For some reason I never got around to posting about a walk around the East Harbour Lakes Block back in July 2009, so this report will be more photos and less report. The future mother in law was paying a visit, which was reason enough (as everyone involved agreed) for me to escape and do something else. Back in January 2009 I’d been for a walk out to one of the lakes shortly after hopping off a plane, and I thought I might go and do it properly.

Date: 27th July, 2009
Location: East Harbour Regional Park.
People: Just me.
Route: Walk along the coast to Pencarrow Head, walk clock-wise around both lakes, then back along the coast to the car-park.
[Photos]

Pencarrow Head, with the older
lighthouse in the top left.

The only down side of the East Harbour Lakes Block is that there’s a good 90 minutes of walking along a long, flat, coastal road on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour, almost to the Pencarrow Head Lighthouses. There have been two lighthouses since 1906, when a second was built lower to the ground after it was noticed that the original 1858 lighthouse would sometimes be obscured by fog. Due to the long hard road, it’s probably nicer in some ways on a mountain bike than walking, or the getting there at least. Once actually to the lighthouse, the ground gets softer and the terrain more diverse, and the walking’s fascinating. Many people stop at the lighthouses, however, and make it a walk to the lighthouses and back. If you’re up early, though, there’s a wonderful walk around the Parangarahu Lakes Area of East Harbour Regional Park.

Wetlands at the northern end
of Lake Kopangapiripiri.

Lake Kopangapiripiri on the western side, and Lake Kohangatera on the eastern side, are both low to sea level but lakes in their own right. They’re the main features of one of the few remaining wetlands left in New Zealand that’s still quite accessible. There’s a lot of bird and insect life evident all around.

Looking up Gollans Stream, the wetland
that flows into the top of Lake Kohangatera.

The area’s well tracked, and in some places this is necessary due to the swampy regions where it’s necessary to cross. For most of the time I was thinking it’d been pointless to’ve had gaiters, but I finally appreciated them for short stints on the eastern side of lake Kohangatera, where it became fairly muddy in places. To get around both lakes at a casual to reasonable pace, it took me about 3.5 hours, though not including the 1.5 hour walk along the coast on either end.

The southern end of Lake Kopangapiripiri.

A south island alpine back-drop.

The lower lighthouse, built on the rocks in 1906 when the old lighthouse at a higher altitude was sometimes obscured by fog.

The Inter-Island Ferry passes in front of Barret Reef, exiting Wellington Harbour.

More photos are here.

Today I went for a walk with Shaun around Belmont Regional Park, starting at Korokoro and up to Belmont Trig, then over to Cannons’ Head and back through the valley. I’d taken annual leave from work, and it was a really nice day for it. More photos are over here.

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Shaun’s temporarily here from New York, to where he migrated (from Wellington) about 7 years ago, but it’s really cool that he’s come over. He did most of the work for organising a bachelor party last weekend, and I was able to drag some people along part of the Skyline Walkway. Everyone kept up.

All this walking around, of course, was an ulterior motive to make it on topic for me to write that I’ll have a few other things on my mind over the next few weeks, and probably won’t get out walking or tramping much during that time unless things are hideously wrong. Not that this is a problem as far as I’m concerned.

The story was first penned in The Manawatu Standard, and it’s since been picked up by Morning Report on National Radio (streaming available in your choice of [Windows Media Player], [MP3] or [Ogg Vorbis] depending on your preference).

I don’t know what the errors are, and perhaps they’re especially bad. On the other hand, I wonder if the fact that the Topo50 series maps have errors means that they’re any worse than the 260 series. It’s hard to tell for sure without more information. It’s in everyone’s interests to have maps that are correct, but it’s common for NZ topo maps to have errors here and there, and sometimes it’s just necessary to accept this. The only way to really be sure about a region, short of asking someone trustworthy or going out with them, is to be prepared for anything, look at the landscape, be in a frame of mind to change plans if necessary and then learn about an area from experience.

I vaguely remember something from a while back (but can’t find a reference) in preparing Topo50, whereby LINZ was convinced to include older tracks and emergency routes that had been removed from some of the more recent 260 series maps. Prior to that there had been discussions about removing even more tracks from the map, but there was an outcry to the best of my recollection. We discussed this in our tramping triangle at work today, and someone suggested that perhaps the false or missing tracks are old tracks that were shown on older maps of the region, and have since been put back in the new Topo50 series.

The strength of topo maps (at least in New Zealand) has never really been about tracks, it’s terrain and topography. Keeping track of tracks and routes is a difficult thing to do, because they’re often difficult to see from the air, especially under trees. They change frequently, often without any official influence. People will sometimes go out expecting to find a good track or poled route based on a map, and find something quite different, but this isn’t something unusual with earlier maps and I’m not sure why it should be different with Topo50 maps. If you happen to go out expecting to find a track, but there isn’t a track, then clearly the map’s wrong. All it does it change the rules a little. it may make sense to continue depending on things like circumstances, experience, conditions and knowledge of the rest of the environment. If you happen to be not terribly confident with continuing, though, the obvious thing to do is something different. In other words, do what it takes to get back into whatever your comfort zone happens to be.

This may mean returning to where there was a track, and going back the way you came to return another day, or stopping and finding a safe place to camp for the night (unless you’re a victim of The Hut Fallacy) to consider things properly with a clear head in the morning. I guess this whole philosophy implies some kind of good judgement, which isn’t always present and not because people are irresponsible. Sometimes people just have bad days, or groups make strange decisions that individuals might never make alone. I don’t know exactly what to do about this because there have forever been people getting into trouble for these reasons and most likely there will be in the future, irrespective of improvements to track details on maps.

Some good news with the switch to Topo50 is that changes and updates are likely to get into the mapping system much more rapidly. With its overhaul of mapping systems, LINZ also completely changed the way it publishes maps. Pre-processing is now all done in-house, such that LINZ can now run off a new map edition soon after updating their system. It won’t take existing maps with errors off the shelves, but it could mean that new orders from retailers sent to replace them have corrections. Previously, new editions only came out every decade or so, and each map had to be manually re-plotted and carefully examined (which is why some maps had inconsistent shadings), and was probably pre-printed in large numbers.

Hopefully the ability to correct maps more quickly will also lead to more people submitting corrections. There are enough people out tramping with good GPS devices these days that getting accurate positions of the tracks is becoming much easier, as long as you can trust the person providing the data, and trusting the data may be the most difficult part. For instance, I’m now trying to digitally track every time I go out for a walk, but just because my GPS has been somewhere doesn’t mean it’s a track. My GPS stops and starts, it takes short-cuts, it ventures off-track to look at interesting things, and sometimes it just leaves the track completely because there is no formed track to wherever my GPS wants to go. When I return, I don’t always have a reliable memory of exactly when I was and wasn’t on a track, or the standard of that track, but then that’s not my main motivation for digitally recording where I’ve been. I guess time will tell.

fallacy [fal-uh-see]. 1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy.. 2. a misleading or unsound argument. 3. deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness. 4. Logic. any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.

The Hut Fallacy. 1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion or belief prevalent in New Zealand outdoor circles that the objective of reaching back-country huts can reliably replace additional measures of safety. 2. a presumption that plans work, judgement is always perfect and/or that accidents only happen to other people.

I hope nobody minds me defining this term, at the very least for my own purposes. Despite this kind of thing happening often, I don’t know of a quick and easy term to describe it. I think The Hut Fallacy is something that pops up often in New Zealand’s back-country.

Huts have existed in the New Zealand back-country for as long as people have had reason to use them, but the first dedicated tramping huts were only built aroun the 1920s, and from the beginning they were built with safety in mind. One of the early and well documented efforts was in the Tararuas, where a group of advocates including people such as Willie Field and Frank Penn, convinced New Zealand’s fledgling Tourist Department to sponsor the development of what eventually became the Tararua Southern Crossing route. Track cutting was only part of the work, as it was eventually decided that huts were necessary for the safety of tourists on the route*.

This was all happening at about the same time as the very young Tararua Tramping Club organised its first official club attempt to cross the range, in January 1922. By today’s standards and thanks to the lack of a century of experience now available, the group was woefully under-prepared by today’s standards. They had limited clothing and shelter, coordination and planning was loose, and many safety technologies available today hadn’t yet been invented, including waterproof clothing. A tragic consequence was that one member of the party, Harold Freeman, died of hypothermia in the exposed vicinity of Alpha Peak. For many of those involved, in a context where people were still discovering how to visit the outdoors with very little experience or peers from whom to learn, the disaster would have been the first realisation that tramping in New Zealand mountains had potential to be far more dangerous than a simple walk through the park.

