Hollyford-Pyke Loop – New Zealand: Packrafting Multi-day Trip

Packrafting Fiordland Rivers, from Mountain to Sea, and back again!

11/11/18 ~ 17/11/18

Introduction

What is Packrafting?

This is my first post on packrafting, so I’ll introduce it. Packrafting is largely unknown, due to it only really becoming popular in the past 10-15 years. Basically, you carry a raft, paddle and vest extra in your pack and go hiking as you would normally. However, now you can reach rivers and lakes, blow up your raft and head downstream!

What my pack looks like with the raft packed in

All your gear generally can be stuffed into the raft prior to blowing it up via a heavy-duty zipper called a T-Zip (or can be tied onto the bow). The benefit of this is that it changes up the way you plan trips and adds way more customisation to trails and adds another whole dimension to hiking. Sometimes it’s as simple as driving to a trailhead, walking a few hours and jumping in the river to raft back to your car – now, you haven’t walked in and out the same trail!

A packraft T-Zip (Photo credit: Lauren Smith @theunpredictablepoet)

The Hollyford-Pyke Loop

The Hollyford-Pyke Loop is a pretty well-known accessible multi-day packrafting trip in New Zealand. It’s ideal as it has a river heading out to sea, and a river heading back inland – ideal for a loop! You basically start rafting in the Hollyford River straight away, and head almost directly north towards the west coast, including paddling across the massive Lake McKerrow.

Once you reach the coast, you then have to hike along it towards the end of Big Bay. From here, you hike due East towards the Pyke River. Once on the Pyke, you raft all the way back down to where the Pyke meets the junction with the Hollyford River again and you walk the Hollyford Trail back to the carpark.

Conditions

It only contains mostly class I, and a few class II rapids in regular conditions. There is one III+ rapid on the first day that can be portaged (walked around).

This loop can also be done entirely hiking, although trail conditions around the Pyke are meant to be rough.

Time Required

The track should be aimed to completed in 5-7 days, depending on ability level. We took 6 days, including two half days. 2 of the 6 days were hiking, and 4 were paddling. However, that included a long 31km hike on one day which most would break up by camping at Big Bay.

Map of the Packraft Trip

Hollyford-Pyke Loop Map
Hollyford-Pyke Loop Overview Map

My Packraft

 

In October 2018 after extensive research, i bought my first packraft – the Kokopelli Rogue (see amazon link for purchase). This is a fairly lightweight packraft, with a built-in spraydeck and comes with: a repair kit, blow up kit, inflatable seat and spray skirt. It handles well both in white water and in flat water.

I’ve been super happy with it so far! The Aqua Bound Manta Ray hybrid plastic/carbon fibre paddle breaks down into 4 pieces for easy carrying. Yes packrafts are expensive, and there’s not a lot of competition (only about 6-8 brands). Alpacka and Kokopelli are probably the two largest brands. I personally found Kokopelli rafts to be more value for money.

The Packraft Trip

Day 1

Te Anau to the Hollyford road end

I had met up with Lauren the afternoon before and camped at Te Anau at the Lakeside caravan park. We got up early, but didn’t leave for some time as we packed for the long packraft trip – both for the first time.

After some struggles and gear sacrificing, we both managed to pack. My pack, the HMG Southwest, is only a 55L. Jamming the raft in the front pocket takes out a lot of space.

What my pack looks like with the raft in

We set off down the Milford road towards the Hollyford Track turnoff, and then to the end of the road at the boat ramp and footbridge. By about 1:30pm, we were blowing up our rafts and storing our gear inside.

Lauren and her giant army pack!
Getting the gear in the rafts

Hollyford River

Finally, we were on the Hollyford river and heading roughly north to the west coast! The first sections of the Hollyford river were fairly straightforward and gentle rapid trains. There were a few class II- rapid wave trains, but most were class I. The only major obstacles was avoiding the strainer logs in the water – there were a lot of tree falls! They were pretty straight-forward to get around though.

The first section of the Hollyford River
Log strainers and easy rapids

It began all sunny and nice, but we knew rain was forecast for the first day at least. It came, but having spray skirts and enclosed rafts made it bearable. When the sun was out, the water was a beautiful turquoise!

Lauren going down one of the first easy rapid trains
A beautiful backdrop already

The Class III+ Rapids

Before we knew it, we could hear the sound of a large rapid ahead. We hesitated… ‘Umm, perhaps we should head over to that landing on the right?’ i said, as we paddled straight across the river from the other side. I remember hearing about a class III+ rapid, but i had it in my head it was somewhere else. This was it! Both Lauren and myself were not confident in our ability to manoeuver through the boulder garden and raging rapids. It didn’t look like a friendly rapid at all!

