Walk The Line

From snowy mountains and alpine forests to coastal and volcanic landscapes, GREG DIXON takes a hike through New Zealand’s Great Walks.

- Greg Dixon

As I scrambled up the rough track to the top of Conical Hill, the swirling cloud parted, uncovering the Hollyford Valley below me, before snatching it from view again.

Even with the temperature falling from the raw breeze, and without my pack, left at the Harris Saddle shelter below, I was sweating freely. It wasn’t just from the demands of the climb, it was from anticipation, too.

At 1515 metres above sea level, I was making for the loftiest point on New Zealand’s famous Routeburn Track, reached by a rapid ascent from the saddle, the highest section of the main track, and some 260 metres below.

On sapphire sky days, the views from Conical Hill make you feel you have wings. Standing high above the Hollyford, you can look west to the Darran Mountains, where the highest peaks in the Fiordland National Park are found, still tipped with snow in late summer.

But it is the view to the north that is the reason you take this sidetrack up Conical Hill. With the Hollyford Valley leading your eye, you can see many, many kilometres northward along the Hollyford River to the narrow waters of Lake McKerrow, before you spy, some 40 kilometres away from where you’re standing, the blue smudge of Martins Bay and the Tasman Sea.

Or so I’d heard. When I first walked this South Island track one spring 10 years before, I had no chance of seeing anything. After a brilliant morning, I’d reached the A-framed shelter at Harris Saddle about lunchtime to find it blanketed in thick cloud – I could barely see my fellow walkers as they sat about the shelter shivering – there was no reason to climb up Conical Hill that day.