Child friendly rating: 3 stars (assuming you have 4WD)

Distance: 9km or 6km from rougher 4WD carpark.

Signposted time: 3 hours or 2 hours

Bookings Required? No

Suitable in Winter? Yes

Camping Available? Yes

4wd required? Yes. Otherwise it's not a child-friendly hike

Parking:

The main 4WD park for this hut is at Monument Hut. If you're a keen 4WD-er, you can make it to a 2nd 4WD carpark where the Huxley meets the Hopkins River. This cuts 3km of walking time off the track.

Getting to the 2nd carpark requires numerous crossings of branches of the Hopkins River, and it can be hard to know where the best spot to cross is if you're not following someone in the know. In early January in average flows, one of the crossings was up to my knees and relatively swift. Another crossing was up to mid, calf, but if you crossed a few meters too early, which is hard to know, it was up to my bum.

After the crossings, the 4WD track is easy and not technical at all, but the crossings are all at the start.

You could theoretically walk from the 2WD carpark to Monument Hut first, but this would make for a total of 18km each way so isn't exactly a child-friendly distance.

The Track:

The first section of the track is that from Monument Hut to the 2nd 4WD carpark at the confluence of the Huxley & Hopkins.

There is a foot track to the 2nd carpark, however it is rather rough. There are slips, though they do have tree roots to hold on to. There is also a lot of sinking mud (My 5 year old sunk up to his knees at one point). And there are other drop offs and waterfalls to cross under (Which are spectacular).

The better way though would be to just follow the 4WD track. It does mean you end up with wet boots & need to carry kids across, but the walking is much easier after the crossings and it's also much faster going.

After the 2nd 4WD track, you need to join onto the track. It climbs up and over a saddle, and then drops down to a swingbridge over the Huxley River.

Once you've crossed, follow the track down to the riverbed, and after a small river crossing, it's easy grassy flats travel for the next couple of kilometres.

After this, you need to head up the track as there's no other option without crossing the river. Crossing the river is an option, and we saw DOC staff doing this instead of following the track (Ironic they'd rather go through the river than follow their own track). But at regular flows, the river was thigh deep on an adult, and not what I felt comfortable crossing with small children in tow - just follow the track.

The track section here is only about 600m, but it is a rough 600m and took us probably half an hour if not more to cross this section alone. There are overgrown parts, slips, steep up and downs, and it is just generally a hard track. Then there is some more riverbed travel, and then another section of following the track up and over a hill.

When you come out into the clearing, the track goes up and down through creeks, but it's not long and you can see the hut! It's still around 2km away when you spot it, but seeing it is a great motivator for that last section. You will likely get wet boots on the creeks you need to cross here, if you didn't already when walking the 4WD section. There is also a short section through matagouri which kids will not enjoy too much as it's spikey. You'll probably have to carry the younger ones through as they are hard to avoid and you do basically just need to push through.

On the last section of track, don't follow the track into the bushes. These are mostly old washed out tracks and some end abruptly. Just follow along the Huxley River.

There are also a couple of other points where you have the option of taking the 'high water' route. These are very steep up and over tracks and I wouldn't recommend unless the water level was so high that you couldn't go the normal way, which should only happen in a decent flood.

You do need to remember which way you came though and have semi decent navigational skills on this track as it is not always marked intuitively.

With a 5 & 9 year old walking the whole way and a 1 year old being carried, the first section between the two 4WD carparks took us 1.5 hours on the walking track vs 1 hour on the 4WD track. The next section took us 3hrs15min there, and 3hrs15min back also.

Hut:

There are actually two huts at this location. The main, larger, Huxley Forks Hut, and the smaller Officers Hut. Both are very modern and clean inside, and the two huts is fantastic for showing up with small kids. You can take the little hut and let the other hut users have the other hut without needing to worry whether your kids will wake them up in the night. The smaller hut is only 3-bunk, but small children can share, and you can fit an extra on the floor if need be. We fitted our family of 5 on the 3 beds with one adult sharing with one of the younger two kids each.

The larger hut is 8-bunk with platform beds.

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