The class III+ rapid beginning. No way we were attempting this! It doesn’t look bad from this side, but you can’t see the bad part from here

The portage route was clearly heavily used by boaters and had deep scars from dragging boats etc which had now filled with water. It made the traverse insanely difficult to navigate whilst carrying our rafts. We tried two carrying one boat at first, but it would take too long to consider. I ended up deflating mine and carrying loose. Lauren had her raft on her head!

It took ages, but we found a route around all the mud, water and forest and were able to rejoin the river after the rapids. You can’t follow close to the river and should aim to follow the trail that heads away from the river (not the parts with all the inundated logs).

The portage route around the rapids on the right side
Lauren was persevering to keep her raft inflated haha

The rain was quite heavy at this point, and due to the amount of time the portage had taken, we ended up doubting if we would make it to Lake McKerrow Hut as planned.

We ended up camping in a rough sandy spot to the side of the river. It was not overly ideal, but we managed to get the tent up, get into a dry set of clothes and avoid the sandflies.

A rough first camp in the rain, but it will do

Day 2

Sadly, it was still raining in the morning and after some breakfast, we had to have a wet pack up of the tent. At least it only had to go in the raft. We ended up leaving about 8:45am.

The mountains looked awesome with the clouds overhead – a surreal landscape! Too bad i didn’t get any photos on the days paddle – too wet!

We were getting close towards McKerrow Hut, when there was a rapid wave train with a side feeder stream on the right pushing a decent flow into the base of the rapids. I hit this current going fast down the rapid chain and it nearly knocked me out of my boat with the side force of the flow! ‘Whew!’ i thought, ‘that was a close one!’.

I made a terrible decision shortly after to take the shorter more direct route to the hut. It turns out that it was a boney (shallow) ‘get out and walk’ type stream for a lot of the way. Lauren got through mostly fine, but i had to walk my boat around some parts.

Lake McKerrow

We made it to McKerrow hut, and had some lunch. About 10 minutes later we heard boat noises and a few guys came into the hut. The had been on a week-long hunting trip with their jet boats up and down the Hollyford and Pyke rivers. One had a bloody nose from a rough rapid, and they apparently ‘lost’ a boat in that same rapid that almost took me out.

We finished up and headed back to our rafts. We decided to get across the start of Lake McKerrow to Devil Trail Hut (on the Hollyford Track) and stay there – this took about an hour.

Demon Trail Hut and drying our wet gear in the welcome sun

Devil Trail Hut

Once at the hut, we put on some dry clothes and I chopped a small amount of firewood for the fire (although the axe and saw were as sharp as stone age tools). We had the hut to ourselves, which is always nice. We ended up playing some cards and watching a movie to see out the night.

What an awesome spot!
Sun disappearing behind the mountains

Day 3

The sandflies at the hut were insane. Going outside was certain death, so we needed to lather up with repellent. We ended up packing up quite slowly and leaving at 8am.

I was getting destroyed by the sandflies in places I missed with repellent and it ended up making me take forever to blow up my raft. Alas, I was off eventually and away from the pests.

I was almost sucked lifeless by sandflies to get the raft inflated!

Lake Mckerrow (again)

Lauren was about 20 mins ahead by the time I left. We had the long paddle along Lake McKerrow, but we knew we left a little late and had a good chance of hitting the strong westerly headwinds off the coast. These apparently were a regular thing starting from 10am-12pm each morning.

Looking back towards the start of the lake

The first couple of hours were easy and flat paddling. I caught up with Lauren on the western bank of the lake where we had a snack. It was clear that it was going to be tough from here on as we were starting to angle straight toward the wind as it picked up.

How awesome are the clouds!

It WAS tough. I was watching the grass move on the bank, and it was about as slow as a snail! Paddle harder you say? I was paddling my life away!

We still had 3km left at this point of this choppy swell in the wind and our arms were getting exhausted. After about 2km, we saw a dolphin, and it swam DIRECTLY below me only inches away! I was shocked – it was so awesome! I instinctivly stumbled into my dry bag to get my camera out, watching as my boat went into reverse mode from the wind. The dolphin made a few more passes during this time, and by the time I got the camera out it was nowhere to be seen! ‘grrr’! 

The worst part was that the lost paddling time had sent me in reverse for over 50m (even visible on the map!). ‘Damn you dolphin!’ I muttered to myself, as I furiously began the arduous task of paddling again. I didn’t even get a photo of it in the end after all that!

Eventually, I made it to the outlet to the lake and took a break out of the wind.

Taking a break from strenuous paddling

The Lake Outlet to the West Coast

We were both exhausted by this point, but still had some say to go before arriving at Martins Bay Hut. Thankfully, being in a flowing river helped a lot and we made ground with far less effort than on the lake. We passed a lot of large boats by the river and waved to some locals/tourists.

