Distance: 18.3 km (6.5 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 457m to 664m. Gain: 605m. Loss: 398m . Gradient: 3 deg (Gentle)
Skills: - Occasional rivers (3/6)

Tramping track (4/9)
Cut, marked tramping track: natural, rough ground surface

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Gentle (difficulty: 2/5)
Gentle slopes

Easy-moderate (difficulty: 2/5)
Tussock / river-gravel / open bush / cut track

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

Occasional rivers (difficulty: 3/6)
Occasional rivers - impassible after heavy rain

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

The D'Urville Valley is reasonably easy travel. From the D'Urville hut the track passes through very long grass, which on a wet morning will get you very wet. There is little elevation gain to the George Lyon Hut, making it a reasonably easy valley walk on a marked track. The track is boggy in places, and the D'Urville River and some side streams had changed course recently after heavy rain, necessitating some crossings we did not expect. On the whole travel was fast, alternating between track in beech and scrub, and in the open. Even over the Christmas-New Year period this valley was no where near as busy as the Sabine Valley, where at the West Sabine hut we even had difficulty finding a suitable campsite.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

No description