Where is it? Thirteen Mile Bush. Off SH73 after Springfield.

The Track: 5.5 km, I reckon sans kids had a nice pace about 2 hours. With a four year old who needed quite a lot of support on the muddy bits and a two year old who wanted to walk a lot it was just over 4 hours each way with the usual little snack breaks. A lovely bit of beech forest to walk through with heaps of mushrooms to spot and a few berries near the start of the bush part in summer time.

The Hut: Hut is old school but pretty neat, tidy and weatherproof. Good woodburner and woodshed. Three beds but one is a bit wider than a usual single so would easily sleep 4 or 5 people if some are little and can share. Hut book suggests it doesn’t get that many overnights outside of the main hunting season in autumn and most were on weekends. We had no bugs inside but that may have been luck its certainly not completely sealed. 

Good to know: Our pre-trip info we didn’t take into account that it was written for fairly quick adults not little people so we underestimated the time to walk it a bit! There is a four wheel drive track for the first hour or so which would need a pretty serious 4wd to survive it due to the river crossings but was fine to walk and spot sheep. The track follows the fenceline except where it crosses the riverbed but we didn’t realised and bashed up the wrong bank for a bit. There are quite a few river crossings and muddy bits so it isn’t a *dry feet* tramp. The odd slippery bit some have ropes to help with the scramble. One quite steep climb in the middle then a lot of more gentle ups and a few flat/undulatey sections to get to the hut. 

(DOC link here: https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/canterbury/places/korowai-torlesse-tussocklands-park/things-to-do/huts/benmore-hut/

Visited by: Alicia Moggrē