The sand spit and estuary of the Hollyford River

Once we approached the sand spit, I saw Lauren get out of the river behind me. I thought she must have been ready to hike the rest due to being exhausted, so I did the same (as i was exhausted!). I ended up packing up on some persons nice grassy yard (hope they don’t mind!), and set off to rejoin the hiking trail.

Trying to find the Hollyford Track after getting out of the river

It wasn’t as easy to get to as I had hoped. I was on a private grassy runway, and then bush bashed through some tall grasses and shrubs to find myself in a large washout area with a tour group.

I ended up following them for a little bit, as the trail marked on the map had been destroyed there and they knew where to go. Eventually I found the trail and had a nice forest walk for a bit. I startled a deer here right by the track.

The last few kilometres to the hut

Martins Bay Hut

It was only a few kilometres of hiking before reaching Martins Bay Hut. It was here I also saw Lauren arrive by raft! ‘What the…?’, I thought, as I had seen her leave the river prior. It turns out she left briefly and came back in haha.

Martins Bay Hut

We ended up sharing the hut with two other Australians, a father and a daughter, who had hiked the length of the Hollyford track. We crashed pretty early, but I made the effort to stay up for sunset. The sunset was beautiful, and it’s a bit of a novelty for me to witness a west coast sunset (living on an east coast my entire life).

Martins Bay – the Hollyford river is on the left behind the sand spit
A west coast sunset

Day 4

I was glad to not have to raft the next day, as my arms were wrecked!  We set of hiking at 8:30am and had the journey along the coastline to tackle. Almost immediately as we arrived at the western shore, we entered a fur seal colony.

Fur seal colony

The seals were everywhere – lying on rocks, in pools and amongst the coastal flax vegetation above the shore. Passing by without causing a disturbance was futile. They carried on a bit when we passed between, so we let the move towards the water before moving. This slowed us down, but it was better for the seals.

Yes, hello…. would you kindly move over? Haha

The first 8km was mostly rock and boulder scrambling right on the shore. There was no way of going through the vegetation here. It was slow going, but not too bad as it was flat. The coast was quite pretty and a nice change after the river and mountains.

Awesome tilted rock strata
A quick long exposure shot whilst waiting for Lauren to catch up

Once reaching the second half, it was mostly sandy and gravel beach walking and much easier. There was some signs of remote civilisation, which surprised me, given how isolated we were.

Coming around into Big Bay – that blue water!

Big Bay

Once in Big Bay, it was clear we were entering a kind of ‘village’, which we later learned was a whitebait catching village. People must boat or fly in to reach here, as there are no roads. The only vehicles were quad bikes and such. There is a rough quad bike road on the side, but it’s quite muddy and I preferred the beach walk.

Beach hiking
One bird i seem to see everywhere, are these guys – the Variable Oystercatcher

We reached Big Bay Hut, only to find a team of soil scientists were living there for the week. They were very generous and kind though and even offered up sandwiches for lunch and a tea. We talked for a while and they shared the story of their studies over the past 10 years in the region below Haast (you can see their past studies in the Haast Visitor Centre).

Whoa, that’s a beach plane!
Heading to Big Bay Hut
Big Bay Hut

Eventually, it was time to move on for us as we really wanted to make it to Pyke River which was 15km away. It was going to be a big 31km day of hiking, but it was all flat and accessible. We were told we might be able to get paddled across the stream by the fishermen, and one of them was kind enough to help us out. This enables us to skip a long detour!

The whitebait fishermen who gave us a boat ride

 

The trail after here was very easy to follow and had been recently cleared. We got through the mileage quite fast. It did thicken towards the Pyke River, but not too much.

Beautiful forest
This bridge is probably better than dads version on his property haha!

 

A lot of the trail was a tree-fern filled swamp. It was actually quite nice. There is one surreal section where you’re walking in a gravel creek bed, but there’s no water anywhere – felt strange!

Awesome mossy tree
I’m in a river, or am I???

Pyke River

We made it to the Pyke River and started looking for a camp spot. There wasn’t any real sites, but plenty of flat area around to pitch a tent. We ended up camping on some moss in the gravel. The sunset was again nice this evening.

Camping on the Pyke River
Sunset – magical evening

Day 5

Sunrise was amazing in the morning! We packed up and i was mid way through blowing up my raft when i saw two guys headed my way. They were two members of the group we had met in Lake McKerrow hut who were hunting and jet-boating. Camped not far from where we were, they had their rifles and were hunting deer. They were surprised we had gotten here so fast, and we talked for a bit. It turns out we’d all met again tonight if we made it to Alabaster Hut.