One of several direct consequences of this event was for the Tararua Tramping Club to build a new emergency shelter in the vicinity of Hector, which came to be known as the Hector Dogbox. In June 1922, however, before it was even completed, another tramper – Esmond James Kime** – was caught in a southerly storm. Despite surviving 5 nights in wet clothes in the snow, he was discovered and taken to Alpha Hut in reasonable and responsive condition, only to abruptly die within an hour of arriving, probably due to the brandy he was given in an effort to help. The Hector Dogbox blew away before the end of the 1920s, and was soon replaced by Kime Memorial Hut, which then became a popular tourist destination for skiers until access to Ruapehu improved.***

New Zealand’s back-country now has roughly 1,000 huts (the exact number depends on who you ask) of a variety of origins from dedicated tramping huts, hunting huts and what began as private batches. With few exceptions, they’re typically open entry for use by anyone on the condition of paying for inexpensive hut tickets or an annual pass. A few huts, notably those on tourist-marketed Great Walks, are far more expensive and require booking in advance for regular use. All huts, however, exist at least in part for safety purposes. With a few exceptions, doors are unlocked for open entry, and an underlying rule is that they can be used by anyone at any time in case of emergency, booking or no booking.

There are regions that have very few huts, but in general huts are common enough to be a major part of the New Zealand outdoor experience. The scattered nature of huts means that to reach a hut requires traversing a lot of terrain, and reaching a hut can be a fulfilling experience that involves far more than simply getting there. A person who’s visited a large number of huts in an area is likely to have an exceptional knowledge of the terrain, which is one reason why it’s common to meet people who like to tick huts off a list, or describe trips and features in terms of where the huts are. Having arrived, huts often have a lot of character that’s been built and maintained by the variety of interesting people who have visited, stayed in and maintained those huts over the decades. This is especially the case with some remote huts that see few people.

Sometimes tramping in New Zealand is all about reaching the hut, and I guess propagation of this term as if it’s a definitive goal of tramping bothers me. It’s great, of course, to make the most of and enjoy huts, but I think what concerns me is an underlying impression sometimes present that huts are always present and frequent in tramping as cellphone coverage is on State Highway One. When a presentation about beginning tramping effectively tells people that reaching the hut is always the end goal of people going tramping (as did a powerpoint presentation I attended a couple of years ago), as if there’s no other reason to go tramping in New Zealand’s back-country and as if the hut is always reached, I think things can get mis-represented.

Tramping safely, irrespective of the terrain (everything from great walk to off-track bush-bashing), is (or should be) about making good decisions at decision points so as to be able to reach points of safety, and being as confident as possible of not becoming stuck between points of safety… even if that means refusing to leave the one you’re at. Huts are one point of safety in the outdoors, and maybe this is where some of the confusion comes from. I start to get uneasy if I’m going out tramping with someone and discover they have a different attitude to me about huts, because typically this means they’re somehow of the frame of mind that huts are what makes tramping safe. In other words, “why take a tent fly when we’ve got the hut?” This is where the whole Hut Fallacy thing, as I described earlier, starts to become apparent.

Well, there are plenty of reasons why it’s important to take portable shelter despite an intention to use huts. For starters a hut could be full of people already, it might be damaged or otherwise uninhabitable, or it might not even exist as a map shows it. Huts are moved and removed from time to time, and occasionally maps are just wrong from the beginning. The second potential problem is that of actually reaching the hut. It might be on the far side of a flooded river, the party might take a wrong turn or make a navigation error before arriving, or an unexpected injury might make it impossible to reach.

The wonderful thing about portable shelter is that it’s like carrying a point of safety with you everywhere. Tents, fly’s and bivy bags can’t be used everywhere, but they can be used a lot, and it’s often surprising just how possible it is to effectively set up this kind of shelter in some places when a party becomes desperate. It’s a little extra weight, but I have real difficulty understanding how people get into a frame of mind where they see relying on huts alone as being a safe way to visit the outdoors.

It’s a situation that goes beyond individuals, and I presume much of people’s attitude is shaped by those from whom they learn and associate. From time to time I meet groups and families in huts who haven’t given a second thought to their lack of shelter. We once met a large group from a tramping club, walking up an increasingly high river in the rain to an 8 bunk hut, and between 8 people they had a tent that would fit 3. The more experienced of these two people, both of whom died in the Tararuas last winter, was described as experienced by friends and family, yet the coroner’s inquest seems to imply that they didn’t properly check the forecast, made awful decisions, ignored advice, went into white-out conditions without appropriate navigation skills, didn’t carry portable shelter, and were ultimately driven on by the anticipation of reaching Kime Hut! It’s now emerging from the inquest that for this person it may even have been an habitual attitude. In another recent inquest, it’s emerged that the victim of a river crossing made a bad decision about continuing in bad weather, and then put herself in a position which made crossing the river imperative.

I honestly don’t want to be too critical. I’ve rarely met people in the outdoors who aren’t wonderful people and have interesting insights into all sorts of things, and very few people are outdoors with an intention of taking unreasonable risks. I also hope people think the same of me despite whatever weird Mike’isms come along with me. (Honestly, pretty much everyone who visits the back-country is strange in their own interesting way.) I guess I just have severe difficulty appreciating how people manage to take safety measures in the outdoors so casually. Maybe I just think this way because of the people whom I’ve learned from, but I can’t help but believe that it’s an irresponsible way of doing things, if not for one’s own safety then for the safety of others to whom one is responsible, or of everyone who might inevitably become involved in search and rescue efforts.

Footnotes

* In the 1920s context, the term “tourists” would probably refer mostly to those within New Zealand, even the Wellington and nearby regions, wanting to safely visit the mountains, rather than today’s common use which is typically about attracting visitors to New Zealand from overseas.

** The history books I’ve found only seem to refer to him as E. J. Kime, but through the magic of online government resources it’s now easy to search historic death certificates at Births, Deaths & Marriages Online, which reveal 24 year old Esmond James Kime died in 1922. Interestingly the National Library’s digitisation of historic newspapers also reveal a couple of references in 1915, including some examination results (E. J. Kime passed science examinations for both Magnetism and Electricty, and Applied Mechanics for materials and structures), and also an Esmond Kime — a young postal officer — who was admitted to hospital following a bicycle accident. Historic online resources are awesome.

*** Information in the last few paragraphs was compiled from Chris McLean’s book Tararua: the story of a mountain range.

• 16th February 2010
• 17th February 2010
• 18th February 2010
• Update 10th March: 10th March 2010 — coroner’s findings released

It’s interesting reading, especially the latter articles, and seems to developing into some good examples of things they might have done better, but more importantly the presence of a culture that wasn’t a safe one to mix with the outdoors, yet also one which is very prevalent (in my opinion at least).

I’ve been on call at work in the past few days, which means I wasn’t supposed to wander too far from civilisation last weekend just in case the building burned down and somebody needed to trundle into town and validate the parking of the fire trucks, or something like that. Sunday was otherwise boring so I ended up going for a wander along the Skyline Walkway, which I figure should be okay because it’s relatively civilised and there are many exit points in case I needed to get back to a road or anything. Here are some photos (biased towards the Kaukau end of the walk), and here’s the map of the day:

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I put on my number three pair of boots, which tend to get used if I think I might need to walk on some road, and headed down the hill. Having left home at around 11.30am after hanging out the washing. This began with a walk down into Otari Wilton’s Bush, not far from where I currently live, then straight up the other side of the valley up to the ridge-line where the Skyline Walkway is situated.

There was quite a lot of wind, I think from a northerly, and until I reached it I was concerned it might be impossible to get past the dip in the ridge just after the Chartwell exit and within an hour of Mt Kaukau, which tends to be one of the most forceful wind channels of the entire ridge. On this day it turned out to be unfounded, however, and although rather strong there was nothing at all dangerous. I noticed my ears were getting a pounding, though, and after a short while remembered I had a balaclava stashed away inside my backpack. For the next half hour I may have looked unusual to the several people sitting in the sheltered areas as I walked past them wearing my short sleeve shirt, balaclava and sun-hat, but it worked a treat.

Wellington is littered with great visible green space all over for walking in without having to go too far, and I think the photo below, taken from just below Mt Kaukau on the western side, shows it off quite well.

Within this frame, the line of hills down the right side is the front side of the Skyline Ridge, whereas the pokey ridge thing just to the upper left of the centre is the Tinakori Hill. (I live on the near side of it, and the CBD’s on the far side.) It’s bigger than I think it looks in this photo, and just on its own it’d be possible to wander around in the bush for the better part of a day. The hills at the back of the photo are Te Kopahou Reserve, lying behind the suburbs of Karori and Brooklyn, and also have lots of walking that leads to high points overlooking Cook Straight. If you click through to a larger version of the photo, there’s a small white dot on the centre of the ridge which is the Hawkins Hill Radar Dome. The barely visible green space at the back and far left of the photo is another part of the Town Belt, leading from Oriental Bay over Mt Victoria and back to the coast at Island Bay, basically the length of the Southern Walkway. It’s walkable in a few hours, but makes a nice full day walk at a slower pace.

And that’s only within the frame, not showing the wind farm walks around Makara further to the right, the hills towards Colonial Knob in the Porirua direction, the large Belmont Regional Park between Porirua and the Hutt Valley, the hills that run from Pencarrow Head over Eastbourne and between the Hutt Valley and Wainuiomata, the Rimutaka Range (a popular tramping haunt) that overlooks Wellington from the east, the Akatarawas that lie west of Upper Hutt, or (obviously) the Tararua Range to the north. There’s so much really nice space to walk in and it’s very accessible to a large number of people. Wellington’s great.

