Paradise lost at ... Stafford Hut, West Coast

Take a four-hour river womble into what has to be one of the country's lowest altitude huts, in an area that foiled early settlers.

Stafford Hut - aka Staffy - is a little bit out of the way of the average traveller, but well worth going the distance for.

Head south of Haast on the west coast towards Jackson Bay (home of the famous fish and chips at The Craypot - 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor and you know it’s got to be good), stopping just short of the wharf. The track leads off inauspiciously into the bush on the opposite side of the water, where there’s room to park a few cars. And it starts rough, but don’t be discouraged - it’ll soon smooth out to a well-benched track you can bomb along on. After about 45 minutes you’ll reach the appropriately named Smoothwater River, with its clear, jewel-toned purity making a good case for your drink bottle.

Follow the big obvious orange triangles up the Smoothwater River until it branches up Kakapo Creek.

Note that on the topo map it’s designated as a ‘route’ between Smoothwater River and Stafford Hut, but in fact the sections that aren’t in the river are utterly easy to follow. The river/creek navigation just requires a bit of boulder-hopping and log-jumping, but it’s nothing anyone with a bit of tramping experience can’t handle.

All of the watercourses on this trip have some legit stunning spots for a swim, offering pristine green pools of goodness for the discerning dipper.

Once up and over Stafford Saddle (at the giddying heights of 243m above sea level, it’s naught but a short, sharp grunt), you’ll follow the creek, walled in with lush green forest.

Shortly before the creek meets the Stafford River proper there are some ghost trees to behold.

The Stafford River itself is a swift section to walk and you’ll soon stumble upon Staffy, the best in the west, a hut built in 2008 at a whopping 2 metres above sea level! We arrived just after the sun had set but with enough residual light to see the final section of track in the forest. I’m not sure this would be a viable trip (any of it) in the dark though - beware! And while it was cold enough on our visit to avoid the worst of the sandflies, I have a feeling they’d be feral in warm weather.

The area around the Smoothwater River was subject to a similar sort of push for settlement that happened at Jamestown on the Hollyford Track, only it was an even shorter-lived effort. In 1875 people tried to settle in the area and 12 families lived on the Smoothwater River, intending to create a road from Haast. The West Coast Times reported in August 1876, “Mr Smyth, the surveyor in charge, speaks very highly of the land, both as to extent and quality, the soil being very good, easily cleared, and abounding in cattle feed.” Ha! By the next year they’d all given up, their efforts at settlement foiled by the persistent wet, swampy ground, swollen rivers and difficulties getting boats into the area. You can see, though, how they’d seized on the unwrinkled waters of the Smoothwater as an ideal spot, lured in by such tropical-looking vegetation. Paradise lost?

Any trip to Staffy must be finished off with a short walk (two minutes) out to the coast at Stafford Bay. On this day the seas were relatively calm, the occasional breaker making a punctuation mark on the grey rocky beach.

Trip: Stafford Hut, West Coast. Grade: Moderate. Time: 4 hour one way; option to do the coastal section but be warned it’s very susceptible to tides. Features: Cute hut, 2 mins to the beach, sparkling rivers, lush forest. More on the DoC description.