From Dawn to Dusky # 4 & 5

The trip to Supper Cove is a side trip taking two days – but really worth it! The walk up/down from Loch Marie to Supper Cove takes me 7-8 hours. I know you may be younger and in more of a hurry – who know why? Most of the distance is very pleasant, flat walking along a river/lake. There are two exceptions: the hour you have to spend climbing around the giant slip which created Loch Marie until after the Bishop Burn (which is not too bad actually), and the last hour if you cannot cross Supper Cove at low tide before you reach the Supper Cove Hut. It is one of the nastiest tree/rock hopping bits on the whole track, seeming doubly worse as it comes at the end of a long day. Many folks have turned their knee or ankle on this section (including me), so leave early enough you are not hurrying at the end of the day when you are tired.

Supper Cove itself is one of the pleasantest spots on earth, and you should plan to spend a few days there. It has likely got the very best toilet view in the world too! You might be able to prearrange (as I sometimes have) a helicopter or the float plane to leave some supplies tied up in a bag in the rafters of the boat shed so you can extend your stay. You will be able to have fresh fish three times a day if you have a hand line, some sinkers and hooks – or you may be lucky enough to find some there that the DOC has not confiscated. You should plan on this and have some oil/Alfoil (and a little salt to taste) to cook the fish with. The Blue Cod particularly, easily caught in the deeper water off the rocks behind the hut are perhaps the best eating fish in the world. Maybe include a cheap frying pan in that bag.

In 2009 I paddled this section with my Alpacka ‘Fiord Explorer’. I am not going to do so again!

There it is on the shores of Loch Marie! See: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/dusky-track-canoeing-the-seaforth/

I even paddled across the lake itself though I can’t imagine why now.

First the track follows the old miner’s track along the edge of the lake. A few rocks, but easy going.

The loch is beautiful in the dawn.

Everywhere there is the beauty of water moving.

My son Bryn crossing the first walk wire in 2008.

Some beautiful views of the lake through the ancient trees.

Sometimes when the lake is very low it is easier to walk along the edge of the lake. Look out for moose tracks in the soft mud and sand. Such tracks have often been seen here.

At one point as you climb around the slip listening to the roar of the water as it crashes over the giant boulders and wondering that trout can find their way past it, you will come upon the remains of the iron tools C19th miners used to make this section of the track. What hardships they must have endured.

Lots of places DOC have put in new steel or wooden bridges (even a new walk wire) since I first walked it nearly twenty years ago. It certainly cuts out some difficult scrambling up and down.

Eventually you meet up with the Seaforth River again below the Bishop- Burn. This must be about where I put in on my raft trip in 2009. There are many beautiful river vistas ahead.

Mind you there were some rapids to avoid!

Real ‘Huck Finn’ stuff this.

**The flat going is split by an unexpected ladder.**

The Old Supper Cove Hut site. Just before you leave/join the river you will see (if you look carefully) the remains of the old hut. Right in the centre of the photo you can just make out the parallel lines of the tree fern trunks which formed its floor. It was the last point you could get to by boat. It would have been a useful shelter if the river and particularly the Henry Burn swamps were flooded. It would have been a cold, wet camp to have lived in whilst you were building the track in the C19th though!

My son Bryn demonstrating just how swampy it gets between the two arms of the Henry Burn in 2008. Don’t get yourself trapped here by rising floodwaters.

My daughter Irralee crossing the ‘Waterfall Burn’ in 2007.

The Waterfall Burn. There is a 160 metre waterfall at the top of this unnamed stream. You can climb up with difficulty by following the next gully (ie on the true right down Fiord). in 2000 the top of this higher waterfall was shrouded in mist and it appeared to simply fall from the clouds. It was pouring with rain and photography was impossible/disappointing. There was fresh moose sign (tracks/droppings) up this burn then too.

A Short Cut (saving an hour) Easy walking, as you can see. If the tide is not too full you can cut off a fair bit of nasty stuff. The track is usually not far from the shore (after crossing) the first ridge. Above is the view looking from the hut side towards the ‘Waterfall Burn’ side at low tide.

Here is my friend Brett walking from the Waterfall Burn towards Supper Cove in 2000 (about half tide). It is well worth skirting that steep ridge on his right – the worst part of this section of he track.

If you are looking across the Cove (from the Waterfall Burn side) ie facing the hut you will see some ‘white rocks’ on the other side. If you aim for the right hand end of those rocks, you might have seen a taped trail leading up to the main track a couple of hundred metres after the Hilda Burn when you got near (now removed alas, 2023). You will just have to ‘bush bash’.

The low tide at Supper Cove is approximately 2 1/2 hours earlier than Port Craig (so, if Port Craig’s low was at 1:30 pm for example (as it was on 21/04/2017), Supper Cove’s was at approximately 11:00 am.. You can check the tide info at the Met Service NZ before you start on the track to see whether you will be able to cross Supper Cove.

When the tide is very low it is possible to walk around the point as you leave the hut and cross just down fiord from the Hilda Burn (as you see my son doing in the photo below) – or vice versa going the other way

ie If the tide is fully low you can walk all the way across the cove. You can just walk out past the boat shed and helipad, cross the Hilda Burn, then head straight across the Supper Cove flats. Only ‘thermometer deep’ as you can see Bryn crossing in 2008.

This is the first view of Supper Cove looking towards the hut (unfortunately at high tide). The hut (invisible) would be almost exactly centre. See the white rocks on the shore opposite. You would aim just to the right of them if you were walking across at a lowish tide, then walk up (approx 50-100 metres to the true left bank of the Hilda Burn – ie to the right of it facing uphill) to intersect with the track. I did mark the low tide trail in 2014 with tape and a buoy hung from a tree on the shore. (Gone now, alas).

Here is the same view at low tide – quite different, but as you can see it is not very deep along near the shoreline.

Even at just below high tide you can cut about a third of the worst of the trail off by walking along near the shore for about 300 metres until you come to a small creek. The track is only about 25 metres up the creek.

Here is an aerial view at a bit below half tide. The ‘arrow’ of sand on the right just touching the spar is the little ‘gully’ you see coming from the Waterfall Burn in the above two photos. The blue channel will be one of the main channels of the river.You can see how shallow it is along the water’s edge. If you walk along that shallowest part skirting the ridge (in the triangle under the wind and spar) you can see you will come to the little creek about half way along the picture (about the tip of the wing) . In this case the level was nearly low enough to walk all the way to the Hilda Burn. If the tide was running out I would wait ( maybe an hour) for it to to become shallower.

First view of the hut from the air (with Della 2011: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/10-days-in-fiordland/)

My daughter Irralee crossing the Hilda Burn 2009.

Arriving at the Supper Cove Hut.

This is the beautiful view from the verandah looking up the Seaforth. The moose were released on that sandbar (centre) in 1905. Many delights await at Supper Cove.

Such as fishing off the rocks for blue cod: my son Bryn demonstrates.

A Hummingbird hammock comes in handy at Supper Cove 2017: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/a-hummingbird-in-the-hand/

You can hang two of these from the same two trees under one tarp like this:http://www.theultralighthiker.com/simple-hammock-double-up/

It is becoming a busy switch over point for tour boat operators.

**You can often ‘catch a lift’ to/from Supper Cove from a a helicopter:**

About 100 metres behind the Supper Cove Hut there are the remains of another ‘mystery’ hut guarded by a fantail. You can continue up that ridge (past the cataract) and drop down into the Hilda Burn upstream (if you are intrepid/foolhardy). Just after where the Burn splits in two I glimpsed a cow moose in 2000.

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