Pushed to her Limits on the Hump Ridge Track and Slow, Mindful Travel with Helen Griffiths

Helen and I have been Instagram friends for a long time, following each other's adventures. So when I saw she was back in Aotearoa for a little visit, it was the perfect time for a proper chat.

Helen is a photographer, originally from the UK, and a big advocate of slow and sustainable travel. She lived in New Zealand from 2019 to 2022, then moved back to the UK. And when we recorded, she was back for a little bit, because she can't get it out of her system.

She described the Hump Ridge Track to me as some of the most incredible and horrible moments of her life, so we walk it day by day: the huts, the blisters that broke her, and the friends (and one very kind woman at the hut) who got her through. Helen's body hates an incline and I hike at the pace of a snail, so I felt this one. Then we get into slow travel, and how she fits it around work.

In this episode

• How Helen fell for the outdoors
• Moving to Christchurch on a working holiday
• Favourite trips, from the West Coast to Aoraki
• Booking the Hump Ridge Track
• Hump Ridge Track day one
• Hump Ridge Track day two
• Hump Ridge Track day three
• Taking the Hump Ridge Track slower
• Slow, mindful travel
• Hump Ridge huts and getting to the track

How Helen fell for the outdoors

Helen has always loved the outdoors, especially the ocean. On family holidays she'd bodyboard, learn to surf or kayak as much as possible. There were holidays in the Lake District too, a really beautiful, mountainous area of northern England, and she has distinct memories of complaining all the way up those mountains, cold and tired. Looking back, she didn't know how good she had it.

She was into nature and wildlife as well. For a while she wanted to be a marine biologist, and the original Blue Planet series by David Attenborough was her favourite thing to watch (a nerdy phase, she says).

In her early 20s, at Cardiff University, she started taking herself out on hikes around Wales and the Brecon Beacons. A lot of that was down to Instagram: she'd see people going to certain places and realise she could go and do that too. So she'd look up how, and drive herself off to the mountains in her little car.

When she first moved to Christchurch, it reminded her of living in Cardiff, close to the mountains and the ocean, except everything was bigger and better in Aotearoa. With so much amazing access to the outdoors here, her love for getting outside grew and grew.

Moving to Christchurch on a working holiday

Helen's first time in New Zealand was on a working holiday. She came out because her partner got work here, and they stayed and stayed because they loved it so much. COVID was devastating in so many ways, and she feels guilty even saying it, but she was lucky: her visa kept getting extended, and she was here on it for nearly three years.

She loved New Zealand straight away. There's so little developed land, a real contrast to the UK, where it's cities everywhere. She remembers being a bit overwhelmed, in the best way.

She spent her first few weeks walking around Christchurch, a flat, beautiful city to explore, with Hagley Park right in the middle and Sumner close to the centre. Coming from the UK, she found it an easy city to feel at home in: there's a lot of Britishness about it, and it's really got its own personality.

Instagram kept inspiring her here. She still has saved folders of places she wants to visit, and following Aotearoa-based creatives was a really good way to find places a bit more off the beaten track.

Favourite trips, from the West Coast to Aoraki

Any time on the West Coast is always memorable for Helen: the scenery is like nothing else she's seen. Aoraki Mount Cook National Park is always beautiful too, and one walk on the Hooker Valley Track stands out, with snow at ground level and the lake at the end all frozen over. It was really magical.

Her most memorable experience of all was the Hump Ridge Track, which she walked with friends before it became a Great Walk. It was epic and incredible, with so many highs and lows.

Helen has never been a natural hiker. On the flat she's fine. As soon as there's an incline, her body hates it and refuses to do what she wants it to do.

I'm with her on that. My husband has me set the pace on our hikes because I'm slower, and my pace is like a snail's. Then in March I did the summit challenge, with a goal of 5,300 vertical metres, as high as Everest base camp. Having that goal turned my perception of hills on its head, and for the first time ever, I was excited to go uphill. But since finishing the challenge, I've been back on hikes, and I don't love hills anymore.

Booking the Hump Ridge Track

The Hump Ridge Track is community owned, and when we recorded, you booked it through its own separate website. Helen found it really simple to book.

The track starts near the town of Tuatapere in Southland. At times you're on a long ridgeline, with a view of Southland on one side and Fiordland on the other, and it's really quite magical.

The whole track is 60 kilometres, and most people do it in three 20-kilometre days. Those are huge days, and Helen struggled with that. Their friends smashed it out, no problem. Her advice: you do need quite a decent level of fitness.

