The Mount Brown Incident
Mount Brown Hut, and the drone shot that caused all my problems.
In November 2022, I went hiking in the mountains on New Zealand’s South Island. It didn’t go well. Before the memories fade, I wanted to write all the details down, and here is the result. The story is rather long and indulgent, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
EVER had one of those experiences in life when you realise it’s time to grow up if you have any intention of celebrating your 50th birthday? I had that realisation deep in the gorgeous mountain ranges near Hokitika, an underrated gem on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island.
The story of my disastrous night in the forest started earlier in 2022 while researching my first trip to New Zealand. I was fascinated to learn about the small country’s vast network of mountain huts. There are 950 of these (mostly) government-managed huts scattered across New Zealand, and they offer hikers (or ‘trampers’, as they’re known by the locals) a safe place to camp while exploring the country’s stunning backcountry.
After a bit of research, I settled upon Mount Brown Hut as my first foray into hut life. A simple Google search of Mount Brown Hut (which, of course, is actually orange) will help you understand my excitement. Here, I did it for you.
I wanted to be at the hut for sunset, so I came up with an airtight plan: start tramping at 3.30 pm, arrive at the hut by 6pm-ish, snap plenty of pictures and get some juicy drone footage, enjoy the sunset over a beer, tuck myself into one of the hut’s four bunk beds for a relaxing and well-deserved sleep, get up early for sunrise, hike down first thing in the morning, return to Hokitika for a hearty breakfast, all the while patting myself on the back about how clever and rugged I am. Easy!
Perhaps it was an omen, but the journey to the summit started poorly when I couldn’t even find the trailhead car park. If it weren’t for a small cluster of cars jammed onto a patch of dirt along the roadside, I’d have probably never found it. But given there were no signs of civilisation for miles around, I assumed the cars were those of my fellow trampers, and I finally set off about 4pm. The track to Mount Brown Hut is described as ‘challenging’ in tramping circles but, ever the optimist, I assumed they were being dramatic.
They weren’t.
In fact, I’d describe the track as fucking challenging. The Mount Brown Hut track is an 8.4km return trip through dense forest – you’d be doing well to get there and back again in less than five hours, not including any time spent at the summit. The track was brutal – a constant, calf-aching climb up, up, endlessly up. Respite from the climb was non-existent because the track almost never levelled off. And the humid weather wasn’t helping - I was drenched in sweat, and about 90 minutes in and barely halfway, I considered packing it all in and turning around.
And that’s saying a lot, because I’ve done plenty of challenging hikes in my time, and I’m decently fit. But for reasons I still can’t explain, the Mount Brown Hut trail was a slog – the toughest I’d ever done. Perhaps it was the six beers I’d had at Monteith’s Brewery a few hours earlier? I guess we’ll never know.
Not helping matters was the slow realisation I was disgracefully unprepared. A cob loaf for sustenance, 1.5 litres of water, a can of beer, and some chocolate. No headlamp, no beanie, no gloves, no pants - just a t-shirt, a wind jacket, and shorts. I know what you’re thinking… ‘you complete moron’. But hear me out – I wanted to travel light, and I usually don’t need much water when hiking – I’m a bit like a camel in that regard. You may call it ‘arrogance’, but I prefer ‘naïve optimism’.
Of course, my misplaced ego ensured I couldn’t just turn around, despite the sunk cost fallacy reverberating in my brain. I’d come this far; I can’t give in now. So on I pushed, hating almost every step. The track weaved through thick alpine forest, and as I neared the top, it slowly transitioned into a grassy, rocky brush, and finally, beautiful alpine grassland. I reached a false summit by about 6pm, and then the final half hour was an exhausting, meandering climb up through the grassland to the hut.
The view from the false summit, shortly after you emerge from the thick forest.
the hut
I’ll admit, the views at the top were incredibly worth it. Mount Brown Hut sits atop one of New Zealand’s countless, stunning, snow-capped mountain ranges, offering incredible views of the surrounding jagged peaks, the Tasman Sea (which separates New Zealand and Australia) in the distance, and Lake Kaniere directly below.
