“On a Mish” #33 Skirt Around the Bush (Part One) – Arthurs Creek(Point 2065m). Richardson Mountains. 10.3.2014. Arthurs Creek is one of the many large river valleys that feed into the Rees Valley, and then on to Lake Wakatipu near Glenorchy. I had heard about Mt Ferguson(2480m) and access to the mountain via Arthurs Creek in the Moirs Hiking Guidebook. The description about the route said “Skirt around the bush edge into the upper valley”…
I headed away on this mish with my girlfriend (at the time), and together we drove from Queenstown north to the Rees River. Along the way we reviewed the route description and also plotted our route on the map. After arriving at the Muddy Creek car park we unloaded our gear and began the hike up the valley towards where Arthurs Creek flows into the mighty Rees River. From here we began our climb into the side valley and it was time to “Skirt around the bush edge”…
It was nowhere near as simple as the guide book made it out to be. The lower parts of the mountainside were covered in nasty Matagouri bushes, which I’m sure someone had recently sharpened! Up, down, in and out. We had to find a way through that didn’t cut us up too much!
About a million scratches later, the travel in the dense bush in the lower reaches eased, and finally we got to the entrance to the upper valley. The pain and annoyance disappeared as soon as we saw the alpine world that is tucked away in the Richardson Mountains. There was a reason why we kept pushing on through the Matagouri, and this was it!
We found an excellent campsite in a large alpine meadow beside Arthurs Creek, which had some shelter provided by a huge boulder. Job done for the day and all that was left was to do was cook up a feast and enjoy the stunning location we had battled to get to. And as if to reward our effort, we were treated to an incredible sunset in a place we would have trouble forgetting about.
It is amazing how an epic environment can erase all of the difficult parts of a mission. We may have had a few scratches, but we were very satisfied with our achievements and were both very excited about the next day’s climb into the Richardson Mountains…