I’d earlier thought I’d go straight past Kaukau and hop directly down to Johnsonville to buy some lunch, but somehow at the time I decided to go a different way, down the Northern Walkway, which I hadn’t been down for a long time and for some reason assumed could be almost as direct. The northern walkway at the Mt Kaukau end is a very well graded walkway, and nice to walk along. I left it in favour of one of the side tracks before too long, though, as I really didn’t want to go back to Wellington through the suburbs, and it started heading that way fairly quickly. What eventuated was a confused sidle on tracks down the side of Mt Kaukau, then 3/4 of the way back to the top of Mt Kaukau, and eventually getting me to Truscott Avenue at about 2pm, which is the road I’d been quite keen to get out of earlier. Now I’m more educated for next time.

It seems they can pinch very noticeably when they’re crawling over your skin, or maybe it was just surprised at my waking it up to get it outside.

About 6 months ago, the local city council built a new well graded track (it even has a handrail) that switches up the end of the spur at one end of the valley. It switches so much that it takes longer, but it’s less steep. The original route, which I still try to use because of its directness, gradually becomes overgrown as time goes on. It will probably be inaccessible within a year or two if it’s not properly cleared, but meanwhile I’m continuing to use it. Earlier tonight, I must have disturbed about 50 small birds as I walked up, which never happened in the past, and it occurred that the high grass and scrub growth is becoming a haven for them as the bush takes over once again.

I enjoy seeing birds in the nearby bush, because it’s a sign that the efforts to revive their habitats are succeeding, even in the presence of population expansion. Despite living in a well populated suburb bordered by more well populated suburbs, Wellington City Council maintains large sections of native bush both up the hill and down the hill. We often hear Moreporks overnight from inside the house. Moreporks are nocturnal birds, but just a few days ago I was walking through the bush of the Tinakori Hill, and had my attention diverted by the noisy flapping of a Morepork landing on a branch a metre above me. I don’t know why it was awake and flying around during the mid-afternoon, but it was just happy to be curious about me and it studied me constantly with its giant nocturnal eyes. We had a staring contest for about 5 minutes before I got bored and left. The Morepork won.

Kereru, also known as New Zealand Pigeons, are another popular bird that flaps around here. They’re big, very noisy fliers, and often sit on branches that look far too small and thin to support them. All the lurching and swaying of their branch as they land doesn’t seem to phase them, though. They can apparently judge exactly which branches can support their weight, without bending 90 degrees towards the ground, well before they land. Kereru typically sit on tree branches, and I most easily notice them when I get to close and there’s a sudden noisy flapping as they leap to another branch further from whatever track I happen to be on. As I walked to work this morning, I saw a kereru perched on a power line out in the open above the road, for the first time ever. Power lines probably are about the same thickness as the branches that Kereru like to grip.

Kaka, one of my favourite New Zealand native birds, made it into this morning’s Dominion Post on the superficial premise that a few Wellington suburbanites people are annoyed about the new inhabitants damaging their trees. The fact that this has become an issue shows what a triumph the breeding programme of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, now branded Zealandia, which is a predator-fenced sanctuary operated by a trust very near central Wellington. The sanctuary as a whole, however, is only the most intensively protected part of the entire native bush design of the surrounding region and Wellington’s town belt, which is very accessible to a substantial population and scattered all over with public walkways, and people who use them. Even then, they’re starting to venture even further. Yesterday morning I saw a Kaka flap past my 6th floor window in Wellington’s central business district.

The Karori Sanctuary Kaka are easily identifiable from a distance, at least at the moment. Kaka usually have a screechey call, but the Karori Sanctuary have a rather unique call which sounds very much like a wolf whistle. The story is that early on in the life of the sanctuary, one of the staff decided it’d be fun to teach a Kaka to wolf-whistle. It caught on, other learned it, they young ones pick it up, and so it’s been that for several evenings last year I walked home through the streets of the Northland suburb of Wellington with gangs of four or five Kaka circling above, seemingly making sure that everyone knew it was their territory by calling some very loud wolf whistles at nearby pedestrians. Perhaps one day, as generations of these Kaka spread throughout the forests of the North Island, the wolf whistle call that marks the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary will also spread.

I try to get out and do a lot of tramping, but I also really enjoy how I don’t have to get out to enjoy such experiences. I also like that people don’t always have to get out into the wilderness to enjoy some of it. None of these places I’ve mentioned are in any way remote, but they’re thriving with native wildlife.

If you followed his blog, you’d think that Craig never leaves his bike behind these days. He occasionally gets out in tramping boots though, which is great because he’s probably one of the most skilled people at off-track navigating who I know. Last week Craig mentioned that after riding his bike around Ruapehu in one of those cycling events, he intended to take advantage of a truly awesome weekend weather forecast and wander up to the crater lake of Mt Ruapehu for a look. I’ve not been up that way before, and it piqued my interest enough to convince me to gatecrash. The basic plan was to go up the easy way, which is to drive to the top of The Bruce (that road up to Whakapapa Skifield), and head up from there. As a side note, we visited in the middle of summer. In winter you’d likely need alpine gear and it’s nowhere near as straightforward. It’s an un-marked route in which people can and do get lost and have accidents, and I guess in alpine environments even small problems can have serious consequences.

Date: 7th February, 2010
Location: Tongariro National Park, from the top of Bruce Road.
People: Craig and me.
Huts visited: Dome Shelter, aka Dome Equipment Shed (0 nights).
Route: Walk up from the end of Bruce Road to the top of the Waterfall Express chair-lift, then continue up Knoll Ridge to Dome Shelter at the Crater Lake. Down via Restful Ridge.
Related bits: Craig also wrote about this walk.
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

Early morning Ruapehu from
near Ohakune.

Various weekend scheduling issues meant I couldn’t leave on Saturday, and the arrangement meant dragging myself out of bed to leave Wellington at 3am, so as to reach Ohakune at about 7am and wake Craig at DOC’s Mangawhero camp-site. I really wanted to stand outside his tent and blow a whistle really loud, but he was already packing up when I arrived, and nearby campers might not have appreciated it the same way I expect Craig would have with his understanding sense of humour. At least there was still a nice climb ahead during the day. A chap visiting the camp-side from Auckland, whom Craig had befriended, seemed to think we’d knock it off before lunch time. With a 1000 metre climb, I certainly wasn’t confident we’d be up and down within that time.

It’s roughly an hour’s drive from Ohakune to the Whakapapa Skifield, and after miscellaneous preparation (things like breakfast) we arrived at about 9.15am or so. There appeared to be some things happening in the parking area as we drove up, including some police and a helicopter buzzing around. We didn’t find out until later that it was all to do with a search and rescue operation for a Greek man who’d become lost the day before, and spent the night wandering on the mountain. It fortunately eventuated happily as they found him about half an hour after we left, which would have been a combination of good search coordination, and an element of luck from the overnight weather.

Anyway, the two of us elected to not use the chairlift from the top of The Bruce (we were out for a walk and didn’t want to pay for it). At our pace this meant an extra hour of walking to climb the 400 metres. It was quite easy to pick a route, in which we mostly stayed roughly under the main t-bars and waved to the rich spenders cruising overhead, occasionally informing them of the great things they were missing by choosing not to walk. The whole area around here is reasonably built up, with a combination of ski-field structures and mountain lodges that generally belong to various tramping, alpine and skiing clubs with occasional exceptions. It’s unusual for a National Park, but doesn’t bother me here as much as it seems to in some other places.

The Waterfall Express from below.

Craig and I took photos of each other after an hour, where a new cafe is being built, thus documenting evidence that we’d been able to reach the top of the chair-lift and had made it at least as far as most other people that day. From there on, we took another look at the map in an effort to figure out where we should actually be going. There are two particular routes which we’d read about, neither of them marked but both often walked. One is the Knoll Ridge T-bar, which is the ski-tow route slightly to the right when heading up and out of the chairlift. The other is Restful Ridge, further away to the east. Neither of these is marked by name on the LINZ Topo50 map, so we applied some intuition as to which ribs our written description was referring to, and followed the route up Knoll Ridge.

Shortly above Knoll Ridge.

Knoll Ridge is easy enough to follow for the length of the tow-line. On our right, to the west, a creek flows down the valley beside Knoll Ridge, eventually becoming Whakapapanui Stream. Much of the way to the top of the mountain, Pinnacle Spur dominates the view to the east, with its ominous jagged edges, and we saw at least three distant people silhouetted against the sky up in that direction, although I suspect they didn’t walk along the spur so much as climbed to the upper end of it where it’s flattened out. At the point where the ski-tow ends, Knoll Ridge drops into a slight valley, where having dropped off the end we began to encounter our first mild patches of icy snow. For much of the time we hopped along the moraine alongside, which I often personally prefer because I find it easier to walk on, but the snow itself wasn’t too awkward.

Someone sidles around towards the
saddle into the summit plateau.

Climbing starts getting more steep after Knoll Ridge, and the route curves slightly west of south underneath Glacier Knob, towards a saddle that eventually enters the Summit Plateau of Ruapehu on the western side of Glacier Knob, although at the time we didn’t have this information too specifically. During the summer season when we visited, it’s a climb up scree and moraine, and remaining patches of snow also added to the walk. The snow wasn’t too bad and although it took a few minutes to get back into the swing of kicking steps into the snow, which I’ve not had to do for a while, it was generally an easy walk.