Sunrise was also great! – From the tent

The Pyke River turned out to be a little boney initially, but soon became deep. We only had one obstacle with some fallen tree strainers that we had to portage around – right before Olivine Hut.

Drifting in pure bliss!
Some of the log strainers that eventually were impassable without hitting them

The Pyke river was so beautiful in places, I had to just chill and take it all in sometimes! Ahhh the serenity! Deep turquoise waters, small waterfalls and snow speckled mountains in the background.

Oh water… stoooooooopppp being tempting…
I mean… I should just swim… right here… the water calls…
Lake Wilmot

Olivine Hut

We had a quick look in Olivine Hut – it was really cosy and awesome. The jet boaters were here the week before and left some beers – I may have had one for the ‘road’… or river! ‘Is that drink driving?’ I think to myself. We could have stayed here, but it made no sense really, as it was so early.

The sandy shore below Olivine Hut
Don’t mind if I do!

Lake Wilmot and Lake Alabaster

After Olivine Hut, we had to progress across two lakes – the smaller Lake Wilmot, and then the larger Lake Alabaster. Between the lakes, there was awesome views of the mountains and we had to slow down for a new snaps (I had to precariously pass my camera over to Lauren on the river haha!)

Lauren, the river, and the mountains
Hold my camera, get me in on this photo action!
YES!

It was a super warm day and we decided to go for a swim as it looked too nice in the river!

When the river is slow enough and screams for you to swim!
Blinded by white!

We ran into some luck with Alabaster, as we had tail wind. We ended up using our paddles as makeshift sails to help push us down the lake when not paddling. It was MUCH nicer than on Lake McKerrow with conditions haha!

Paddle sails adding about 0.5-1kmph to our drift speeds!

 

Yup, this is a long lake to paddle! (Photo credit: Lauren Smith @theunpredictablepoet)
What a promo model XD (Photo credit: Lauren Smith @theunpredictablepoet)

Alabaster Hut

We arrived at the hut at 3:30pm, and were surprised to see how busy it was. There were three large groups, including the boaters, a Dunedin tramping club. We managed to grab the last few mattresses and then packed up our rafts. There were a lot of curious people there who talked to us about how our rafts worked.

We made it!
Not going to be as quiet as ever other night, but it’s the last night anyway
Sunset on the lake

Day 6

BONK, BANG, CRASH, TING, BANG, BONK, TING, CRASH…

These were the sounds of the tramping clubs 6am breakfast marathon! ‘I guess we’re all getting up at 6am!‘ another random guy near me said in both annoyance and with a laugh. Several of us joined in laughing. It was pretty funny as we all were thinking it.

The rain has started up this morning, and Lauren and myself knew we were in for a wet final hike back to the cars. It would be nice to just slip back into our rafts and take on the Hollyford again. However, water doesn’t flow up hill sadly.

Laurens pack is even more ridiculously large with a pack cover on hahaha

The rain intensified and we got drenched! Homer Falls was awesome though in the rain before we attempted the only real climb on the entire trip.

I somehow managed this shot of Homer Falls in the rain

Hidden Falls

We took refuge in Hidden Falls Hut to have a lunch break and warm up a little as it was quite cold, but the rain wasn’t easing. Hidden Falls was only a short walk about and it was pumping out water with the rain!

A rain retreat – Hidden Falls Hut
Hidden Falls – the pounding water sound here was massive!

At 2pm, we made it back to the Hollyford road carpark and were able to jump in dry clothes and relax. It was quite the refreshing feeling after hours on end of being drenched.

Crossing back over the Hollyford River
Goodbye!

Overview

The packrafting trip was awesome, and we had a great time! It was a great beginner multi-day trip for Lauren and myself, who were both beginners (me moreso). The scenery is awesome and the rapids are fun enough without you saying ‘i’m going to die’. If we had to change something it would be to perhaps have been to break up the Lake McKerrow day up a little bit, as it was quite tough.

I found the 31km hiking day not too bad, but Lauren was exhausted – perhaps plan for a break in this section too. Starting earlier on the first day would have opened up more possibilities, so camping closer to the trailhead might be ideal.

Pros:

  • Great long trip with opposing direction rivers
  • Lots of mountain views from the river
  • Seal colony was awesome
  • Difficulty wasn’t too hard
  • Paddling with dolphins!
  • Beautiful rivers

Cons:

  • Lots of log strainers in the Hollyford
  • Rain on first and last days (it’s Fiordland… you’d be lucky to get a few sunny days)
  • Headwinds paddling Lake McKerrow

Stats:

  • Total distance: 142km
  • Top speed rafting: 18.3kmph
  • Max altitude: 179m (there are barely any hills!)

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