We Arrive At Brown's Hut

Browns Hut is some 30km up the Aorere Valley from the nearest town, Collingwood. This is our first big jaunt outdoors and we haven't a clue what to expect, despite reading everything on the internet that Google was up for.

The girls make a fast visit to the public WCs in Collingwood, the "last flush toilets" they're expecting for the next six days. Yeah, right. This is a Great Walk and most of the hut toilets are flush. We are also carrying enough gas to float a fair sized hot-air balloon, and we will find out in due course that Broiwn's Hut is the only one without gas cooking facilities, apart from the tiny Gouland Downs hut.

Anyway, we head out from Collingwood

There are a couple of fords on this road which are quite impassable after rain. They are one of the reasons one packs an extra day's rations. We are still getting used to one of the more irritating features of the Canon digital camera, its tendency for the AUTO setting button to revolve wildly at the slightest excuse.

Over the last bridge and on

...into the parking area from which we have a five minute walk humping our gear up to Brown's Hut. It's considerably more luxurious than we had imagined, if a bit gloomy inside, with a gigantic stone fireplace that must have been somebody's hobby.

I make a cuppa

and Mike cracks a bourbon

while the sun does its thing in approved tourist fashion

There are some charred logs in the fireplace and we scout around for some kindling which Mike turns into a functioning cooking fire. (We are still in "saving gas" mode.) We generate some dinner, and another cuppa which gives our shiny new billy a pleasingly smoke-blackened appearance.

We have the place to ourselves, though a few people drop in on the way home to sign the Intentions Book. We settle for the night and the vexed question of which of us snores loudest is now on the table for discussion. As somebody said, if you're lucky enough to be in the mountains, that's lucky enough.