We stopped for a break at about the 2450 metre contour, at the time not being certain of the actual route. A chap ahead of us who didn’t seem terribly confident had decided to sidle around over some more ice towards the gap next to Glacier Knob, but on the limited information that we had, and with neither of us having been here before, the two of us weren’t certain at the time that it was an optimal route. Following some lazing around at about 11.30am, the two of us decided to follow some gut intuition, which suggested getting to the top to walk along a ridge sooner rather than later was likely to make more sense than sidling around for a long time. The outcome of this decision was a very direct line busting straight up the scree.

The summit plateau.

With a start and stop scrambling effort, I reached the top at about 12.30pm, delighted to see the ice-covered plateau below me on the other side, with the top of Dome Shelter showing in the distance. As I waited another 15 minutes for Craig, I had a chat with a visiting British couple, whom we later found were named Jane and Graham, and who’d somehow found a route that dropped them on the eastern end of Te Heuheu Ridge, possibly up the Te Heuuheu Valley somehow. On seeing me arrive straight up the scree they commented that I must have come the “right” way, which I take to mean that their on route hadn’t been much less labour intensive.

Craig circumnavigates the
summit plateau.

Despite being a calm day, some thick-ish cloud was drifting in from the north, behind us as we’d climbed. When Craig arrived in front of the foggy back-drop, we followed a few minutes behind Jane and Graham, and met them once again at Dome Shelter — the small hut on the edge of the Ruapehu Crater Lake. Strictly speaking, I think it’s now called “Dome Equipment Shed”, probably as part of efforts to discourage people from sheltering there, as the shelter itself (which contains volcano monitoring equipment) is supposed to be for emergency use only. Although it’s known for people to stay at Dome Shelter overnight, the rule against doing so is for good reason. Despite its popularity, Ruapehu is still an active volcano. Its last major eruption, which sent minor lahars flowing down several valleys on the mountain, was in 1995. Even outside major eruptions, however, the region around the crater lake is dangerous. Dome Shelter has a history of being destroyed and damaged by volcanic activity, most recently in September 2007 when the volcano burped, boulders landed on the shelter and a tramper who’d been sleeping there eventually lost his leg. He was a very lucky guy.

Dome Shelter contains volcano monitoring
equipment, and is for emergency use only.

With the cloud not playing nicely, it was a while before we had a reasonable view of the crater lake, and even longer before we could see the high point of Tahurangi (2797) behind it, which we didn’t plan to visit on this occasion. As we ate lunch, the clouds parted and features gradually began to come and go. The crater lake itself is currently bright blue, with acidic water. On seeing it, it’s hard to imagine that it’s been used for swimming in the past. The acidity of the lake varies over time.

Craig and myself in front of
a bright blue crater lake.

All four of us sat around for some time, discussing topics such as boot retailers in Taranaki. Graham was having problems with the soles of his 10 year old boots beginning to fall apart, apparently after an encounter with the scree. Graham and Jane eventually left, and 15 minutes later, about 2.15pm, Craig and I picked up and left too. I think we may have been the last people at the crater lake on that day.

Leaving the plateau.

The Summit Plateau is a fascinating sight in the looming cloud with its dirty ice and volcanic-shaded rocks, and I took it in as we walked back along the ridge above to the eastern side of Glacier Knob. It was tempting to wander down for a walk around, but it looked as if it could potentially be tricky to get back up without a lot of time. At the small dip below the knob, we joined the walked track that we probably should have followed to come up. (It was nowhere near as exciting as our own route, however.) Rather than sidle around to the top of Knoll Ridge where we’d left off on the way up, we instead followed the walked track slightly west-wards, into a snow basin that allowed some fun skidding down the snow, and eventually onto what we later confirmed was Restful Ridge.

There are some wonderful orange and brown colours in the volcanic moraine of this region, and I think I could quite easily just sit and enjoy on another occasion. During this time we caught up with Jane and Graham, however, who were not completely confident walking through the snow and moraine. The boot problem wasn’t helping, and combined with some exhaustion, they were beginning to realise there was some risk of missing the 4pm closing time of the chair-lift. Consequently we walked down with them, since although the current conditions were fairly calm, both Craig and I were of the opinion that in such conditions it’s a very bad thing to leave people behind.

Pinnacle Spur in the distance.

This was a good thing in the end, because after some intermittent separation around rocks and small ridges of moraine that obscured vision, Craig and I noticed that they had probably headed a bit too far down the ridge without veering off towards the top of the main chair-lift, not having realised that the one they needed to aim for wasn’t in view, and that they were actually dropping into somewhere quite different, so we dropped down through some rocks and caught them. Jane in particular wasn’t feeling the best, to the extent that getting back up the ridge to a good turn-off point wasn’t much of an option, and also that movement was by now probably about a third the rate that it would normally be. Over the next hour or so, I eventually hopped ahead and found a quick-ish route through the moraine, dropping down in front of the NZ Alpine Club hut and then running to the top of the Waterfall Express (chair lift), fortunately managing to catch the chair-lift guy a couple of minutes after closing time, and managing to convince them to keep it running for a little longer, while Craig stayed with them and made sure they didn’t get into trouble.

The chair-lift operating people at Whakapapa Skifield in the summer were very helpful with their consideration, and they stayed behind long enough so that when Craig, Jane and Graham eventually walked up some time after 4.30pm, there was still a chair-lift able to get them down the rest of the way. Craig and myself had intended to walk the rest of the way down, as we’d come up, but Jane convinced us that we should go down with them so they could make us some tea in their camper-van, which was perfectly wonderful. It turns out that the chair-lift at Whakapapa Skifield is free if you’re going down instead of up, which is excellent news for future reference because I enjoy chair-lifts. I just happen to dislike paying for public transport if I can walk as an alternative. It was 5.30pm by the time Craig and I actually left the top of Bruce Road, and with some dinner and a brief snooze along the way I arrived home just slightly before midnight, thereby reinforcing my belief that this had been a daywalk.

It was certainly an interesting daywalk, partly from the volcanic landscapes but also with the events that unfolded towards the latter part of the day. It guess it emphasised just how easy it can be to become confused on the side of what’s a very accessible mountain near the tourist trail, especially given how many people who are encouraged to visit are often expecting something more graded and artificially safe. Despite the immediate area being relatively built up with T-bars designed for the ski season, the area is still massive and a person in slowly moving through it in the distance can be missed quite easily. Undulations in the terrain make it easy to completely lose sight of landmarks, potentially wander off on the wrong bearing, then end up in places that aren’t necessarily easy to get out of. Then all it’d really take is for darkness or clouds to drift in reducing visibility, and one could end up completely disoriented.

The remains of Graham’s boots. They did actually start with soles, which came off through an encounter with scree and then he was walking on socks.

In summary, a group was tramping to Siberia Hut (in Mount Aspiring National Park). They arrived about 11.30pm, one girl lagged behind and showed up 30 minutes later. During this gap, the warden at the hut notified Search and Rescue when the rest of the party indicated she was missing.

The Wanaka SAR Coordinator, however, seems to have come out with some very scathing comments in the media about how the group acted. He’s stated on the record that night walking is “not a good idea”, and that the absolute basics of tramping safety were ignored by the whole party. He also strongly criticised the group for showing up late, claiming that:

“most people using huts usually end up having pretty early nights, and don’t need to be woken up by groups of people banging and crashing around and settling in after midnight. It’s just ignoring tramping etiquette.”

I can’t comment on the specific case of this group’s etiquette due to the lack of information, but I take exception to both of these claims.

It sounds as if a few mistakes were possibly made, notably that the group allowed one of their party to lag behind in the first place. Something could, have happened but she turned up of her own accord in the end. It probably was the case that “basics of tramping safety” were ignored in that it’s often a risk to let people lag behind, but scathing media criticism of the party seems completely out of proportion when reminders about how they could have managed things better might have been more appropriate.

Tramping at night is not dangerous as a rule. If this isn’t the case, then perhaps we should start campaigning against all the tramping shops who sell very grunty head-torches that are primarily designed for night walking. I won’t campaign against it — I own one. I’ve often been in groups who walk at night, sometimes to a hut or sometimes to a good camp-site. We don’t do it as a rule, and at times it makes more sense to camp at the end of a road and get started early in the morning. At other times it’s great to be able to knock off the first few hours of walking, and perhaps wake up somewhere much nicer in the morning. Obviously the situation is different and lack of daylight changes what can be accomplished safely, but it’s common for tracks and routes — especially those near road-ends — to be completely walkable in the dark for people suitably prepared and motivated.

As for the etiquette of showing up to a hut late at night, it’s really in the eye of the beholder. Huts exist for use by everyone, not just for people who like early nights. Just as I often walk late at night, I’m often part of a group that will arrive at a hut at 11pm or later. Similarly, I’ve sometimes been in huts when others have arrived late at night. It is rude to simply take over the place and make lots of noise when people are trying to sleep. Huts are for everyone, after all, but I disagree that simply showing up to make use of the hut at a time of day that others might not have anticipated is bad etiquette. It’s just a case of making minimal fuss and respecting that others are trying to sleep. Several times I and others have bedded down on the floor upon arriving so as to avoid disturbing people in bunks too much.