Alas, it wasn’t all good news when I reached the hut. The tiny, adorable little orange hut was rammed with people. Mt Brown Hut has enough bunk beds for four people – but upon my arrival, 12 people were milling about. A few of the 12 were in the process of setting up tents for the night (how’s that for preparation!), and the remaining seven or eight were planning to cram into the hut.
Mount Brown Hut in all its orange glory. And a few of my fellow trampers. This is one of the few photos I snapped on my camera that day.
Everyone was incredibly nice and welcoming - as tramping folk always are - and they offered to make space for me on the floor, but I wasn’t up for that. The hike had been tiring, and the last thing I felt like was an uncomfortable sleep, so I made the fateful decision to try and make it back down to my car before sunset.
After enjoying the scenery over a beer and some chatter with my fellow trampers (sorry, I really love that word now), I did the maths in my head. It took me about two and a half hours to climb to the hut, which means I could probably do the return leg in about 90 minutes (which is a pretty good rule of thumb when hiking… usually). It was now 7pm, which meant if I left immediately, I’d be down by 8.30pm. The sunset that night was scheduled for 8.33pm. Easy!
Supremely confident in my maths, and my logic, I decided to send the drone up for a few creamy landscape shots but quickly got carried away. The metadata on my final drone shot indicates I didn’t start the descent until after 7.20pm. I’m sure you can see where this is going…
Worth it though…
The first 45 minutes of the trek down weren’t too bad. The forest was bathed in enough light to see clearly, and I made decent progress. Somewhat worryingly though, I quickly realised the track wasn’t much easier going down than up. Coupled with some light rain setting in, the descent was much slower going than I’d assumed.
Not helping matters was the lack of track markings. Small white tags on the trees guided the way, but a lot of the markers were more visible for those trekking up, not down. With the light fading, it started becoming an issue. I picked up the pace, but by 8.30, the light had almost fully faded, so I switched on my phone torch. It helped, but not hugely. By now, my distance calculations suggested I still had about 1.5 kilometres to go. It doesn’t sound like much, but given the circumstances, it was a bit overwhelming. With rain clouds blocking any stars or moonlight, I was now walking in total darkness except for the small glow cast by my phone torch.
The Mistake
At about 8.45, things really went awry. I got to a point in the track where I couldn’t find the next marker. Each marker was spaced about 10 or 20 metres apart, and no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find the next one. I took a chance and walked for maybe 20 – 30 metres in one direction, but no track was visible, so I retraced my steps and did the same thing several times in slightly different directions. But I couldn’t see a thing - not a marker, and now not even the track.
It was all a bit disorientating. I figured I only had two options. One… sit down and wait for sunrise to light the way, which was at least eight or nine hours away. The problem with that option was my water situation – I only had a few sips left – and my lack of cold-weather gear. I was in shorts and a wind jacket. That getup was fine while I was moving and sweating and the adrenaline was pumping, but if I stopped in the middle of a forest at night, as the rain trickled down, I knew I’d get cold very fast.
The other option was to take a wild, literal stab in the dark and try and forge a way down the mountain. And at that moment, with all factors considered, staying put was never an option I took seriously. So, without much hesitation, I took my chances and started walking in the most logical direction. It was by far the most precarious situation I’ve ever found myself in… which is saying quite a lot given my ability to get myself into trouble.
The (very) little bushcraft I’ve developed over the years told me I needed to head downwards whenever possible, and follow any water course I could, no matter how small. Running water normally leads to bigger bodies of water, a lake, or some semblance of civilisation. That was my logic.
It’s hard to describe the terrain I was pushing against. Think muddy, sloping ground, thick, unkempt forest, dominated by large trees covered in endless vines. I kept stepping in a strange sludge that resembled putrid green candle wax. The sludge meant the forest floor was always slippery, but also made me wary of drinking the running water. And in the meantime, light rain meant everything was damp, and I was constantly distracted by the sounds of fast-rushing water in different directions. My desperation led me to believe it was a creek, but often it turned out to be the rain cascading down the sloping forest floor.
