Redcliff Hut

Takitimu CA ● 29 – 30 January 2022

Spence peak is the second highest point in the Takitimu mountains. But that is larely irrelevant because we didn't make it up. Redcliff hut is a small two bunk hut sitting in the valley below Spence peak. It is infrequently visited, but made for a good weekend loop up Windy creek and down Redcliff creek.

Route

Saturday (8 hrs)

Car → Windy River Col (6 hours 20 mins)
We began the day with a boring walk along the forestry road for about 40 minutes. At the end we dropped down the bank to a boggy area. We followed an on-and-off route, but it was heading away from the river so we pushed through the scrub to get back on course. At the river we quickly found a path to follow. After crossing the river a few times it climbed up the bank of the true left. A couple of kilometers up we lost the track and opted to push through dense scrub to drop back down to the river. Travel up the river bed was good for a kilometer, until we reached a waterfall. After checking it out, we used the scrub to pull ourselves up the bank on the true right. From here on it was relatiavely eaasy travel up to the col.
Windy River Col → Redcliff Hut (1 hour 20 mins)
We dropped down to the plateau, following a relatively dry river bed. Instead of heading down the valley we skirted around to the spur above Redcliff hut in order to stay above the scrubline. This was easy travel except for the last couple of hundred meters when we dropped into dense scrub. The hut is nested in the clump of trees at the bottom of the spur.

Sunday (6 hrs 30 mins)

Redcliff hut → Redcliff Creek (1 hour)
Leaving the hut we headed for the river, slowed down only by a very steep bank that barely shows up on the topo map. Optimistic ideas of river travel lasted about 200m until we reached a waterfall, so we found ourselves following animal tracks down the true right. Although this route gets high above the river in parts, it leads down to just above the main confluence without bluffing out.
Down Redcliff Stream to the car (5 hours 20 mins)
We followed animal tracks down Redcliff creek. The first three kilometers involved frequent river crossings, but then it reaches a narrower part of the valley, which forced us up the bank on the true right to avoid bluffs. We dropped altitude prematurely multiple times only to get bluffed out. Eventually animal (human?) tracks lead back to the river. We decided to climb up a scree slope on the true right and cut across the hillside back to Windy Creek. We didn't entirely avoid scrub, but it was probably faster than going around the bottom. We eventaully dropped down a steep bank and made our way across the river and up the side of the forestry block to the forestry road. Another tedious 40 minutes later and we were back at the car.

Disclaimer: GPX route has been drawn from memory
GPX file can be found here (raw files for day one and day two)