It might simply be that this particular SAR coordinator had a bad day, or was woken too late at night and was in a bad mood and that reflected in his comments. Perhaps he’s been quoted out of context, or the full story is missing from the media’s version, which happens from time to time. Perhaps he just thought it his responsibility to make as much noise as he could to discourage others from doing something he thought was inappropriate, despite it being at the disproportionate expense of those at the centre of events, which also unfortunately happens from time to time. Whatever the reason, I think the message that was presented through the media is mis-leading and wrong. Tramping at night isn’t for everyone. It requires additional considerations to be made, but there’s nothing inherently un-safe about it when handled appropriately. Furthermore, huts are provided for everyone, not just for people who like to go to bed early. It’s important to be considerate to other hut users, but consideration extends both ways.

If my own opinion isn’t enough on this topic, there have already been several comments in the IN THE NEWS thread in the forums over at NZ Tramper, starting near the end of page 6 of that thread.

I’m a great respecter of nature and its many dirty tricks, which is why you won’t find me out in it whistling.

The complete tone of her opinion seems to be that we should be paranoid about what’s about to strike, and never take a step outside. Somewhere in there, she also expresses despair about not having flush toilets in the great outdoors, and the dangers of falling off cliffs into oblivion when following signs for easy graded tourist walks, or something like that. The intended message seems to be that we should all “respect nature” as she does.

We are surrounded by so few people, and so much bush, river, mountain and beach, that it escapes our notice that all of these are potentially lethal. Every summer there’s a catalogue of deaths as a result, since we expect to casually stroll about in it as if it’s our own living room.

I mean, Wow!

This is one of the most down-in-the-doldrums ultimately pessimistic doomsday no-hope-for-the-future we’re-all-gonna-die opinions about the outdoors and nature that I’ve seen expressed in a long time. From the tone of it, we may as well all hide inside 1950s fall-out shelters for the rest of our lives, just in case there’s another large earthquake like the 1855 one that re-defined the Wellington region, or Taupo erupts as it did around 180AD, or a giant tsunami like those which strike the country every few hundred years, albeit not seriously in clearly recorded recent history.

It was much less than this kind of negatively-biased media exposure, combined with a shortage of friends well acquainted with the outdoors, that kept me from really getting outside to explore the back-country for the first 20 years of my life, because apparently it was dangerous according to most of what I saw filtered through the media. (It’s rarely reported in the same channels when people get outdoors and have a great time.) She comments on a recent episode in the Wairarapa where a family woke to find themselves being swept away overnight after camping next to a river that just happened to flood, suggesting they must have had a warped view of the world from the country’s Lord of the Rings publicity. She later seems to express an opinion that “camping” anywhere at any time should be a last resort for the desperate.

Surely this isn’t dealing with nature or respecting nature, as the title of her writing implies. It’s hiding from it.

If the possibility of falling off a cliff is the only thing that prevents someone from getting out to see something amazing, then perhaps that person would benefit from becoming more experienced with walking in such conditions, learning how to better understand cliffs and the surrounding elements so they can be treated with appropriate safety. But this all goes back to the Mountains Without Handrails philosophy (based on ideas argued in a book by Joseph L Sax), largely applicable all over New Zealand, which suggests that people should be made safe for the mountains rather than mountains being made safe for the people.

On the large scale disaster front, preparation and understanding is a key thing, as is having good recovery plans in place both individually and as a society, but there’s only so much one can prepare for. Sooner or later something really seriously major will happen in New Zealand. All that can really be done besides constant preparation and readiness is to accept that some people — hopefully as few as possible — will come out of it worse than when they started, and then deal with it all at the time.

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a bulk order of the new Topo50 maps, which replace the old 260 series that’s been in publication for several decades until now. I’m now the owner of 18 Topo50 maps to get me started, having picked up most of them for $3.50 each, around half the usual retail price. You can get this price (which includes GST but not postage) if you have a bulk order or 20 or more maps direct from LINZ, which makes it useful for clubs or groups of friends who know in advance what they want. I wrote about these maps last year, including more detail about why it’s actually happening and what the main changes are. The new maps have a couple of obvious differences:

• They’re smaller. All maps are now metric A1 size. This means they fit less information, but they should also fit more nicely into other equipment that takes metric paper sizes such as photocopiers and satchels. Smaller maps also means less to carry, unless you happen to be crossing map boundaries (which is more likely). Another side effect is that the boundaries between maps have shifted all over the place. Some areas fit more nicely into the Topo50 map boundaries, whereas others definitely don’t.
• The map grid has changed, which means all reference coordinates have changed. This is the most important reason why LINZ wants people to start using new maps, so as to reduce confusion between the old and new map grids.

Strictly speaking it’s no longer necessary to buy the maps at all. LINZ now makes them downloadable, letting people with adequate facilities print their own and mix and match the parts they want. Personally I still prefer to go with the standard pre-printed maps, mostly because I trust the consistency of production, with an idea of how the paper and toner will last, knowing that every map will have coordinates properly produced, and so on.

I possibly haven’t broken these regions into the same segments that everyone else would have, but a few notes about the various regions are:

Wellington Old maps: R27, R28 & Pt. Q27 (Wellington), R26 & Pt. R25 (Paraparaumu). New maps: BQ31 (Wellington), BQ32 (Lower Hutt), BP32 (Paraparaumu) for the northern-most part.

In the 260 series, the bulk of the Wellington region used to exist on a single map titled “R27, R28 & Pt. Q27“, of which R27 was the main component and the other two parts were tacked on to two different edges making it an unusually large 260 map. Further north up to Waikanae, including Kapiti Island was on another spliced-together map. These inconsistent sizes splattered around the system were one of the things making the 260 series more expensive to produce. The Wellington map contained all of Te Kopohau Reserve, Makara and the coast up to Porirua, all of Belmont Regional Park, everything around the Hutt Valley and the bulk of the Orongorongos and Rimutaka Range as far as the south coast, with a tiny part of the southern Wairarapa on the edge (really only Lake Oneke). The northern map (which I’ve rarely used) contained Kapiti Island, most of the Akatarawas, and a slight fringe of the Tararuas east of the Akatarawa Road between Upper Hutt and Waikanae.

In the Topo50 series, the same region now crosses three main maps. Map BQ31 (Wellington) covers all of Wellington out to the Cook Straight on the south and west, but only extends north to about Tawa (not as far as Porirua) and east-wards doesn’t quite reach Petone. Pencarrow Head juts into the eastern edge of the map, but apart from this none of the Eastbourne side of Wellington Harbour reaches this map. All of Lower Hutt and the bulk of the Orongorongos and Rimutaka Range is drawn on map BQ32 (Lower Hutt), although without as much to the north. The eastern edge of this map is roughly the same as the old 260 Wellington map, just reaching Lake Oneke. Everything north of Tawa, and still reaching about the same fringe of the Tararuas, is now on BP32 (Paraparaumu). Most of Kapiti Island appears on this map, but the north end with Waiorua Bay is chopped off. If you specifically care about the north end of Kapiti Island, it’s worth noting that Topo50 map BN32ptBP32 has been intentionally shifted south to overlap, and includes all of Kapiti Island. (I don’t own this map.)

Tararuas Old maps: S26 (Carterton) for the southern end, S25 (Levin) for the northern end. New maps: BP33 (Featherston), BP34 (Masterton), BN33 (Levin), BN34 (Shannon).

I think the Tararuas lost out with the new map divisions. In the 260 series nearly the entire range was nicely covered by two maps, but now there’s a mixture of mountain range, flat farms and populated towns and coastal areas. I was going to take my new maps into the Tararuas last weekend, but took the old ones instead when I realised our stint on the middle part of the main range was going to cross three different maps. The route just fitted the old maps so much more nicely.

All of the Southern Crossing region fits into BP33 (Featherston), which also seems to be the most filled-up of these maps as far as tramping regions go. It also includes the Southern Main Range right up to Anderson, and (nearly) all of the route down to Waitewaewae Hut. The map extends north to Otaki Forks and Waitewaewae Hut, about the same line as the old map. It’s the east-west split where things get annoying, as the Featherston map only extends as far east as Mt Holdsworth and much of the Totara Creek track. If you want a map that includes places like Holdsworth Lodge, Mountain House and Powell Hut, you’ll also need to get map BP34 (Masterton), which is mostly farm-land but includes this corner of the Tararuas and also the Barra Track up to Mitre Flats (but not Mitre). That whole area falls into a frustrating network of map boundaries. If you wanted to head further north to somewhere like Cow Creek, or up over Three Kings or Mitre on the tops, you’d find yourself getting onto yet another map, BN34 (Shannon).

Much of the northern end of the Tararuas falls on map BN34 (Shannon). The souther end of this map falls a little further south than the Kiriwhakapapa Shelter and North King. The Shannon map includes pretty much all of the Northern Main Range, north-west of Arete and past Dundas, down past Herepai Hut or onward into the leatherwood-laden hell-hole towards the Mangahao Dams. West of Arete, it’s necessary to switch to map BN33 (Levin), which includes most of Carkeek and Dorset Ridges on the far east, most of the middle Main Range, and Oriwa Ridge.

