  I start today’s walk early and at about the same time as Mary and Alan and we agree that it is nice to be out of the hut on this perfect day with only the sounds of nature around us and maybe to remember to plan future tramps outside of school holidays.

The walk begins with a dramatic swing bridge across a gorge and then climbs up and around a steep valley. The early morning sunshine lights up the views back towards the hut and across the mountains and valleys.

Swing Bridge

Early Morning Sun on the Landscape

I notice that Mary is limping and find out that she had a motorbike accident some years ago. She nearly lost her foot completely and was told she would probably never walk again. She has had it reconstructed but she has no cartilage in it and it doesn’t move properly. She does really well to tramp at all and the walk this morning over such rocky terrain is a real challenge for her. But she says she would rather do this, ‘than act the cripple’.

We negotiate a steep rocky gorge and stop to take pictures of each other at the overhang known as the 'Bus Stop’.

Bus Stop

After crossing an area of open grassland it becomes obviuos that I am now about halfway round the mountain, as the Canterbury Plains are once more visible to the west

Grassland and the Canterbury Plains

I part company with Alan and Mary here, as they head back to the car park and I wish them well for their wedding in 3 weeks’ time. They are very excited that they are ‘running away’ to get married in secret on the Cook Islands.

My path continues around the south face of the mountain with relatively easy, but muddy walking and continuous views out over the Canterbury Plains below. The sea is just visible in the distance. The short spiky alpine vegetation grows right up to the path and scratches my legs as I walking through. I might have worked out the reason Kiwis love to tramp wearing leggings under shorts. It’s not a good look, but maybe practical in such conditions. If I had some gaiters with me I would put them on; but I feel pretty sure that gaiters and shorts is a look to be avoided too.

Plains and Sea

After 4 hours I stop for lunch where there is a small shelter conveniently located at the halfway point. My life at the moment is composed of a series of short sketches and as I am sitting on the sunny veranda, next across my stage is a local hunter followed by his young son [entrance stage left]. They are both wearing hi-vis hunting vests and the dad carries a large green hunting pack on his back and a gun across his shoulder. They stop and chat for only a minute. He tells me they have climbed up from the station below (this means a farm). He shot a large stag yesterday, but it got up and ran off, so they have come back to spend a couple of hours looking for it. I ask him where he thinks it will be and he waves his arm towards a steep wooded valley above us and says, ‘Up there in the gully’ [exit stage right].

In the afternoon the path follows a ridge along a series of flatish open tops followed by steep wooded descents. At the end of each flat section there is a lookout, before the path drops away. It feels as if you could just take one giant leap from the edge of here and splash into the sea, as if from a huge diving board.

Lookout over the Plains

I end up back in the car park where I started from yesterday, with the muddiest boots from any walk so far. This is tramp number 10 completed. I have about another 3 weeks left in New Zealand and if the weather holds, I should manage a few more before I leave.

Muddy Boot