North Arm Hut

After reaching the summit ridge, the track kept going through the forest & down towards Paterson Inlet. Lots and lots of stairs and narrow boardwalks. Sometimes the boardwalk would stop, and we had to negotiate over huge tree roots. At least it wasn't uphill. This was another 12 km day (each of the three days is a 12 km hike) which took us 5 1/2 hours (1/2 hour less than advertised, yeah team!).

After many declarations of never doing this again, we reached the North Arm hut with no serious injuries other than sore muscles. This hut is right on Paterson Inlet, and we had the hut all to ourselves. We had shared the Port William hut with one other couple. Apparently, in summer these huts tend to fill up. It was great to have it to ourselves.

The leftover firewood in the hut was drier than the stuff in the shed so Dan chopped up the bigger pieces. We made a fire right away. In this hut, the sleeping bunks are in a room connected to the common room. This way we could sleep about 10 feet from the fire and stay warm all night which was much nicer of course.

After starting a fire, we followed the path down to the Inlet itself. The tide was out, and we went exploring. A large pile of mussel shells was right outside the hut, and the guest book was full of comments about how nice the mussels were. We decided to go hunting for mussels.

And we found them stuck to nearly every surface. Look at them clinging on for dear life. We grabbed a bunch to add to our instant noodles for dinner.


We never cooked mussels before coming to New Zealand but have learned pretty quickly. They must be closed before you cook them. You basically steam them in a little water or broth for a few minutes until they open up. Toss the ones that don't open and eat the ones that do. They were really tasty added to our dinner; something to do with being so hungry I think. Also it was fun to eat something we had just found in nature.