I was filthy from trekking through the mud and sludge, and soaking wet from the rain and the sweat. By about 9.30pm, I had a moment of panic. Nobody knew where I was. I was way off track, low on water, and low on food, and I had no way to contact anyone. Of course, I also had zero phone service, and even if I did, I purposely hadn’t paid for a New Zealand sim card so I could ‘live in the moment’ while on holidays. I had about 30 per cent battery on my phone, and with some desperation, I decided to see if I could find my location on Google Maps with the help of international data roaming. Oh, the desperation.
An explainer. The red line indicates the track from the trailhead car park to the hut, and then back. You can see where I went wrong on the way back - the yellow line indicates where I went off track and forced my way through the bush to the clearing, and how close I was to stumbling across my car before I turned around and ultimately happened upon the lodge.
Miraculously, Google Maps produced just enough of a very blurry terrain map that helped me work out where I was. Google’s live compass tool suggested that if I kept heading west, I’d eventually come to a clearing on the edge of some farmland.
Again, that sounds pretty simple, but when you’re bashing through an overgrown, muddy forest, it takes forever, and the darkness made it all so disorientating. Every time I avoided an obstacle like a tree or a thicket of vines and branches, I’d have to recheck my phone to make sure I wasn’t heading in the right wrong direction. Often, I was.
The Clearing
Eventually, about 45 minutes after pinpointing where I was, I finally stumbled into the clearing sometime after 10pm. The relief was overwhelming, but it faded pretty quickly when I realised the thick, dewy grass and the eerily dark sky made things just as disorientating as the forest. The phone torch was even more useless out in the open without anything to bounce off, and there wasn’t a star in sight. The moon was hidden behind relentlessly dense clouds. It was pitch black.
And yet, it was progress. And for once, I was glad to be out of the forest.
I trudged ahead and followed any sign of humanity – fence posts, tire tracks, and gates. I finally came to a dirt path, and followed it through a cow paddock, waving my phone torch around for any signs of life. I can’t explain to you how dark and confusing it was in the silent, pitch-black darkness with no coverage and no idea what to do next.
The path eventually led to a paved road, which was a relief. I felt it increased my chances of finding some sort of help, whether that was a farmhouse nearby, or the trailhead car park if I was lucky. But the blurry terrain map on my phone showed my immediate surroundings, but no landmarks. And the total darkness meant I couldn’t get any bearing on what was around me further than five or ten metres away. I walked in a north direction for maybe five or so minutes calling out for help. My calls bounced off the surrounding hills and reverberated back to me, but soon faded into nothing. Obviously, there was no response. I figured I was way off track, far away from any homes or people, so based on gut feeling, I turned around and headed south.
By this stage, my water was gone, but I was still sweating profusely from the walking, the adrenaline, and the nerves. I was slightly more relaxed now that I was out of the forest, but still anxious about where my next drink of water was coming from. And I had absolutely no idea what to do. Put it this way – if I somehow came across a house, I’d be knocking on that door in five seconds flat without a hint of shame
And that’s quite an admission. In a past career as a journalist, I regularly wrote about moron bushwalkers who needed to be helicoptered out of the bush after getting lost. I never thought I’d end up as one of those morons, but… send in the fucking chopper.
the lodge
As the hour struck 10pm, I headed south along the road and finally got a break when my torch reflected off something shiny a few hundred metres away in the distance. I walked towards the reflection, and it turned out to be a safety marker on a wooden electricity pole. As I moved closer, the pole stood nearby a three-story, 70s-style timber building resembling an old-school lodge. The lodge looked deserted.
I walked around the exterior and scoped it out, but every door was locked tight, and there wasn’t an outdoor tap, much to my frustration. BUT. A single window at the back of the building was ajar. It was one of those latch windows that opened outwards and upwards. The gap was enough to wiggle through, even for someone of my… girth and height. The window was protected by a flimsy-looking flyscreen, and I have no shame in admitting I punched the fly-screen in and it fell back inside the lodge without a fight.
