Thinking about this for second half of December this year, the week school breaks up. Fly to Masons Bay, do the northern circuit back to Oban. Kids 11, 9, 6, but pretty hard core and experienced in the outdoors. Just did the Otago Rail Trail, they cycled 60 km Ranfurly to Middlemarch yesterday and didn't even fall asleep in the car afterwards.
Distances between huts don't look too bad, main questions are around how much of a mud slog it is nowadays. Did the Southwest circuit and half of the Tin Range 25 years ago.
Would take biggish cube fibre fly with insect screen all around and a polycryo groundsheet so could camp quite comfortably if emergency / semi emergency / not making hut required it. Also have PLB.
@Ian_H: last autumn we tramped the bit from Masons Bay to Oban with a family where the boy was possibly 8 and the girl a bit older. I can't remember how much they'd done but they were full of beans at the end of the day and had taken the mud in their stride.
My sisters tramped from Doubtful Sound to Dusky Sound around 1958 with A.H.Reed amongst others as companions. They were 6 and 7 years old.
The NWC certainly is the muddiest trip I've done but I don't think kids mind that too much. Walking with a stick makes it a bit easier and the mud is easier to walk in when it's raining as it's less clingy.
I'd say give it a go because there are plenty of bail-out points along the way e.g Freshwater, Mason's, Port William.
I agree with Honora. If you're kids are as experienced as you say, rip in!
As for mud, yep - there's LOTS of it there! However, I find THE single best bit of kit for dealing with mud is my Kahtoola micro-spikes, which are like mini crampons that simply slip over your shoes.
Designed for walking on flat icy surfaces (no climbing), I find they truly come into their own on steep muddy sections.
Anyway, enjoy the trip. Oh, and if you want a bit of fun, try and time your trip to end back at Oban on a Sunday, when you can participate in the world's most southern pub quiz. :)
Thanks for the thoughts. One question, flying into Masons Bay, do you have a problem taking say gas canisters? Will be asking the flight company of course, but anyone know off the top of their head?
I would imagine that the type of aircraft you will be flying in won't reach sufficient altitude for it to be a problem for gas canisters.Once got parachuted with canisters from 10,000 feet, and there was no hassle with that.
Stewart Island flights in the past have not allowed gas canisters. They are available at Oban in the general store for a reasonable price. You can also grab them for nothing at the backpackers down there as people can't fly them out but of course they are half used.
Just talked to Stewart Island Flights, they aren't worried about gas canisters in luggage going on the plane. Intention is to fly direct to Masons Bay, if we couldn't get any fuel on the plane it would be a bit painful cooking on wood burner stoves the whole trip... Mind you, there's no Beach trees on Stewart Island, higher proportion of Rata, so firewood quality should be well above what you can find up a Fiordland valley.
@IanH: that's good news about the canisters as sometimes a larger 450 g gas canister is a better idea than 2 small ones and the bigger ones are unavailable on the island.
@Honora:
It seems though that they only allow gas canisters on the flights that land at Mason's Bay. If you're flying in or out of Oban, they won't let you carry them. That's my understanding of the conversation I had with them, don't know what reasoning if any there is behind allowing them in one case but not the other.
Am going ahead with this by the way. Flying into Masons Bay on Monday 12 December, back out of Oban on the 22 Dec, so 9 days to do the Northwest circuit back to Oban. Reasonable option to bail if the weather looks to be settled and atrocious, we can stay a few days at Masons Bay and come back over to the Freshwater and get a water taxi out.
9 days with me and three kids so about 18 kg of food in total I think, can hopefully load up the two older ones a bit!
