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Writer's pictureRenay Weir

Day 39: Top Timaru Hut to Brest Hill free camp

25km, 8 hours

This will go down as one of my favourite days on the TA or at very least a main highlight. It had a bit of everything again and on the one day i thought let's not read the trail notes and comments and just go, led me to nearly swimming/washed down a canyon before I realized this can't be right and scaled 20m vertical up a soft soil cliff. This could have been enough adventure for a day but it was only the first 2 hours. There was much more to go through!


I started well after everyone else today. It was nice having a good chat to Steph & Zac after everyone had gone.

The first part of the day was walking down a river/gorge. I heard the others say in passing you can just follow the river all the way or take the trails above the river line. I figured I'd just stick to the river which ended up being more of a shallow river gorge because there would be no chance of getting lost if I was to stick to the water. Ha!

It was so peaceful in the morning. I had my music on and i just walked through the water downstream for what seemed like ages. The sun hadnt yet reached the valley so everything was so quiet and still.


After a couple of hours the river started to really narrow and a few other side rivers had converged so there was more water flow and bigger boulders. I was having a lot of fun sliding over the boulders and dropping into water holes. I did still have my pack on so i couldn't have too much fun and had to at least keep to waist high water. There were a few points where the drops were too big or the boulders were too big to safely climb up on. The other option was to scour the side cliffs which while there had obviously been someone who had done this before, the fact that half the banks had slidden away and you had to put a lot of faith in the bank holding above a few metres drop into the water, certainly didn't feel any safer an option.

On multiple occasions i thought even for the TA this is pretty adventurous/next level. Most people would find this part particularly challenging and dangerous. Still i just carried on, alone in my own little child like wonder world continually climbing up and sliding down boulder after boulder until I reached a point where it turned into this canyon with a 2m waterfall drop and steep cliffs either side. How on earth was i meant to go through this?!? This was seriously next level and surely something like this would have been mentioned by other TAers. Doing the drop into the water would have been an easy option but i had my pack which i didn't particularly want wet. So i set on rockclimbing along the cliffs. Rockclimbing with a pack is also not the greatest. I start to do it and instantly knew this was not going to end well at all! I climb back along and jump down to reassess. I pull out my phone and jump on the FarOut App to see others comments. Firstly I locate where i am. Then hit the comment button 'SOBO if you reach the dangerous canyon you have gone too far, climb back up the river and rejoin the trail'. I guess I went too far. I wasn't going to go back up the river that seemed too hard when boulders were involved. Instead i looked up and figured I'd just scale the cliffs until I could rejoin the path. I


don't know what was more dangerous doing that or trying to rockclimb the canyon. It was a vertical climb for about 20m on the most crumbly soft dirt. I was hoping that every tree i grabbed on to pull myself up would hold. I may have even said to myself 'youre an idiot Renay' but i knew at some point id get high enough and it would flatten out to reach the trail. After more than a few nervous slips and moments i noticed an orange marker. I'd done it! And so i rejoined the trail like nothing had ever happened and continued on my way.

River section over!


Next was the almighty Ridgeline climb I'd been warned about. 3hours to climb 1.5km seemed a bit off. surely not. No, they were right. This was from river level up to some ridiculous elevation and straight up. Calf killer and a half! It was so hot too. I kept looking back over the valley and mountains looking at how high i had climbed at that point and would just laugh. It was delusional this track to Stoddys Hut. Still i pressed on and reached Stoddys Hut for lunch. There was no water here except a 'stream'/trickle that just pops out of the ground so that had to do for water for the next 5 hour section as no water was to be available on the way.


The next part was to summit Brest Hill a 'mountain' tht overlooks Lake Hawea so i knew the views up there had to be epic. At Stodys hut i contemplated whether it would be worth staying there and then hiking the 4 hours in the dark for sunrise on Brest Hill but in the end just thought nah let's get it done today. This section was just spectacular it was above the tree line in open tussock grasslands with mountain views all around. I stopped at the top with Laura and Conny and we just looked back over the mountains where we had come from and felt pretty proud that we had hiked across all that we could see. It's almost amusing if not surreal.


I continued on with speed, put my running music on and was amped to get to the top to Brest Hill.

Reaching it was everything i could have imagined and more. The views!! It was incredible. It was such a hot sunny, cloud free day and i felt like i was on top of the world. In one direction you could see Mt Aspiring and all the snow capped Alps, looking south you looked over Hawea and then over to Wanaka with the tops of the Remarkables poking up about the other mountains. Looking north there were the Mountain ranges we had come from but the top of Aoraki/Mt Cook was still prominent even hundres of kilometres away. It was magic.


David was already chilling at the top when i mentioned to him 'can you camp here? Cos i thought about doing sunrise?' David also had the idea of camping too and so that settled it. I'm camping. It was too good a spontaneous opportunity to pass up. The weather was perfect, it was to be a clear night perfect for stars, the sunset will be spectacular and then we will get sunrise as well.


Conny and Laura ended up reaching us and also agreed on the camping idea. Us four just had the best evening sitting in the hot sun on the summit cooking dinner and just hanging out taking in all the beauty.



We set up our tents on the ridgeline so we literally could lie in our tents and look out over the lake and it would mean in the morn we could just pull back our tent door and see the sunrise from our sleeping bag.




This night was a prime example of one of the reasons I hike, like being spontaneous and one of the things I expected from the TA but also it's something that could not have been planned.

The sunset was absolutely stunning. We could see the colours changing across the sky and on the Alps. This beautiful blue to pink colours. You really couldn't have got a better day for it. And yet here we were just the four of us high above the world. I was so at peace, so happy, in the best company. It was perfect. The most satisfying thing about it all was looking back at where I'd come from and realising that this moment, had taken me 39 days of hiking to make it here.

The whole day was just 3 days in 1 and sitting on the mountain i couldn't quite believe that 10 hours earlier i was literally about to go down a canyon and yet now I'm high and dry on a mountain top. 10 out of 10 would recommend Brest Hill!

Ren x

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