Adventurous Overnight Camp with my Dog Exploring a Hidden Musterers Hut and an Alpine Lake

Hi everyone, Indy and I are here in the Ahuriri Valley and we have got four nights in this beautiful place. Over the next four videos I'm going to be showcasing some of the amazing things that you can do in the Ahuriri Valley. The first night, which is this video, we are heading up to an old musterers hut high up in the mountains and staying the night sleeping alongside a mountain tarn. The walk up to Hideaway Hut is not an official track so there's no specific track to follow, you just need to navigate your way there using landmarks. The instructions that I have read say to cross the Ahuriri River and to head towards an old fishing cottage. Doesn't look all that homely. I'm always on the lookout for cool little hideouts, little huts or partial shelters, something quirky where I can stay and that is not one of them. A bit derelict for me. We must be getting close now. My plan is going to be to set up camp as soon as I get to the tarn because the sun is so bright and so hot. Even though it's 5 30 pm I am baking so I'll get the tent set up, make a brew, cup of tea, a couple of shortbread biscuits a bit of sustenance and then I'll leave most of my gear, just take some safety gear with me and we'll do the one hour round trip up to the hut with a light pack. It's even more beautiful than I was imagining. Look at how clear this water is. It'd be so fun to be able to camp on one of these little islands but they're too soggy. Hi Andy. Are you swimming? Are you swimming? Oh look at you. It's not a ball darling. She's trying to find a ball or a pine cone or something. It's a rock. Oh you're so cute. Right I need to cross over somehow and find somewhere dry to camp. Just testing it out, making sure we're not going to slide down the hill. We're here to scope out the tent. Are you going to go and have a look inside? Are you inside? Hi there. It's not even raining and you want to go in the tent. Should we take this off though? Where's the other side? Do you know what? It's not my dinner time but I think it might be yours. Oh don't drool on there. No off off off. Oh oh oh. Dog drool. Yes hello there. Careful. Come around. Did you want to go in the tent or just lie down? Hello baby. I'm trying to remember if I brought a treat with you with me for you. Oh I'll tell you what. If I did bring one it will surface at some point and if not it'll be packed in one of the other bags for the other nights that we're going out. Packing for a four-night trip when you're doing something different, completely different every night, it's really challenging. Man it was a military operation laying everything out in the garage. I think it's going to be a one hour round trip to get up to the hut and we have just over an hour before sunset. I think we'll also lose the sun earlier because it'll go behind the mountains. I need to drink my tea and then get going. I might even take it with me. First aid kit, personal locator beacon, phone with satellite communication, a couple of warm jackets. Having a plastic pack line is also really useful because if you end up getting stuck out somewhere you can always hop partially into that. So I would put my legs into my pack and then the bag, cut it or make holes and get inside it to keep dry and keep the wind off me. I'm not suggesting it's like the way that you'd want to spend the night but if you had to. There are supposed to be trout in here and I just saw a huge fish. Try and get in the shade. Lovely big trout. Beautiful. Let's see if we can walk along the edge here. Just gorgeous. Oh is it spiky pup? All right that's Mataguri. Okay let's not walk along the edge. So quiet. The only thing I can hear is my heartbeat and my ears. The sound of the river in the distance. I can't imagine where this hut could be because it looks like it drops off down into a gorge but it is called Hideaway Hut so I'm guessing it's hidden away somewhere here. Oh foggy. Wish me luck. I just have to show you how beautiful it is behind me. I love this time of the evening. The light is so much less harsh. Just get all these beautiful gentle blues and pretty soon probably pinks. I think I see the bog. The outhouse. Oh how cute. It really is hidden away isn't it? Not even sure how to get there. Maybe this way. Maybe this way. I wonder if there's anyone staying there. I doubt it because the only two cars that were in the car park at the end of the easement that takes you through the public land to get onto this conservation land were two parties of people fishing so it's unlikely that there's anyone here but we'll go and see. Right oh that's refreshing. Oh my goodness yes the paddock. Fantastic. I'm quite particular about my horse. I don't like it to hang out in places where there's sharp things but I think if you brought some standards and some tape you could tape off a smaller area in here and bring your horse. One thing that you probably don't know about me I alluded to it once but I have a horse. I love her. She's so cool. I would absolutely love to come on a horse trek and one day I'm going to do that. It's been a dream of mine since I was very little. Every single hike my parents would take me on I would just dream. Imagine if I had a horse. I think it was because I didn't want to do the effort of walking and I thought imagine a horse. I could just like trot on the horse and just basically sit there and do nothing which it turns out is uh not what riding a horse is about but one day I'm going to go on a horse trek. Mark my words I will. It's ominous. Some of you some of you might be wondering why I didn't just come and camp here and I think you're about to find out why. Oh it's so cute. I see a lot of mice traps but it's cute. I'll show you. That's never a good sign although there's no mouse in it. If there's mice in here Indy will let me know. Just look at this. It's very dark. Oh that's so cute. Gosh I feel like I have to come and stay here sometime. That is so cute. Look at all this. So cool. That's actually really kind of somebody to put that there because there's not a lot of wood around this area. If you look around you've really only got these spiky uh are they hebes maybe in the Mataguri. So not an easy place to have a fire. Super cute. I brought my big Sony camera and my tripod in my pack so I thought I might do some filming up here but we are quickly losing the light and I think it would be wise to get back to camp before it gets dark. So goodbye hideaway biv. Super super cute. I kind of wish I was staying there but we have such a beautiful spot and yeah I might come back here another time. Not for the faint-hearted. I think you have to be okay with sharing your space with a few raindrops if it rains and mice probably but if you're into fun quirky quaint full of personality places then