Once inside, I gingerly wandered around. It was like stepping back in time. The building was like every school camp I’d ever visited in high school. Think cheap wood panelling everywhere, gaudy curtains and décor, hodge-podge furnishings, and a bit of a musky odour. It was magic.
I gingerly tiptoed inside waiting for an alarm or similar, but nothing triggered. The three-story lodge was built into a slope, and I entered through the window onto the middle floor. The first room was a large bunk area, filled with stacks of mattresses that fit upon raised wooden benches where guests would sleep . The rest of the middle floor consisted of more bunk rooms – apparently, the lodge sleeps 40 people!
The front of the lodge the next morning. Apologies for the phone picture.
I kept exploring and was surprised to find the electricity was on, so I headed downstairs to the bottom floor where the male and female bathrooms were situated. Each bathroom was huge and decked out in linoleum flooring and filled with rows of showers and toilets, just like school camp. I ran to the old-school stainless-steel troughs and turned the tap. Clear, glorious water spurted out. I was so relieved - and a little surprised - but mostly relieved. And so I drank like it was a bar tab at 11.45pm on New Year’s Eve.
Amazingly, the showers ran hot water. I can’t explain how desperate I was for the warm hug of a shower, so I stripped off and enjoyed the most necessary, most satisfying shower of my life. No question. Did I have a change of clothes? Of course not. Did I care? Not one iota.
After drying myself with a random towel I found in the laundry room, I went and checked out the third floor. It was a huge, sprawling common room with a giant kitchen and lots of off-grid entertainment – toys, board games, books, and mismatched couches lining the walls. It was homely and felt so comforting after the calamity of the hike.
I’d calmed down now after realising I wasn’t actually going to die, and as the adrenaline wore off, I realised how exhausted I was. But before I crashed out on one of the comfy-looking couches, I continued snooping around and learnt a few things about this fascinating little building.
Firstly, the lodge was built in the 1970s. It had several uses over the years, mainly as an isolated home for Scout groups and the like. More recently, it was used by community groups and well-being enthusiasts as a getaway spot or on the edge of the mountains. It certainly had a nostalgic charm, and though I couldn’t see the views at that time of night, I figured they’d be pretty special given the location.
Scrawled handwriting on the message board indicated the last group to have stayed in the lodge had packed up two months earlier. Up until that point, I’d been slightly nervous that some yoga enthusiast was about to arrive in the driveway ready for a quiet weekend in the mountains and get a rude shock when my half-naked derriere greeted them from the common room balcony, but the fact it had been empty for months quelled those nerves.
But the giant topographical map in the common room unveiled the most amusing realisation of the night. After scouring the map, it became quickly apparent that if I’d just kept walking north along the road I found after emerging in the clearing, I’d have found the car. I was only 300 metres or so from the car when I decided to turn south in the direction of the lodge. All I could do was laugh.
And with my curiosity sated, and my eyes heavy as the hour approached midnight, I collapsed onto one of the couches and slept like a baby for the next 6 hours.
When I woke up the next morning and looked out the window, I was taken aback. The views were incredible. The surrounding farmland was shrouded in early-morning mist, and I could see Lake Kaniere and the mountain ranges in the distance. It was tranquil – and for the first time, I felt a bit lucky and thankful for how everything turned out.
But I didn’t belong in the lodge, and it was time to leave. The universe had been kind to me, and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome (…plus, it was now Friday morning, and knowing my luck, a bus full of Scouts was probably just about to pull up). So, with a lot of care and gratitude, everything was cleaned up and put back where I found it, and I slipped out a side exit hoping no one would ever know I was there.
So that’s how I almost came unstuck in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It would have been a decent way to go, but I lived to tell the tale. This time. And I’ll be back to tackle a few more of New Zealand’s huts in the future. Next time, I’ll be prepared. And next time, I’ll give those epic mountains the respect they deserve.
Check out the rest of my New Zealand pictures here.