Posted by This post is a little different to my usual format of hiking blog in that instead of writing a post for each separate day of travel I’ve decided to lump it all together into an overview of the whole Dusky Track, accompanied with a series of random thoughts on different aspects of the track. Daily descriptions were looking at become really repetitive for this trip.
There is just one word that accurately describes the Dusky Track – Epic – with a capital ‘E’. Slated as New Zealand’s toughest tramping track, the Dusky had been on my mind to complete for many years. It certainly lived up its name. It was amazing to get the opportunity to jump on trail recently and really top off my recent end to end hike of the Australian Alps Walking Track. The Dusky has to be one of the toughest but most rewarding tramps I’ve completed and a feather in the cap for sure.
It is not a long trail with a total distance a little over 50km along the direct route from Lake Hauroko to West Arm and 84km if adding in the return side trip to Supper Cove located on the Dusky Sound, which I did. The track traverses three major valley systems following the Hauroko, Seaforth and Spey Rivers and passing through Furkert Pass in the aptly named Pleasant Range and Centre Passes near Mount Memphis.
The Dusky is the type of track where progress is estimated more by time than distance covered each day. There were several low kilometre days of 7km that took close to 6 hours to traverse with pace reducing to half a kilometre an hour at times, particularly on the incredibly steep ascents and declines. On a map the horizontal distance doesn’t look far but this certainly doesn’t take in to consideration the vertical distance between the contour lines.
This is a hike for the most experienced and compotent hikers, definitely not for the feint hearted or anyone scared of heights. It was definitely up my ally and a hike that I will fondly remember for years to come and one that I look forward to doing again one day. Maybe. There is still so much to explore out there
The track can we walked from either end however most trampers head north bound from Lake Hauroko. That is what I did with my itinerary as follow:
Day 1: Lake Hauroko to Halfway Hut, 13.7km, 6 hours
Day 2: Halfway Hut to Lake Roe, 7.6km, 4.5 hours
Day 3: Lake Roe to Loch Maree, 11.6km, 5 hours
Day 4: Loch Maree to Supper Cove, 14.5km, 5.5 hours
Day 5: Supper Cove to Kintail, 26km, 10 hours
Day 6: Kintail to Upper Spey, 7.2km, 6 hours
Day 7: Upper Spey to West Arm, 14km, 4.5 hours
Mick Beckers 