Walked the Kauaeranga Kauri Trail to Pinnacles Hut, and from there to the Pinnacles. Walk was listed in Lonely Planet "Tramping in New Zealand" and on the DOC website. Photos here.
Day 1: Webb Creek track from Kauaeranga Valley road end to Pinnacles Hut, taking about 3 hours. Interesting walk on very well-made track (graded a Walking Track), taking in wire bridges, rock and kauri steps made by kauri loggers, and Hydrocamp (the old loggers' camp). Reached hut around 2:30pm, dumped most of our kit, and walked from there up to the Pinnacles (around 40 mins one-way). Top of the Pinnacles was completely in cloud but nice views on the way up.
Day 2: Clear morning so went up the Pinnacles again, this time for beautiful views of the Pacific and Table Mountain. Then back from the hut on Billy Goat Track (4 hours), partly along the route of the logging tramway. Found a way down to the top of Billy Goat Falls from the track, with a couple of short falls at the top which would make a fabulous lunch spot.
Hut had two bunk rooms (total 80 beds), a dining room with about 8 gas burners, and solar-powered lights. Apparently about as good as huts get. Sadly the stove heater had a blocked flue - shame, as it froze overnight. Sophie's new sleeping bag turns out to be pretty warm (still slept fully clothed though) but Tim needed more thermals.
Hut was fairly busy, including a group of scouts, half a dozen fathers with 7-year-olds, and some Irish people from Auckland. The Irish people were drinking whisky with lemons, cloves, sugar and hot water. Yum. Quite a few people had toted bottles of wine up there.
Lessons learnt:
Bring enough clothes to keep us warm in the evening / overnight rather than only enough to keep us warm on walks!
Slippers would have been useful - cold floors, and boots not allowed in the hut.
Quick, hot food was really good - cuppa soups definitely worth having. More hot drink options would have been good too since we had to boil all drinking water.
You can never have enough plastic bags.
Definitely a good one to do again, next time with some wine and meats for the barbecue.
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