Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → New Zealand → Canterbury → Woolshed Creek Hut Loop

♦ Intrepid Top Pick!

Location: Mount Somers area, Canterbury, New Zealand

Time Required: 5-7 hours

Distance: 11.4 km/7 miles (done as a loop)

Elevation Gain: 520 m / 1700 feet

Red Tape/Notes: None.

What’s Nearby: Mt. Sunday

This awesome loop track is one of our absolute favourites – and we didn’t even have particularly good visibility! On a clear day it must be absolutely breathtaking. The loop runs up the Miner’s Track, starting out alongside Woolshed Creek and passing by the occasional mining relics amidst shady trees before opening out at the Blackburn Mine site, situated on a nice plateau. It’s worth a few minutes to ramble around and explore the area before moving on. The terrain changes substantially to rolling grassy hills, heady steady up with beautiful views until you reach the summit and see the picturesquely situated Woolshed Creek hut nestled in a little valley beside a stream.

We poked our heads in just to have a look before moving on, crossing a great swingbridge over a neat canyon; a side trail leads to a swimming hole and views of the Woolshed Creek Chasm (if you brought your canyoning gear, you can take this route back to the carpark – it’s a v3a3 rated canyon – tallest rappel 15 m, longest mandatory jump 4 m) before continuing along the Mt. Somers Track South Face towards the Rhyolite Ridge Track. Take the brief detour to the waterfall at TriFalls Creek (it’s absolutely worth it), where you’ll also find the Emerald Pool (which is nice for a dip if it’s sunny) and then slog your way uphill to the Bus Stop Overhang, which is a really cool rock feature. From here the views of the Southern Alps should be pretty incredible (assuming you don’t have fog like we did), and the rest of the track is mostly downhill from here. It gets quite steep towards the end, so if you have bad knees, you may wish to do this track the reverse way, heading up Rhyolite and down the Miner’s Track.

Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → New Zealand → Canterbury → Woolshed Creek Hut Loop