What it’s like to walk to Mt Fyffe Hut, Kaikoura

I’m not going to lie, this track is steep and at least for the first hour, its a little boring.  But sometimes you have to put in the work to get the goods, am I right?

The Mt Fyffe walk heads up a 4wd style track.  So its a mix of gravel and dirt, was a little muddy when we were there, but easy to navigate.  You won’t get lost on this trail, so if you are a beginner hiker in terms of navigation, you will be fine.

The first hour or so is a pretty hard slog.  We took a short morning tea break at some picnic tables an hour in and there was a nice little view here.  But another 10 or so minutes up the hill there is the official lookout.

I would show you the amazing view, but we had a cloud immersion layer, so all we could see where clouds.  However in the other direction there were some nice views over the mountain.

We climbed this in Winter (July), however the temperature was pretty mild.  There was a high of 8C, but the steepness of the trail meant we were all down to single layers as we climbed.  It was hot work.  If you hike to Mt Fyffe in Winter there can be snow, so keep this in mind.

After the lookout, either as muscles were more warmed up, or the trail was slightly less steep, but it did seem a little easier.  

The views over the Kaikoura mountain range was really nice along the way and you could see how high up you were, with views down to the river below.

There’s not much to note on the trail up.  You’ll note what looks like a tall mountain up ahead and wonder if you are going up to that, which you almost are.

We had lunch at a nicely placed bench, but found this was only about 20 minutes to the hut.  

All in all, my garmin clocked 2 hours and 50 minutes of walking, then add on a morning tea stop and a lunch stop.  I’d guess around 30-40 minutes in total.

How long did it take to hike down from Mt Fyffe Hut

It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to hike down to the carpark.  We didn’t have any stops along the way.  It was quite steep so if you did have hiking poles, I’d recommend that.  It’ll help the knees of adults.

There is also an alternate trail: Kowhai Saddle Track that makes this a bit of a loop track.  You can see this signposted just before the hut in the signpost at the clearing.