A couple of questions about track to Pinchgut Hut

Stream water at hut. Easy walk with 1 big creek crossing at the roadend and 1 decent climb on a good track after crossing Whare Creek. Trip report here, day 2, near the end of the day: tramper.nz/16357/coast-to-coast-christch..

DoC changed the classification because there is a 60cm wide hole on one section of the track where there is also a drop if you lost your footing there. So until the track is rerouted around that hole the difficulty of the track has increased a wee bit.

Honora - lol, "interesting" madpom - A good read, mate. My feet grew imaginary blisters reading it! I like to write too, and the first thing I noticed is that you didn't mention your companion once. Maybe it was "Wilson?" :P I feel pretty soft and all my angling endeavours are totally insignificant compared to this. lol As for the Te Araroa, I had no idea it is that busy. I guess people choose it for ego-related reasons, as it's a well known track. Btw, the Styx river is a beautiful one aye?

DoC, bless them, have rebenched the track around that hole so it is now back to easy though there are some slightly exposed bits there that might be intimidating to folks new to tramping. Still there are plenty of kids that walk in to the hut (but not when the Okuku is flowing at 8 cumecs). Madpom's companion was indeed Wilson, to avoid using the pronoun 'I' in his report. Maybe some folks choose to do the TAT because then they get to do a 3 month tramp without having to figure out how to link up all the routes and to not be too isolated.