BlogRoddus: Casey Hut

Showing posts with label Casey Hut. Show all posts

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Casey Hut - 6-7th February 2014

Uncle Roddus tramping diary: Tramp No. 143

Casey Hut 6-7th February 2014.

The best laid plans of Mice & Men. Thursday 6th was a public holiday, the extended forecast for the four days from Thursday to Sunday for the Canterbury High Country was for fine with light winds. I decided to take advantage, take the Friday off work and visit two huts that are on my list. I left home fairly early in anticipation of a longish day. Loaded with a four day pack, I set off from the Andrews Shelter, heading along the Andrews track to Casey hut, which was to be my lateish lunch stop before the big climb up to Ranger Biv, My first nights accommodation. By the end of the first couple of hours walking my boots were starting to give me trouble, oldish boots that had given trouble in the past but my feet had survived several trips in them with little discomfort over the last couple of years. I had even wet them before leaving home to soften them up a little. After 3 hours I stopped just over Casey Saddle and spent about 40 minutes eating and dealing to the blisters on my feet, using up my last blister blocks and Lectoplast and starting in on the contents of my first aid kit, but the damage had been done and even with all the padding, things got worse as I approached Casey Hut and by now I had a pretty good idea I wouldn't be too keen to carry on. I limped into Casey Hut after about 5 hours 20 minutes from my car and was so relieved to remove my boots. The pain in my big toes, where they had been pressing into the front of my boots eased and fortunately showed no physical damage but my heels both had large blisters. It was only about 2:30PM so I had lunch, scored a bunk in this 16 bunk hut and settled in for the duration, knowing that others would arrive in due course as this is a pretty popular hut. I wasn't at all in the best of moods knowing that my weekend wasn't going at all to plan. To make matters worse, the hut was stifling hot and due to there being only two windows with insect screens and the sandflies outside being ravenous and in plague numbers around the hut, we couldn't really open any other windows. Another 6 trampers arrived over the course of the afternoon, we chatted about the weekends plans, I mumbled about going back out and home in the morning and then I went for a short walk to the Poulter river and tried to stay a bit cooler outside, but the aforementioned sandflies were equally ravenous no matter where I went and seem to develope a very rapid immunity to the insect repellent I was using. Sleeping in the hut was particularly difficult due to the heat and I seriously considered grabbing my bivvy bag and sleeping outside at one stage but I must have drifted off before I got motivated enough to do this. Things finally did cool down enough in the night to actually allow me to sleep under my sleeping bag instead of on it. The next morning every body slept in till about 9am. After breakfast and packing I attacked my sore feet with what I could scrounge from my first aid kit to try and pad out the sore bits for the trip out. It worked well enough and the first climb out from the hut went fairly well. I made good time in spite of the pain and stopped for lunch just past Hallelujah Flats. The feet were getting sorer as I got to the climb out of the Andrews River and I was finding that my legs were getting more fatigued because I couldn't relax with the pain of walking and the last big down hill part was a killer. I was sooooo relieved to finally arrive at the car but had to make a very quick getaway as I was swamped by more ravenous sandflies. I think I managed to get back out in somewhere between 5 and 51/2 hours. Considering it is only about 14KM from the hut to the car, My legs were quite sore the next day. A combination of the heavy pack and the strain of walking with the pain. Not one of the better tramps I have done. Below are the photos I took on the first day.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Casey Hut 17-18th April 2010

Uncle Roddus Tramping diary:Tramp no. 89

Casey Hut 17-18th April 2010

The Casey hut is a 16 bunk hut near the confluence of Casey stream and the Poulter river. it is a moderate trip to get to it from the Andrews shelter and to either come back the same way or follow the four wheel drive track down the poulter and over Binser saddle then back to the cars along the road, a pretty straight forward trip and a popular one. This trip had been on my to do list for quite some time after the last attempt never even left town for weather reasons. Some friends who had been reading some of my trip reports on this blog and others who knew I tramped had asked me about going out sometime and doing something. What with so many other things going on and tramps with the CTC taking a lot of my tramping time I haden't got round to organising anything. Ulrich said he wanted to do something before his holidays were over and I was looking for someone to do this trip with. I checked in with another couple of people but it was short notice and some were out of town and others had to work, so it was just the two of us.

We arrived at Andrews shelter about 9:20am on an overcast but warm Saturday morning, with a light norwest wind. The forcast was for cloud clearing and Sunday was to be fine. We decided to do the long way first, walk round to the start of the Binser Saddle track, over Binser Saddle, then up the Poulter to the Hut and then out the shorter track over Casey Saddle and along the Andrews Track. We left the car at 9:40am and had climbed the 500 or so meters to Binser saddle, throught beech forrest, by 11:30, stopping briefly at the clearing before the saddle to re fuel. The track was mostly clear of wind fall and is a very well used and easy to follow track. After a steep desent of 200 or so meters we qiuckly dropped down to Pete stream amd link up with the four wheel drive track which we follow almost all the way to the hut. Seven KM from the hut, there is a DOC sign saying the the rest of the track is a monitored mountainbike track to the Trust/Poulter Hut, and indeed, did 2 mountainbikers turn up at the casy hut for the night about 2 hours after we arrived.

The top part of our trek was much more scenic than the lower part, through Matagari country, and after Rabbit flat we headed back into the bush and then through a lovely garssy clearing after a small lake and before we left the mountain blke track and cut across the big flat bush area behind Casey Hut, which had some impressive specimens of Black beach. We got to the hut in 6 and 3/4 hours covering 22.7KM. With a weekend pack, I was feeling it. A plesent evening was had chatting with the 2 mountain bikers and the other couple who had come in over Casy saddle and the clear sky made for an impressive starry sky after dark.

Sunday Morning dawned fine as promised, and Ulrich and I set of at about 8:20am to trek the 13.8KM up the Casy Stream, over Casy Saddler and down the Andrews track. It was a most enjoyable walk out in brilliant sunshine, changing forrest and lovely open spaces along the saddle and Hallelujah flats. Saw some good camping spots but had fairly short breaks on the open areas as the sand flies wouldnt leave us alone each time we stopped. Some very impressive Red Beech in one of the gullies lower down and the song of the Kea near the Saddle. Got back to the car in 5 and 1/2 hours. Exellent trip.