Nelson

Nelson is the biggest urban area in the north of the South Island, although by UK standards its really just a medium sized town with a population under 70,000. Its a great jumping off point for tramping in both Mount Richmond Forest Park and the Abel Tasman National Park. I spent a great deal of time camping there in a tiny campsite, taking advantage of the amazing weather. I must have spent about 20 nights there and every day was clear blue sky!



From Nelson I set off for Mount Richmond Forest Park and ended up spending my first night in a backcountry hut in NZ. It was a medium/large sized one, capable of sleeping upto 20 people although both nights I spent there alone. Richmond Forest Park is amazingly rugged and beautiful but it is also (for some reason) one of the least popular tramping trials in the country. As a result I spent a whole week there completely by myself, which did begin to grate towards the end. I remember my first night in the Rocks Hut, there was either a giant rat or a possum trying to claw its way in through the roof and I kept shining my headlight up to see if I could spot the bugger. A lot of the huts often contain a random selection of books/magazines/documents left behind by park wardens or fellow trampers. In the evenings (or during the afternoon if you arrive at a hut early) you often end up reading through all sorts of crap just left there, some of it dates from decades ago!



The whole system of NZ backcountry huts is simply amazing. A lot of them are assembled onsite by teams of dedicated wardens/builders but some of the smaller ones are built offsite and then bought in by helicopter. These huts allow for some really amazing week long walks, of the sort that just don't happen in the UK. Many of the smaller huts were originally built just as night stops for park rangers back in the 1960s and 1970s but now many of the bigger huts can accommodate up to 60 people. Virtually all huts have simple rubber mattresses and a stove, along with an axe for chopping wood. Summer is when the huts see most usage, and the more popular tramping trials require booking in advance in order to stay there, sometimes over a year in advance. This booking is not cheap, costing between $40 and $60 a night, but most of them are free during the winter so I never paid a penny. 


In Richmond Forest Park I once made the mistake of draining a tin of tuna I bought with me outside of a small hut late in the afternoon and the saltwater very quickly attracted a swarm of wasps, so I had to shut myself inside and close all the windows. As this was my first major tramping expedition I underestimated the amount of food I needed (something I consistently seemed to do) so was forced to turn back before reaching Mount Richmond itself, and exit the park the way I'd come in. Getting back to Nelson I spend a few days recuperating, and then booked some bus tickets for Motueka to the north west in preparation for the Abel Tasman.