Motatapu Track - Arrowtown to Wanaka

Grade: Hard. Really hard.
Length: 34km.
Time: 6hrs, 7hrs, 7hrs (Macetown to Wanaka, excludes the Arrowtown to Macetown stretch, which took us 5hrs over the hill).
Getting to the start of the walk: We based ourselves in Wanaka and caught A-Class Shuttles across to Arrowtown ($20/head). They also picked us up from the Fern Burn car park at the trip’s end ($25/head – you need to book).
Transport tips: If you can time the Arrowtown end of your trip to coincide with a weekend, you will increase your chances of hitching a ride in to or out of Macetown.
Would you do it again: Nope. But I would consider walking into Rose's Hut and out, and into Highland Creek Hut and out. The middle day is 95% meritless, with the only positive being the view up the Motatapu Valley.
DOC/other information about walk: DOC track info. We did find it difficult to get much detailed information on the track. I suspect that is improving, as more people walk it. And there is an information board dedicated to the Track at the Wanaka Information Centre, which is worth reading prior to departing.
Map/s: F40 and F41.
Other tips worth sharing:
- Not a tramp to break in new boots. It is incredibly hard on your feet.
- We drunk a lot of water on the middle day in particular, despite the weather being a very kind. There was a stream about midway through the day, when we dipped down a beech forest, and we did re-fill at this without any negative consequences.
- Huts are $5/night.
- We would not recommend attempting in bad weather. The ridge on the south-west side of Jack Hall’s Saddle would be a challenge in a moderate wind, especially if you were approaching from the Fern Burn to Highland Creek Hut direction.
Author: Febbett
Month/year walked: October 2008


Indoor friends often ask me what is the appeal of tramping? My reply is always the same: that is reduces your usual bevy of worries down to the basics. You are hungry, you eat. You are thirsty, you drink. You are tired, you sleep.

After walking the Motatapu Track from Arrowtown to Wanaka, I have added another. When you are exhausted, you cry.

To be fair, we tackled slightly more than the DOC-described “demanding three day track”. Like many regular trampers, partner Warren and I generally come in slightly below the times indicated. So – when there was no obvious transport for the 15km from Arrowtown to Macetown – we thought an extra three hours at the start of the five-to-six hours indicated for the first day (Macetown to Roses Hut) would be do-able. That was our first mistake.

Our second mistake was to approach Macetown via a “short cut” over the aptly named Big Hill, rather than the flat route around the road. Five hours later, we realised that – not only would the road have been quicker and easier – we would have very likely managed to hitch a ride with a four-wheel driver heading to Macetown for a Sunday drive.

Having arrived at the official start of the track, we pressed on, taking the easier option of walking up the Arrow River for the first two hours, rather across the face of the tussocked hillside to our right. It was an enjoyable splash back and forth across the quaint river but time did march on and it was late afternoon when we decided that our tired legs would be struggling to get us over the saddle and down to the hut within the remaining daylight hours. We opted to set up camp by the river and let our weary bodies rest.

Twelve hours later, we awoke to frozen socks and boots.

And so the day began. First up, we tackled the short but near vertical climb out of the Arrow River bed, towards Roses Saddle. It was during the following two hours of solid climbing, from orange pole to orange pole, that we saw the only other walkers over our three days. We explained to the young Czech couple our plans to push on past Roses to Highland Creek Hut that day; we should have taken more notice of the look they gave each other, before they smiled and wished us luck. Possibly mistake number three.

We made the 12-bed Roses Hut by 11am. Beautiful hut. Pretty setting. Great toilet. We rested, ate, filled our water bottles and re-applied our sunblock. There was some debate about where the track would take us after lunch, on the five-to-six-hour stretch scheduled for the middle day of the track proper. I firmly believed it was through the valley. Warren let me live under that illusion for the hour duration of lunch, before softening the blow: “See that long, steep fence line in front of the hut? I’m afraid that’s our track out of here.” I got the feeling he would not have minded being wrong, just this once.

It was on the top of this hill that we enjoyed the tramp’s highlight – the magnificent Motutapu Valley, stretching back towards Arrowtown in one direction, and boldly making for Lake Wanaka in the other.

Four hours after hitting the fence line out of Roses Hut, we had returned to a similar altitude as the Hut and were standing with yet another endless tussock-encrusted hill before of us. It was at this point that I cried. We were officially halfway through the three-day trip. It was 4pm. Every step had been upwards, downwards or across the face of one tussock hill or another, with no “track” underfoot helping us along.

It was 6pm when we dragged our weary bodies to the top of a promising, shallow saddle and saw Highland Creek Hut ahead. On fresh legs and with no pack, we could have scampered across in 20 minutes. It was 50 minutes and two cruel ascents and descents later that we dragged ourselves through the door into the empty hut, spent but grateful.

Identical in layout to Roses Hut, Highland Creek Hut is in a breathtaking setting. Tucked alongside Highland Creek, the hut looks out towards a multitude of ridges and hillsides – various shades of brown and grey, all converging towards the hut. We could have been the only people left on the planet, as we sat on the verandah and enjoying our smoky cups of Lapsang Souchong.

The hut book, while only up to the fourth page of entries, made for interesting reading. There was much debate about the difficulty of the middle day’s terrain and under-estimation of the timeframe; there was also passionate commentary around the old “to bench or not to bench” chestnut.

Given that we had gone an hour over the DOC-predicted time for the Roses to Highland Creek Hut leg, we set off at 7am on the last day – desperate not to miss the 4.15pm shuttle from Fern Burn car park. The DOC timeframe is seven-to-nine hours and, as it transpired, we made the mainly downward day in seven hours.

It was an hour or so of sidling, before a steep climb up a razorback ridge to Jack Hall’s Saddle. To be honest, after the previous day, the ridge did not faze us. It was a cold, snowing day and resting more than a minute at a time was not a viable option. However, snow was preferable to wind, as parts of the razorback were narrow, with a steep tussock face on the left and an even steeper scree face on the right.

After the obligatory photo at the top, we made our way down the Fern Burn. This two-hour stretch of the trip – all of it along the side of the hill and on top of the previous day’s hill hugging – was surprisingly hard, especially on our feet.

Halfway back, we came across the partially-constructed Fern Burn Hut and three friendly builders. The hut will be a welcome addition to the track and I predict many people will enjoy walking up from the car park for a return overnight trip. The builders were clearly pleased to see some company that was not each other. They were helicoptered in for several days at a time and had not seen a soul in the first week. Clearly our night alone in the hut was not such a red herring.

From there, it was three hours back to the car park. We enjoyed a small stretch of benched track before entering the Stack Conservation Area. The beech forest is beautiful and, while there is a clear track, it is hairy, over tree roots and along soft banks.

The final half hour through the Stacks was a pleasure and the 40 minutes onflat grazing land alongside the Fern Burn provided a much-needed opportunity to free up the contracted muscles in our legs.

It was a good feeling to see the car park materialise around a corner. We happily kicked off our boots and rested under a watery sun for two uncommitted hours.

Any challenging tramp takes a few days to digest mentally, before rose-tinted glasses bring into focus the beautiful views and moments of awe, blurring the ugly climbs and snoring hut companions. However, my memories of the Motatapu are dominated by watching my footing across steep tussock faces in the pursuit of a mocking trail of orange poles. I suspect this is one tramp that, for me, may never enjoy the rose tint of time.