hideaway biv is the spot for you. Do you want to go in the tent? The sun has gone down. It is bedtime this is Andy. My boots are quite soggy. Nice to have my wet soggy boots off. Get some trousers on. Oh how weird. There's people up there. I don't know. It's the moon. It's so bizarre when you are all alone in the mountains and then you suddenly see a white light at the top of a hill like it takes you by surprise because you're just thinking what on earth is that and I literally thought it was the headlights of a car cresting over the top of the hill because there is a very very rudimentary four-wheel drive track that I picked up just before I arrived here and I can see that it carries on up the hill. Turns out it was the moon. We have a beautiful big full moon tonight. It's gonna be so light. I love that when I'm camping. There's almost no clouds in the sky. I love getting cozy. My warm clothes. My beautiful woolen socks. So good. I have stolen Andy's mat so I have let her steal mine. Softie over here likes to be comfortable. Let me move so you can see her. What I need to do is put the cover, the rain cover, over my pack because I didn't bring a rain tarp because it's not going to rain. With certainty it's not going to rain but everything will get dewy. Don't we need Andy? Obviously as you can see I only brought the one person tent and that's because I think it's going to be warm enough tonight for Andy and I to sleep under one duvet. Under one sleeping bag that I've unzipped so it's kind of like a quilt or a duvet. So I've got a really good quality sleeping bag liner. I'll be inside the sleeping bag liner and then her and I will have the sleeping bag over both of us. And what I lose in having a dog hogging my sleeping bag I will gain from her body heat so it should work out well. I guess it's red wine time. Isn't it Andy? Is it red wine time? You won't like this. Hello. It is, oh wow, it's actually quite warm. It's seven degrees celsius obviously. Otherwise I'd be freezing. Seven degrees, that's not bad. Positively balmy. Cheers everyone. Now the only thing is that's the only cup I bought. I did not bring anything else except that pot so I'm going to need to finish my wine before I can cook my dinner. That was an oversight. Or Andy, I could drink it out of a drink bottle, a children's drink bottle. Needs must people, needs must. I'm not putting the spout back on though. Okay cheers. Still tastes good. I'll move my cooker down here into this little dip. I've got a bit of grass around here. I don't want that to catch on but this will be nice and protected from the wind. There's not a lot of wind tonight which is why I chose this particular trip for tonight. It's going to be a really still night which is fantastic but all the same it doesn't take much for the heat to be zapped from your stove. Here I was saying that it's probably going to be quite warm. The truth is when you're in the mountains and you've got clear skies, it tends to get quite cold. All the warmth from the land that's accumulated over the day just I guess just dissipates really quickly when there's no cloud cover. So I'm actually feeling quite chilly. I want to show you the moon but every time I turn the camera around and try and work out how to film the moon so that you can actually see it and it looks decent, I fail. So you just have to imagine that I'm gazing up at the most beautiful full moon. There's just enough light in the sky that I can see the difference between the mountains and the sky. Just that ever so subtle sort of blue like the difference between black and navy and the stars are out. Good morning, such a beautiful morning. Last night was one of the most still nights I've ever had in the mountains. Not a breath of wind. I'm just watching the ripples on the lake. The wind is just starting to pick up and I think a little breeze is going to come through. In about five or ten minutes. It's a quick breakfast and coffee and then I need to get packed up and start heading back. Oh cold wet boots. They'll warm up quick enough. Just got the tent to go in now and the camera and then we'll be on our way. Don't go anywhere though because I'm going to show you Indy crossing the river when we get back to that spot and it'll give you an idea of how high the river is when it hasn't been raining for a while at the end of summer. If you're planning on coming up here be really cautious around that river. Do check out what the flow is. I will go online and see what it was for today and see if I can put that up on the screen so you've got a bit of an idea. But thanks everyone. Thanks for coming along with us. Hope you enjoyed it. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video and if I didn't mention it because I never know quite how I'll edit it. I am on or Indy and I are on a four-day journey. We're in the Ahuriri Valley for four nights and when I get back to the car I am going to reorganize everything and get my pack ready for a trip up to a place called Canyon Creek Biv. It's a rock biv. Indy and I are going to be staying the night up in the rock biv hopefully as long as there's no one else there before us because we will be getting on the track quite late. Wish us luck but make sure you tune in for the next adventure because that is going to be so fun. I have always wanted to stay in a rock bivy. Thank you so much to our supporters. You guys mean the world to us and it really matters especially at the moment with the price of fuel. Obviously the reason I've come down and I'm doing four trips in the same place is because it's so pricey to get places now. I know you understand it affects all of us so I really really appreciate your support. The little financial contributions make a real difference. Thank you to my Buy Me A Coffee members, my YouTube members, YouTube Super Thanks donors and my Buy Me A Coffee donors. Thank you to each and every one of you guys who's watched this video right through to the end. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much and see you on the next trip. Just look at that happy dog. So much freedom. Living her best life and she doesn't know this is only day two of what will end up in five days. I hope she's got the stamina. I hope I have the stamina. Should we cross? Quick drink eh? Let's go. We'll go this way. She's going to end up further down. You okay? Come this way. Come this way. We're crossing over. I'll meet you further down. She's a bit worried because she can tell who's going to get swept down. Very shallow here. Come further up. Yeah good girl. Easy. Frisk. Frisk and beautiful. So that was just up to my knee. Not bad at all. I think actually even better than when I crossed yesterday. Lovely. All right you guys. The car is just there. We have a whole lot of organizing and packing to do for night two. Have a lovely week. See you soon. Bye. Good girl.