Ruahines Old maps: T23 (Kimbolton), U23 (Dannevirke), T22 (Mangaweka), U22 (Ongaonga), U21 (Kereru). New maps: BL36 (Norsewood), BK36 (Taoroa Junction), BK37 (Tikokino).

I haven’t really visited enough of the Ruahines to know where all the best bits are, but at face value I think the area’s done much better for map boundaries in Topo50 than it did in the 260 series. The Ruahines are long and thin (especially at the southern end), and trend diagonally up the North Island, at least compared with the map sheet indeces. In the 260 series, the range crossed at least 5 maps, possibly more, but often only cutting corners or scraping edges of the maps. For instance, the walk into Heritage Lodge or Rangiwahia Hut occurs on the far east of map T22 (Mangaweka) — a map which is almost entirely farmland irrelevant to the range. Further east, the bulk of the Ruahine Range at that latitude falls onto U22 (Ongaonga), but still only uses 1/3 of the map surface. Further south, most of the range fell diagonally across T23 (Kimbolton), but just cuts the corner of U23 (Dannevirke), and that could have been annoying for anyone wanting to walk across to any of the 6 huts marked on that tiny corner of the Dannevirke map. Towards the northern end, map U21 (Kereru) was actually reasonably full of Ruahine Range area.

The reason I think the Ruahines win so much under Topo50 is because the west and east map boundaries are placed to fit the full width of the range so much more nicely than in the old maps. About the same area for which I needed 5 large maps with lots of farmland is now covered by 3 smaller maps of mostly mountain range. The thinner parts of the range around Rangiwahia, Heritage and further south now have the entire width of the range falling within a single map — in this case BL36 (Norsewood). The two maps further north and north-east, BK36 (Taoroa Junction) and BK37 (Tikokino) cover the whole area up the Ruahine Main Range, and out to the edges on both sides without huge amounts of extra.

Aorangis Old map: S28 (Palliser). New maps: BQ33 (Lake Wairarapa), BR33 (Ngawi).

The Aorangi Range, mostly a hunter’s playground on the south-east coast of the North Island, used to be entirely on one map. I guess there’s a slight loss here because it’s now mostly on two. The southern border of map BQ33 falls just south of the Putangirua Pinnacles, which is a starting point for a trip I’ve now done twice, to walk south from there out to Cape Palliser. Both maps have a lot of wasted space outside the mountain range, but at least the whole range does seem to be covered on just two maps, though, and it doesn’t get more complex.

Mt Taranaki / Egmont Old maps: P20 (Egmont), plus a few extras around the edges. New maps: BJ29 (Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont), BH29 (New Plymouth).

Most of Mt Taranaki/Egmont used to fit on P20 (Egmont), with the exception of a couple of edges of the national park falling onto P19 (New Plymouth) or Q20 (Stratford). The design of Egmont National Park, I think, means that those two edge maps often wouldn’t have been relevant anyway, simply because they mostly involve just the beginning of well define tracks up to the mountain in the middle, and also because the Park has several roads leading up to the inner section in which many people start their activities regardless. Consequently it was often possible to get by in all of Egmont with a single map.

In the Topo50 maps, I think the boundaries become slightly less efficient. There is still a single map, BJ29 (Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont) that covers the central cone of the mountain. Most of the national park is restricted to the north-west corner of this map, however, and the entirety of the Pouakai Range to the north east has been cut off. To get the park in its entirety, it’d be necessary to obtain three more maps: BJ28 (Opunake), BH29 (New Plymouth) and possibly BH28 (Oakura). I don’t own any of these, but might get them in the next bulk order I take part in.

I have a few other maps scattered around, but this covers the main Wellington-based regions I tend to spend most time tramping in. If you’d like a look at the boundaries for yourself without leaving the internet, LINZ has published map sheet guides for the new map series, including comparisons between where the old sheets and new sheets lie. My current favourite way to check out the Topo50 map extents online, however, is to visit Koordinates.com and search for “Topo50″, switch on the Topo50 map layer, zoom around to find what I want, then toggle the Topo50 sheet index layer to see which map it’s on.

Wellington Anniversary Weekend meant an opportunity to have a slightly longer trip in the Tararuas than the usual weekend, and we used it to visit the middle part of the main range, beginning from Otaki Forks and ending at Poads Road near Levin. The forecast leading up to the weekend was uninspiring, suggesting several large splodges of rain would position themselves all over the lower North Island, especially on Saturday, but perhaps clearing a little after that. There was no forecast of strong wind and we went ahead with the plan, but somehow boasting about a lack of strong wind didn’t convince my work-mates not to laugh at me when I left to visit the Tararuas on Friday night.

Dates: 22nd – 25th Jaunary, 2010 (Wellington Anniversary Weekend)
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Otaki Forks to Poads Road.
People: Amanda, Richard, Tim and me.
Huts visited: Waitewaewae Hut (0 nights), Nichols Hut (1 night), Dracophyllum Biv (0 nights), Te Matawai Hut (1 night), South Ohau Hut (0 nights).
Route: Walk up Saddle Creek and camp on the plateau, then past Waitewaewae Hut and over Shoulder Knob to Nichols Hut for the next night. Then to Te Matawai Hut via Pukematawai, and out to Poads Road via the South Ohau River.
[Photos]
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We left a van at Otaki Forks a little after 8pm, intending to swap it with another group on their way along Oriwa Ridge. A few others had signed the intentions book so we weren’t the only people braving the rain, but most going elsewhere. The only people who’d written about going our way, up towards Waitewaewae, having left earlier in the afternoon, had abruptly scribbled out their plans for a 4 day trip and written OUT. Apparently they’d changed their mind for some reason.

With an hour of light left and wanting to get ahead of the rain, the four of us began walking towards Waitewaewae with an idea of camping on the plateau above Saddle Creek. Despite the rainy forecast, it was still a calm evening without much rain scheduled until early morning. The only small delay was around the significant active slip on the Waitewaewae track, but we figured it out after a few minutes. The last light of the day held out until we were well into trees near Saddle Creek, and from then on we walked with torches. In this creek in the past, during the daytime, I’ve found it easier to simply walk up the creek than to figure out the entire criss-crossing track, though I think it’s a personal preference. By torchlight I think we all decided it was much easier to stay on the track as much as possible. This track is also much more steep than I remembered it. I was too busy looking at the ground ahead of me to properly notice, but others in the party reported that Saddle Creek seems to be a haven for glow-worms. We reached our camp-site at 11pm, which thankfully wasn’t too sodden, and set ourselves up for the night.

The Otaki River, just
past Waitewaewae Hut.

Next morning I found I was apparently the only person to have had a reasonable sleep, and I still didn’t think there had been enough of it. Up at 7am, the forecast rain was yet to begin, although the tent flies were sodden. We were packed and leaving by 8, towards Waitewaewae Hut before continuing on to Nichols for the night. We stopped briefly at Waitewaewae, 90 minutes later, where we met a chap who’d walked in and arrived the previous night. He had an optimistic plan to head up to Te Matawai Hut, then down the entire Otaki River, apparently oblivious to the amount of humidity in the air. Despite declaring his plans he didn’t exactly seem in a rush to go anywhere, and as we left at 10am, he returned to his sleeping bag.

Richard on the way up to Shoulder Knob.

It turns out to be quite a big slog up to Shoulder Knob, which is at the bush-line. It’s a 900 metre climb, taking us 3 hours in all, including an odd stop along the way. We were greeted at the top by a voodoo-doll-like statue tied to the pole on the knob, just one of those semi-weird things in the back-country that I’ve trained myself to appreciate.

Tim borrowed my camera and snapped this
rare photo at Junction Knob which actually
has me in it.

Visibility had dropped as we approached the bush-line, and soon after leaving it we were in at least 3/4 storm gear, with the cold wind coming from the south. Actually the whole thing was very confusing, especially with no rain. It all felt like sou-easterlies but was difficult to tell, so with wind going clockwise around low pressure, perhaps the system we’d expected had gone further north? We were guessing in any case, but as time went on it was all so dramatically inconsistent with reality that we leaned towards throwing out what we knew of the following days, and just focused on getting between points of safety, the next of which was to be Nichols Hut. The wind was still fairly light, and that was the critical thing at the time.

Tim shelters from the wind below Mt
Crawford as he waits for us to arrive.

We arrived at Junction Knob just before 2pm, the point on the Tararua Main Range between Nichols and Anderson Hut, where the signpost informed us that our destination for the evening was but 90 minutes away. For the remainder of the day, we continued along the main range with about 30 metres visibility, tolerating light but icy winds from the south-east between the occasional eddies and sheltered spots. The high point along here is Mount Crawford (1482), ceremoniously marked with a short drainpipe poking out of the ground. For a few minutes we accidentally began to head down the wrong spur off Crawford, but managed to catch it once the route dissipated more than seemed reasonable and we noticed the bearing didn’t appear quite right. In the end, including this detour, it took us 2 hours from Junction Knob before we reached Nichols Hut just off the eastern side of the ridge, and it was a good sight.

Amanda followed by Richard.

