Mt Aspiring National Park: Sent to Siberia

The views across Siberia Valley from the aircraft are magnificent. Photo / Colin Moore

Downhill is a relative concept. As the Grand Old Duke of York's men discovered, there tends to be a catch to it.

Ask my wife. I once persuaded her to join me on a bush walk from Cascade Kauri, in Auckland's Waitakere Ranges, to Bethells Beach, with the promise that it was "downhill all the way".

Motorists who drive from the top of the ranges down Bethells Rd to the coast will surely agree with my assertion. Trampers know better. There is never a down without some up.

Worse still, we had to negotiate a stream that developed into a deep pool in a narrow rocky canyon. The choices were to attempt to climb around the precipitous rock walls or get wet. My wife chose to get wet and was far from amused. Nor has she ever forgotten.

So there was a degree of understandable scepticism when I suggested that the Siberia Experience in Mt Aspiring National Park was "downhill all the way".

Well that, at least, is what the brochure indicated. Fly from Makarora in a small aircraft into the remote Siberia Valley, stroll through untouched native forest along the Siberia River for about three hours, then take a 30-minute jetboat ride down the Wilkin River back to Makarora. Sounds like a breeze. It's also a great part of the New Zealand outdoors, a microcosm of the South Island wilderness at its best.

The mountains are high, the tops snow-clad. The rivers run clean and fast over boulders and shingle flats, sometimes braided, sometimes confined to narrow, rapids-filled channels. The bush, mainly beech, is tall and untouched.

From Makarora, a settlement on SH6 between Fox Glacier and Lake Wanaka that comfortably survives on tourism, there are several popular two- to four-day trips in the hills using the huts of Mt Aspiring National Park or, in summer, delightful riverside camping spots.

A classic tramp starting at Makarora is to walk up the Young River to Young Hut, cross Gillespie Pass at 1520m into the Siberia Valley, walk down to Kerin Forks to catch the Wilkin River jetboat back to Makarora — or keep on walking.

Or there is the easy option.

"My husband says it's downhill all the way," says my wife, seeking reassurance, as she fills in the passenger details form for the flight into the Siberia Valley.

"Ah, umm," hesitates the pilot. "It's mostly downhill, there's just a little bit of up."

"Oh yeah," says the wife, "well I had better not get wet."

"Um," hesitates the pilot, "the river was waist-high yesterday but it should have dropped a bit by now."

By now I am hiding behind a display of souvenirs.

The bright yellow Cessna is tiny and I make sure that my wife sits next to the pilot while the rest of us, including a sour-faced woman with a distinct European accent, squeeze in behind.

Before the motor even coughs into life the visitor from Europe announces that she will be sick, as matter-of-factly as if she were giving an order.

When I suggest that she'll likely be too excited by the scenery, and that it sounds like she's talking herself into being ill, I am told that I don't know what I am talking about.

She's right. The plane is barely airborne before she is retching on cue. But the scenery is spectacular as we fly up the Wilkin Valley, detouring up several hanging valleys that drain into the Wilkin, the pilot pointing out landmarks as we go.

We circle around the snowy tops of Mt Kuri and make a tight turn over an ice-filled Lake Crucible. It was about then that the effects of the huge up-and-down draughts of mountain flying proved too much for my wife's stomach — and there was no rack of souvenirs that I could hide behind.

It might have been when the pilot pointed out the large spur that the track out of the Siberia Valley climbed over, or the Siberia River that we would have to cross to reach the track, that my wife dropped the sick bag in her lap.

So as soon as we land on an old deer recovery strip in the middle of the valley, I take the coward's way out and suggest that I check out the river depth, and leave my enthusiastic friends to shepherd my wife across the water. She's caught between a rock and a hard place, or a small plane and a river.

Our European visitor has two walking poles but declines my request that she might possibly lend one to my wife for the river crossing. The water is just above knee-height and freezing with snowmelt — ah, but the sun is shining and the surroundings so magical that even my better half is having difficulty being cross as she sips hot coffee while I scurry off to clean up her clothes and unpack dry socks.

The track out of the valley is broad and recently re-metalled with quartz chips that sparkle in the sun.

The beech trees and soft carpet of leaves beneath them are treasures, too. Between their boughs are views of the rushing river below and mountains with an icing of glistening snow above.

And yes, the track does involve a considerable climb over a spur but there is no choice. Way below us, the Siberia River is pounding through a narrow, steep-sided rocky canyon.

We lunch at what seems the breast of the climb and it is testament to the ease of the trail, the magnificence of the surroundings and the soothing solitude, that the talk gets around to the possibility of doing some guided tramps in the future, without that prospect prompting any murmurs of disapproval or incredulity.

The descent to Kerin Flats on the Wilkin is easy-going and we arrive on time for the jetboat pickup.

Our overseas visitor and the rest of her party, who came in on another flight, are close behind.

"I will be sick," she tells the boat driver, as he organises the seating arrangements.

"I've been doing this for years and I have never had a sick passenger yet," he replies.

"I will be sick," she insists.

"If you are, the coffee is on me, if not you owe me a coffee," he says.

We get the standard jetboat briefing — "this is more of a scenic trip than a thrills-and-spills ride but we can do some spins," says the driver.

"No, I will be sick," repeats our visitor.

And so we jet down the Wilkin, a jetboat ride that is indeed scenic and a lot quicker than walking. Then we turn into the Makarora River and head back for base. Our visitor wasn't sick but insisted on being put ashore before the rest of the paying customers got the chance to feel a jetboat being put through its spinning paces.

My wife concluded it had been a great day in the outdoors, even if it wasn't downhill all the way and she got wet. We are still talking about a guided walk somewhere.

Last I saw of our foreign visitor she was having a coffee at the Makarora tearooms. I don't think she was the sort to buy the boat driver the coffee he earned.

Where: Siberia Valley, Mt Aspiring National Park.

Time: Half day: 25-minute scenic flight, 3 to 4-hour walk, 30-minute jet boat ride.

What to bring: Day walking gear — walking shoes/boots, warm waterproof jacket, sunglasses, sunscreen, insect repellent, camera, lunch.

Grade: Easy/medium; suitable for those of average fitness.

Cost: $245 a person.

Meet: Makarora Wilderness Resort, SH6, an hour's drive from Haast or 45 minutes from Wanaka.

Futher information: See www.siberiaexperience.co.nz