Keen to claim 15 huts in Richmond Range with me?

Yes, Frank had slippery soles and bailed on that section one time. It was a bit exposed in places.

I too have heard these rumours.....absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for the bush tramper....risk of tiny slither into half a meter of water.

Hi Lucky, good to see you did the trip. As mentioned in my Dec post I hoped to go through there too. We did our trip in March & had good wx. We visited just eleven huts in 5 nights though having been to Lake Chalice & the Goulter on another trip. We found the tracks good & generally very well marked. It was pleasantly easy country cf. a lot of Westland that we roam. I didn't see any alarming bits of track anywhere. The Wairoa River wasn't up when we went thru but if it was up it could stop you. We walked to the 2nd hut each day arriving early to mid afternoon. It was pretty cruisy. I see from my diary times that where we did the same bits my times were quicker than yours generally cutting the DOC times by a third to half. I think you must have some typo's in your times in the Jan 14 post or you made some big detours? The only detour I made when walking between huts was to walk to the summit of Mt Starveall. Late afternoon we'd sometimes go for another walk from the hut we'd reached that we were going to stay the night at though. When out at the roadend at the Red Hills end & hitching back to get my car I had to walk to within 4km from St Arnaud before getting a ride. On the way back to the Coast we picked up a tramper hitching from Nelson Lakes to Arthurs Pass.