The door of Nichols had been barricaded on the outside with a saw-horse, and we soon found this was because the door wasn’t clicking shut properly. A couple of notes in the book indicated that the door had been discovered swinging open when people had shown up. Tim and Richard got a fire going, and we settled into an entree of cheese and crackers, followed by Amanda’s design of yummy Chorizo Couscous.

Nichols Hut.

The hut literature at Nichols was unexpected, especially the collection of 4 wheel drive magazines given that they were at a hut at 1242 metres altitude on the Tararua Main Range. Unfortunately not much to read, in any case. The picture magazines weren’t too enlightening either, though the latest Hunting & Fishing catalogue was advertising one of the funniest looking gun-wielding swamp monster outfits I’ve ever seen. Heavy rain finally arrived at 8.30pm, just after we’d gone to bed and almost 24 hours later than we expected. It also stopped well short of what we’d expected, only raining on and off and with nothing sustained. No wind either, though I guess Nichols is reasonably sheltered given that it’s not tied to the ground as some nearby huts are, and we fortunately had no issues with the door swinging open.

The main range north of Nichols.

Rain had stopped by 6.45am when Amanda dragged herself out of a sleeping bag on the lower bunk and started a billy boiling. We packed up, feasted on brekkie, and I took a few photos of the door latch to forward to DOC at a later date. We also hunted around for replacement firewood, which was difficult. For future reference I’d suggest that anyone visiting Nichols Hut from the northern direction should grab an arm-load of firewood as they leave the bush-line, only about 5 minutes away. We re-barricaded the door, and at a relaxed 8.45am, we left. Once again it was quite a dreary day outside, with thick cloud and little visibility.

Figuring out a route around Kelleher.

The light but icy wind was now coming from the west, for whatever reason, and we’d given up on trying to figure out how it related to the models issued a couple of days earlier. Wind wasn’t as much of a concern just now, anyway, because about 5 minutes north of Nichols Hut the Tararua Main Range dips into the bush-line. It stays there for some time, except for a brief 100 metre emergence to sidle around the eastern side of a peak called Kelleher (1152), which after 90 minutes appeared high and some distance before us. We continued past an obvious track marker below Kelleher, then sat down in a sheltered area for a quick snack, and to figure out which of the apparent routes ahead was most likely to be the intended track. Amanda and I eventually took alternative parallel options along the slope, both ending up on a short west to east spur.

From here it wasn’t clear at all, but through the thick cloud it looked as if we could head towards a little knob not far away, and it’d sidle around Kelleher nicely. Moving to the knob, however, there didn’t seem to be any emergence of Kelleher behind it as we’d expected, even after checking where it should be with a compass bearing, which was actually fairly disorienting. By now we should have been able to see a clear outline, or upward-sloping ground, or something to indicate the presence of anything other than a void directly beyond in a westerly direction. I guess thick cloud can do strange things to perception on the tops. It makes nearby things seem far away, and short climbs appear much further than they actually are, and on occasions like this it causes trampers to summit peaks like Kelleher completely accidentally. Having eliminated the alternatives, and confirming suspicions with a quick reference to a GPS, we eventually determined we were 200 metres off the side of the route we wanted along the range, and re-traced our steps. At least we didn’t waste another two hours heading down the far side, which is what a couple of people writing in the Nichols Hut book had indicated they’d done.

Back-tracking to the previous marker we’d seen prior to having even sat down, and taking another look around, we quickly spotted a giant cairn that led straight back into the dracophyllum. Just over an hour further of walking, we arrived at Dracophyllum Biv, a cute 2 person hut under the trees. It’s also well tied to the ground despite being surrounded by trees, presumably for good reason. We stopped for lunch.

Arriving at Dracophyllum.

It’d taken around 3 hours to reach our lunch spot, the track being peppered with many peaks and ongoing undulation. We thought the next section would be similar, being roughly the same length before emerging from the bush-line, but northwards from Dracophyllum Biv was much faster. An hour or so later we were emerging into more leatherwood and dracophyllum, eventually back into nice alpine scrub. It still wasn’t exactly raining, either, which didn’t stop us from becoming saturated thanks to the fog of tiny hovering water particles that weren’t massive enough to figure out whether they should obey the force of gravity or the force of the up-draft blowing over the ridge. For the length on the tops we could clearly hear the Park River, 300 metres below to the east, and had the cloud lifted we’d have been opposite Carkeek Ridge. We never saw further than about 50 metres, however.

Tim approches the turn-off near Pukematawai.

The main range leading north-wards to Pukematawai undulates with several spot heights, each of which appeared distant, high and ominous, but all of which we found to be much quicker and easier to ascend and overtake than it had first appeared through the deceptively thick cloud… probably because we rarely saw far ahead in the first place. At 3pm we reached a collection of stakes poking out of the ground, just short of Pukematawai, and marking the turn-off point down towards Te Matawai Hut. At Amanda’s suggestion, we stopped on the sheltered side of the ridge for a few minutes and put on over-trousers, in anticipation of being about to walk directly into the freezing westerly wind. It was worth it, too, even just for the first few minutes during which we were most exposed.

Amanda ready to leave.

From here it was time to say goodbye to the main range. When there’s more than a 500 metre vertical drop in the space of about 2.5 kilometres, a track will generally be steep. The last stage of our day therefore became a controlled slippery slide down through the mud to Te Matawai Hut, the highlight of which was the first sign of our entire tramp of the sun finally coming out. It didn’t expose itself completely, but as we left the cloud layer on the main range, we did finally get a vague warmth forcing its way through some clouds above us. At one brief moment, there was even a small patch of blue sky. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, however, standing on the deck of Te Matawai Hut with most of our clothes and gear hanging out in an optimistic attempt to dry them out, that some cloud properly lifted for a few minutes revealing large amounts of the main range in the distance, over which we’d spent our entire day. Much of the range is obscured by trees from Te Matawai Hut, but we could almost see as far back as Dracophyllum Biv, and the undulating shape of the ridge that we’d noticed now made complete visual sense.

The first blue sky of our weekend.

The main range finally emerged.

Tim managed to get another fire going after some effort, and over time we hung out much of our gear inside, actually being able to get it reasonably dry on this occasion. Te Matawai Hut perhaps doesn’t get as many visitors as its size implies. It’s very large as huts go, yet every time I’ve visited (this was the third) there’s been nobody else. On this occasion it also had much better reading material, including a bunch of old FMC Bulletins. I got the one in which several people had written in to comment about an incorrect answer for question 10 in the quiz of a previous bulletin. It was something about the name of a certain kind of 3-pronged nail that was once used in climbing boots.

After more cheese and crackers, we settled into a nice dinner of a certain kind of satay noodle recipe that Amanda had dreamed up. We’d just gone to bed at 9pm, and it wasn’t long after that when we heard someone enter and walk around a little. They weren’t there in the morning and never wrote in the book, but it appeared as if there was at least one other person wandering around. Perhaps they were on their way up to Arete Biv, or somewhere nearby to camp. Weird — I’m not used to people who aren’t me walking into huts at night.

Heading downstairs on Monday morning.

Our last day was a straightforward walk down the Ohau River. We were away shortly after 8am, and 90 minutes later following a skid further down the hill, arrived at the new South Ohau Hut. Last time I’d been here there was nothing but the fireplace of the old hut, which is appropriately the location of the new hut’s woodshed. South Ohau actually looks really nice, and it’d be easy to spend a few days relaxing there. Not being in any rush, we hung around for half an hour before beginning our walk down the river.

South Ohau Hut from near the river.

The South Ohau River itself is a slightly gorgey river, and even when it’s low as it was on this occasion it has a few tricky sections. If it were up even 20 centimetres further, it’s likely some parts would be waist deep (as Richard had experienced a few months before), and beyond that it could be very challenging if possible to follow at all. This morning however, it just took time. It took 90 minutes to reach Deception Spur, where the South Ohau meets the North Ohau, and we stopped briefly for our final lunch. The remainder of our river walk, about the same distance again but much more easily navigable, towards where it meets the track out to Poads Road, took only half that time.

Just over an hour later, having walked the last section of track as well as having met the second and third people we’d talked to in three days — a couple out for a short daywalk — we were standing next to our van at the end of the Poads Road entrance to the Tararuas, nice and early to beat the holiday weekend traffic.

The South Ohau River.

Time goes on and appetites change. Two or three small town pub meals later, I’d lost my appetite for this gooey chocolate, strawberry and raspberry wonder-cake, or at the very least eating the entire thing. I still wanted to see how it’d come out, however, and eventually decided to divide all ingredients by three.

It’s a simple recipe. The couscous gets mixed with twice as much water, the drinking chocolate, chilli powder and eventually the chocolate chips, creating chocolate-flavoured couscous. Once it’s cooled, the idea is drop the ice-cream into a (large) bowl, then tip the couscous mixture over the top. After this, the jam and yoghurt gets smothered over the top to make it look more volcano-like. (I refused to buy the raspberry swirl ice-cream because it was far too expensive, so bought some kind of triple chocolate ice cream instead.)

After a first effort, this was the result.

