North West Circuit Stewart Island

North West Circuit | Rakiura National Park, Stewart Island

If you need a greater challange than the Great Walks' few day efforts, the Northwest Circuit could be just what you need. With 125 km it's not like the heaphy track multiplied by two, it's a real and currently mentally challenging 10 day long game.

Here are some obstacles, which make the fun more difficult: the strongly changing, often rough wheather, the rolling course of the area and the somewhat moist and/or root-bound underground. This is not a railroad. Has it been said that it is a tough job: it could be a flat path, so all year round, the highest point is about 400m, but you rarely walk on a pure horizonal plain, except for the beach, there are always small streams and gorges to be crossed, descending to and up from the beach, etc., climbing on the eastern coastline more fractured, steeper, shorter gradients and slopes, usually over a crowd of arboreal rocks, on the western shore with longer slopes, often with distances of moors,

A counterclockwise tour from Oban civilization around the coastline to Masons Bay and then either back to Oban via a freshwater landing. On the longer summers it is possible to dive some cabins, but this becomes more challenging when the winters are shorter.

Yes, the stroll around the shore is at a low altitude, obviously the ocean soothes the temperature to a large extent, so whether you believe it or not, it's not really important when you're walking, even though you're at 47ºS. However, although it does rain every other rainy weather on general days, the annual precipitation in Oban, 930mm, is less than in Auckland or Wellington, so it often but not too long.

Sunlight can be an issue: you get a whole batch in season, no possibility of lack of nutriment D1 then, it can be relative quantity position to walk around at 10pm, on December 21st it' s 5:50am hour of dawn, 9:40pm is 9:40pm, a era drawn-out of nearly 16 work time. During the shorter part of the year, June 21, the shorter part of the year, the shorter the day, the more the days are, the better. The shorter the days, the better the days are, the better the days are.

This means you need an early departure on the big ones to drive the seven hour drive from East Ruggedy to Hellfire Pass, or another seven hour drive from Hellfire to Mason Bay the next time. While Newtopo manufactures the most useful 1:65,000 North West and South maps available for $20 from large office DoCs and some out-of-home shops, Macpac retains them or consults them less than a complete listing of retailers.

Whenuahou (!), CH09 Mount Anglem/Hanananui, CJ08 Doughboy Bay, CJ09 Mount Allen, and maybe the little Oban you find on CJ10 Port Adventure. It then begins with a few easy sections and continues for longer journeys once the tidal range on the feed supply has subsided, and you get used to dragging through the silt for a long while.

Here are the cabins you will find in Rakiura National Park. Campsite is really just for the hardwood because of the often impregnated substratum and the additional mass and mass of a marquee on a 125 km hike is superfluous when there will often be no one else in the cabins. For a bit of excitement, why not remain in the caves at the northern end of West Ruggedy Beach?

Here is the do c indicated tramp periods between the cabins, as shown on their website, usually real hiking hours, ie not taking into consideration all long pauses. The estimate of the number of hours for a " hitchhiker is based on the estimated number of hours for an "average" hitchhiker, which means that it is possible to shorten the hours for more common parts. For more distant Westcoast stretches, the indicated period is near the real amount of inactivity.

Sadly, this year the information tends to highlight a senseless part of hitchhiking, The Destination, and some hitchhikers think they have to test themselves, hurry to show someone something. There is no need to race through the countryside all 10 hrs a full-week. 3 departures per night, 365 nights a year, from Invercargill to Stewart Island.

It lasts 20 min. and can give a good view of the island. There is a mini bus that brings guests to/from the Oban post office and is priced including. Luggage limit: 15 kg, that's a big issue when you go to the island, because you really have to take all your skim.

Call Stewart Island Flights at 03 218 9129. Real Journeys now owns the exclusive Katamaran boat that connects busses to Invercargill, Queenstown and Te Anau. From Bluff to Oban it will take about an hours drive. there' s everyday shuttles, with more than one on many dates, but it's a powerful complex timetable and tariffs, either $75 adults or $71 off-peak a way from Invercargill to Stewart Island, or $99 or $94 off-peak if you have to get off Invercargill.

Invercargill, pop. 53,000, has the customary large hypermarkets, countdown, New World, Pak'nsave for the most important distributio... This small shop, in Oban, about 400 inhabitants, has a sensible, but costly grocery and essential camp equipment, matchsticks, candles, fuelite, etc., and runs regular office times, seven nights a week. Here is a small shop, the Shore Four Square grocery canteen.

There''s no ATM in Bluff or Stewart Island, just keep in mind you're on the brink of Earth. It can be slippery in some places and while the slime is legend, it's often not as hard as you think, wrap these booties and watertight overpants.

It can be flooded in places, more like a high water and must be waded through a flat pond than through a torrential stream. At the northern end of Masons Bay at high water, caution is advised, although a trace has been carved around the rock. There are some web sites about hitchhiking on Stewart Island.

DOC Northwest Circuit Site has quite a lot of information, incl. short route memos from cabin to cabin. Pictures of Stewart Island cabins can be found in the Rakiura Hat section. Here is a slide show with 43 pictures of the northwest route, which gives an idea of the general route terms and places of interest in case you need further work.