Hump Ridge Track day one

Day one is flat for quite a long time, skirting the edge of a beautiful beach. Then you hit the incline, and it goes on and on and on, straight up through beautiful bush to the hut.

The hut is really beautiful, and once you reach it, it all feels worth it. You get amazing views back down over everywhere you've walked, and behind you is the actual Hump Ridge the track is named after.

Helen had taken a tripod, with really high ambitions of astrophotography. A friend carried it the whole way, and she didn't use it once: by the time they got to the lodge, she crashed out. There's a side trip from the lodge called the Okaka loop, up to the Hump Ridge, but they were all done for the day.

I'm always tossing up side trips like that. On Waikaremoana, a few people told me the waterfall side track was the highlight, and I didn't want to add it on. We've got plans to kayak to that section and do the little walk, which justifies me not going in.

Hump Ridge Track day two

Day two is the one that broke Helen. It's a beautiful, beautiful hike, so she wouldn't want to put anyone off. The trouble was mostly some really bad hiking boots she'd bought in a sale. They tore her feet to pieces: the worst blisters she's ever had, and by day two, pain with every single step. She says she was not fun to be around.

Luncheon Rock and the old railway line

You start along a bit of a boardwalk, with views of Southland and Fiordland at times. A few hours in, you reach Luncheon Rock, or Te Tahi, a huge rocky outcrop with more incredible views and a few facilities. They ate lunch on the rock, watching the rain clouds get closer and closer, and could see it was going to rain for the rest of the day.

From there you slowly head downhill, but it's very undulating, up and down and down and up, until you eventually get down to a level.

The rest of the day runs along viaducts, looking down over the tops of the tree ferns, and for the last few hours you follow an old, disused railway line. That stretch broke Helen a bit too. Even with the beautiful scenery, it was straight for a long time, with bush on either side and nothing to focus on other than her blisters.

I got blisters on day one of the Milford Track, after doing something funny with my insoles, and walked day two in sandals. Boots are so personal, because everybody's feet are different, it makes such a big difference having the right shoes and it's still important to try them out before you hike.

The friends who kept her going

Their friends, much more experienced hikers, tried really hard to keep Helen's morale up. Towards the end of the day, one of the faster ones, who'd gone on ahead to the hut, came running back down the track with cereal bars he'd been given there (they still joke about it). Sustenance! He lightheartedly chattered away to them for the rest of the day, and her partner stayed at her slow pace the whole way.

At the time, she was so tired she was nodding along. Looking back, it was so kind, and she's grateful everyone rallied together. On smaller hikes with less experienced people, she hopes she can be that person in return. The way she sees it:

"you really do become a little family … when you're out on a multi-day hike with people. … you've just got to be each other's support systems."

I've never had an experience where people don't come around you and support you however they can. Out in the middle of nowhere, you're all in it together, and you quite literally share the load.

The beach below the hut

At the hut at the end of day two, Helen sat on the floor and had a really good cry, and got it all out.

In the communal area, a woman who was part of the local iwi, and knew the land so well, told her to go down to the moana and heal: put her feet in the sea and look at the scenery. There's a beautiful beach a short walk from the hut, so that's what they did.

Down at the beach, Helen put her blistered feet in the salt water, and she screamed and screamed. There were sandflies everywhere, the thickest cloud she's ever seen. It was her lowest moment.

At the same time, as Helen remembers it:

"it was probably the most beautiful beach I've ever seen in my life. … just offshore, there was this pod of dolphins jumping in the waves. And I didn't know how to reconcile this incredible scene … with how I was feeling."

Hump Ridge Track day three

Day three should have been even harder. Somehow, Helen got through it.

Back at the lodge after the beach, so low and so broken, she asked if any helicopters were flying out. Sometimes you can fly out from the last hut, and it's not a cheap way to do it. They'd set off on Boxing Day, though, and a couple of days after Christmas, no one was flying. They had to get back somehow.

The same woman who'd sent her down to the water helped her bandage up her feet really well. Helen credits her with getting her through that last day, and calls her an angel.

The track is a loop, so the last stretch runs back along the beach you started on, a really beautiful, long, golden sandy beach. Driving on it normally isn't allowed. Two of their friends got up super early, smashed out the rest of the hike and got permission from the local iwi to bring the car along the beach for the last stint, because a friend was really struggling. It cut the end off the hike, and Helen is still counting it.

You can absolutely count it. When you need support, you need support.

One friend had walked the whole hike in Tevas, with no issues at all, and the whole group had been so jealous, because they looked so comfortable and lightweight. Back in Queenstown the next day, they all bought Tevas.

I've had my own pair since borrowing a friend's on the Milford, and they are so good.

Taking the Hump Ridge Track slower

I love the idea of a rest day. A few summers ago at Lake Angelus, in the Nelson Lakes area, two women had walked in and spent two nights at the hut. Tramping is already a very slow pace, and I loved the idea of slowing down even more to spend time in those beautiful places.

Helen likes that idea too, especially at the first hut: an extra day to chill out, read, look at the scenery, enjoy being offline and do a little mini hike up to the top of the Hump Ridge on the loop track.

Slow, mindful travel

What slow travel means to Helen

The easiest definition of slow travel is travelling very slowly. Helen thinks you can bring its ethos into how you travel even when you're not staying somewhere for weeks or months. She puts it like this:

"For me, it's really about just being mindful of your impact when you travel and … doing everything that you do with intention, thinking about how it's going to affect the community or the landscape of where you're going."

That can look like:

• Supporting local businesses when you travel.
• Immersing yourself deeply in the culture, learning the history, what makes the people who they are and why the landscape is the way it is.
• Taking public transport, which isn't so easy in Aotearoa. Around Europe, Helen likes to take the train when she can: it can be a little more expensive, and it's a really beautiful way of travelling.

She reckons going slow is when you find the real hidden gems. If you're only ticking off the main tourist destinations, you miss out a bit on some of the juicier places.

Moving slowly is really important to me too. One of my favourite road trips was at the top of the South Island, around Tākaka, Golden Bay and Marlborough, slowing down to explore all the little things in that one region. It's a personality thing, too: a few days in one place might be someone's worst nightmare.

Fitting travel around work

Fitting travel around work is something Helen is constantly renegotiating. When she lived here last, she was a freelance photographer and videographer, then took a full-time job when things got tricky around COVID. Nature is so accessible here that there's beautiful scenery on your doorstep: an hour's drive out of Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland, and in Queenstown, you don't even need to drive.

Back in the UK, she spent two years with a really awesome company centred on slow travel and getting out into nature. Based in busy Bristol, she really struggled to make time for nature, even though it's such a core part of her identity, and it got to her.

Over the last few years, Helen has also struggled with her health. It turned out she had long COVID and chronic fatigue, which she's still recovering from. Since being back in New Zealand and getting out into nature, she's noticed some real differences in her health.

She's getting back into freelancing now, which she sees as the most sustainable thing for her long term, for her health and her wellbeing. She feels very lucky to be able to make that choice, and knows not everyone can. For Helen, a regular nine to five is a one-way ticket to burnout, and she's tried so many times to fit herself into that box. It's been a real journey of learning what works for her body and her mind.

Hump Ridge huts and getting to the track

A listener asked about the huts, and getting to and from the track.

The huts are privately owned, so Helen remembers them as really good quality, a little bit fancier and more comfortable than DOC huts (and her own experience of DOC huts has been really great). The Hump Ridge huts have a bit of a reputation for being a little bit bougier, and there's a little food shop where you can buy tins, snacks and things.

Getting there is super simple. Helen's group drove down from Queenstown, and the car park where the track starts and ends isn't far out of Tuatapere. It's a loop, so you don't have to worry about getting back to your car.

Places from this episode

• Hump Ridge Track
• Tuatapere
• Southland
• Fiordland
• Okaka loop
• Luncheon Rock (Te Tahi)
• Queenstown
• Christchurch
• Hagley Park
• Sumner
• West Coast
• Aoraki Mount Cook National Park
• Hooker Valley Track
• Milford Track
• Waikaremoana
• Lake Angelus, Nelson Lakes
• Tākaka
• Golden Bay
• Marlborough
• Abel Tasman
• Lake District
• Brecon Beacons

Follow Helen

• Instagram: @_helengriffiths
• Substack: wildlyandslow, where she shares slow travel diaries, thoughts on creative living and a little about her health journey

More like this

• Slow Travel in an EV and Catlins, Dunedin and Oamaru with Mature Flâneur Tim Ward
• Finding Freedom in Slow Travel and Bikepacking with Nicole Koch
• Hiking the Kepler Track in Fiordland with Dua
• Summer as a DOC Ranger on Stewart Island and Women in Trades with Brooke Thompson

Until then, keep adventuring :)