Several amateur insights occur following this cooking expedition:

• My first effort didn’t look very volcanic.
• Despite having imagined I could gulp the entire thing in the space of a few minutes when I first saw the recipe, it may not have been very healthy, or easy, to do so. Having made only a third of the original recipe, Stacey and I tried to get through it for dessert but we only managed half of it.
• The recipe looks like dessert, but the amount of couscous suggests it could almost be a main meal, though devoid of things like vegetables. It felt too filling for dessert, though.
• It’s very sweeeeeeet.
• In hindsight I don’t think I let the couscous mixture cool down enough before pouring spooning it over the ice-cream. The whole thing went quite mushy when it mixed with the ice-cream.
• I’m not clear on how this is a regular tramping recipe, mostly because of the ice cream. I suppose if you’re not going far, and able to make it before the ice cream’s melted you’d be fine. Or perhaps you could carry a portable petrol generator and use it to power one of those mini-bar freezers which could be being carried by a co-tramper. It’d be awkward though, as you’d have to keep the power cord between two people from snagging on everything.
• I had trouble pouring the jam over the mountain as the recipe instructed. My lava wanted to stick together in clumps, so I had to come down on it with a big crunching spoon and smear it over the sides. Do I need to buy a certain kind of jam, or treat it somehow?

Well, at least now I’ve done it. It was nice but it’s a shame I can’t transport it back in time and space by a couple of weeks and 250 kilometres west.

The gist of the situation is that on 3rd December 2009 the Shotover River was flooded, but the kayakers (reportedly experienced) went anyway despite having been warned against it, and despite the local tourist rafting and jet boat operators refusing to operate. The kayakers had a mis-hap, losing one of the kayaks and with one of them breaking a finger. The empty kayak was spotted down-river, and on the reasonable assumption that someone could be in serious trouble, authorities of the Queenstown Lakes District Council sent a helicopter to investigate. The two kayakers were discovered on opposite banks of the river, and reportedly “very pleased to see the helicopter”. The harbourmaster of the council later sent a bill to recover the $4,000 cost, and now plans to go to small claims court to get it back.

Most of the media (the Herald and Stuff are representative) report the story from a perspective that the kayakers were warned, shouldn’t have gone, and wasted everyone’s time. The kayakers themselves (un-named as best as I can tell) claim that they weren’t in serious trouble, never requested a rescue, and don’t see why they should have to pay for it. With a quick search I’ve noticed that several people have blogged thoughts about this story in various places (some with following discussions), notably Michelle over at Love in a Tent, David at Paddling Instructor, and also Kerry L at Kayak & Kayaking.

I can’t comment with authority about whether these kayakers were being irresponsible. Rescuers claim it was irresponsible, but the kayakers were supposedly experienced and capable of making their own decisions based on knowledge about their abilities. From the description (and I’m not going on first-hand information) it sounds as if the kayakers perhaps could have gotten themselves out of the situation and were perhaps busy figuring this out, but accepted a helicopter ride because it showed up. Supposedly the two were “very happy” to have the helicopter available, but it seems probable that they weren’t informed at the time that the rescue was going to cost them anything. Within New Zealand, it would be a reasonable assumption in a compromising situation that any rescue helicopter on offer is free, particularly if it’s obviously been sent to search for you without having been requested, and even if you’re not in absolute dire trouble. On the other side (as has been pointed out by the harbourmaster), they can’t ignore the sign of an empty kayak floating down a flooded river.

The question of fault isn’t the most important here, though. I’m uncomfortable with how they were sent a bill at all, and are now being threatened with court action. Typically within New Zealand, search and rescue operations are not charged back to those being rescued. After the event, things are assessed and costs are either underwritten by ACC or by the New Zealand Police. If the national search and rescue coordination services are notified (by emergency beacons or otherwise), the service is legally obligated to follow up the notice and respond as appropriate, and cannot legally ask for payment. These legal obligations will not prevent the Police and/or SAR from issuing noisy press releases shouting “stupid idiot trampers” or (in this case) “stupid idiot kayakers”, and in excessive cases such as people being very obviously stupid or wasting police time, the police can choose to prosecute a person in court for wasting time and resources. But a person can’t be charged up-front, and this ensures a situation where people aren’t considering silly and irrelevant details about affordability of requesting a rescue when their life is in danger. It also supports a situation where people are comfortable donating vast voluntary resources (time, money and experience and leave from their regular work) without feeling so much as if they’re being ripped off by a system where the victim pays someone but not them.

There’s an ongoing debate in New Zealand about whether people should pay for rescues, whether there should be a requirement for tourists and/or back-country users to sign up to some kind of insurance scheme, and perhaps it has merit. New Zealand isn’t the only place with this debate, either. For example, the Spanish province of Catalonia decided to start charging particularly reckless people late last year, citing hourly rates of helicopters and people required during the search and rescue. There’s also a Facebook page campaigning for free SAR operations throughout the USA. What bothers me in the apparent New Zealand situation is the inconsistency of there being a general policy of rescues being at no charge, but still having some invoices issued depending entirely on the circumstances of the rescuers — not the rescued. Even if this bill can’t be enforced, sending it through the courts creates uncertainty that could create doubt in people’s minds about requesting a rescue when they really need it.

It’s understandable that the Queenstown Lakes District Council felt obligated to launch a helicopter, did so independently for expedience, and their budget will be limited, which is why the harbourmaster wants to recover the costs somehow. The possibility that rescuers could show up to help a person in trouble, and that person might not know whether the search will cost or not, is concerning, because unless all rescues are free of charge, it compromises the reason for other searches being free of charge. The more often this happens, the more often people will think twice about accepting an offer of rescue when they genuinely need it. I like to think that if and when I’m rescued after a back-country mistake, I’d make an effort to donate at least the cost of my rescue as long as it’s within my means. In this case it was $4,000, and such a cost could be manageable for people good at managing their money (which a significant number of people in New Zealand are awful at, by the way). If it happened to be a $40,000 invoice, which wouldn’t necessarily include the time, resources and expense put in by any number of volunteers, it would be completely unaffordable for most. The consequences of telling local authorities that they can’t send invoices, however, might make them less likely to respond to potential emergency situations when it makes sense for them to do so.

As long as search and rescue is generally designed to be at no cost for rescued parties, perhaps it would be useful for systems to be adjusted so that local authorities conducting rescues could more easily tie into the national framework. In this case, for instance, the Queenstown Lakes District Council would not attempt to charge the rescuers, but would instead apply back to the Police or ACC to have the bill paid out of pre-existing budgets that can absorb it more easily, on the grounds that they made a decision to investigate the likely possibility of a person in imminent danger. Otherwise I think we may as well go the full distance and make it clear that people need to pay, or take out insurance, or whatever.

Sue crosses one of
many side creeks.

Dates: 31st December, 2009 – 5th January 2010 (one day late)
Location: Mokihinui River, Mokihinui Forks Ecological Area and Lyell Range-Radiant Range Conservation Area (south-east of Kahurangi National Park).
People: Steve, Allen, Sue, Dmitry, Mark, Robert and me.
Huts visited: Mokihinui Forks Hut (0 nights).
Route: Start at Lyell, walk up the gold mining route to the head of the south branch of the Mokihinui River, follow the river to Mohihinui Forks Hut, then out along the route on the river’s true left to Seddonville.
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Day one, 31st December 2009

We’d stayed the night at the Lazy Cow Backpackers in Murchison, which incidentally is a very nice backpackers. They gave each of us a small paper bag of sweets that reminded me of the 20 cent mixtures I remember buying when at school. I never got around to eating mine, so threw it into my dry bag, which was handy at the time, to munch on later. After a drive down the road, we began our tramp at Lyell at around 8.30am, intending to sidle up the hillside to the north and end at the saddle at roughly NZTM252805 for that evening, possibly pressing on depending on how long it took to arrive there. Lyell is an old gold mining town, but today none of its original structures remain, and it’s entirely a sandfly-infested campground. From Lyell begin a net of short walking tracks, eventually converging into a single track that sidles upwards to nowhere in particular, approximately northwards. The track is an old gold mining route, which the Department of Conservation now seems to be restoring as a well graded mountain bike track. It doesn’t really go nowhere, as it provides access both to the ridges nearer the top, and also to the head of the southern branch of the Mokihinui River, for which we were aiming. Still, it felt strange to see such a major effort being expended on this track on which we saw no other people, and which (as I said) didn’t really seem to go anywhere specific before petering out.

Up from Lyell.

Being an old mining track, the route is an impressive engineering feat in places, given how parts of it have been cut into steep and sometimes bluffy hillside. As part of the restoration, particularly from 8 mile creek and onwards, relics of the mining era have been intentionally left beside the track (sometimes locked down) to help provide an historic experience for visitors to the area.

3 hours after leaving, we took an early lunch at what we thought might be the crossing point of 8 mile creek as marked on maps (though we later discovered a more likely candidate). This was shortly after a slip on the track that would likely prevent most bikes from getting past, and from then on the grade of the track took a step downwards. It’s still a good track, however, as tramping tracks go.

DOC’s vacant fly-camp.

Some time after lunch, at around 1pm, we arrived a vacant DOC fly-camp full of covered supplies, probably to be occupied again by workers after the new year’s season was over. Walking through the camp it quickly became obvious why they’re here. