Qualla: Hollyford Track

Hollyford Track: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarang, Public domain. Trampers call the stretch along Lake McKerrow the Demon Trail, and they are not being dramatic. The 56 km Hollyford Track runs from the mountains to the sea through northern Fiordland, and for most of its length it is gentle - flat valley floor, lowland forest, the Hollyford River as a steady companion. But the two-to-three-day section beside Lake McKerrow changes character entirely. The lake is actually a former fiord, sealed off from the Tasman Sea by centuries of accumulated sediment, and the track along its shore is an obstacle course of tree roots, side streams, and mud that earns its reputation in the wet. The name is a warning. It is also, for many walkers, the section they remember most vividly.

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Image: Sarang | Public domain

Hollyford Track: A Ghost Town at the River's Mouth

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarang, Public domain. At the track's northern end, where the Hollyford River meets the Tasman Sea at Martins Bay, there is almost nothing left of Jamestown. In the 1860s, the Otago Provincial Council saw a future port here - a gateway to the riches of the interior. A settlement was surveyed, houses bu...

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Image: Sarang | Public domain

Hollyford Track: Gunn's Legacy

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. Davy Gunn's son Murray carried on his father's work, eventually establishing Gunn's Camp near the track's southern end, about 10 km from the Milford Sound-Te Anau highway. The camp - part rest stop, part small museum - still stands, a remnant of the family that made this valley t...

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Image: BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hollyford Track: Between the Mountains and the Tide

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FearTec at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. What sets the Hollyford apart from Fiordland's other major tracks is altitude - or rather, the lack of it. While the Milford Track climbs to McKinnon Pass at 1,069 metres and the Routeburn reaches the Harris Saddle at 1,255 metres, the Hollyford stays in the valley. The track fol...

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Image: FearTec at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Hollyford Track: The Road That Never Was

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since the 1870s, proposals have surfaced periodically to build a road through the Hollyford Valley linking Haast to the Milford Sound road. Each time, the idea generates fierce opposition. Forest and Bird, New Zealand's largest conservation organization, called the proposal the "...

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Image: Krzysztof Golik | CC BY-SA 4.0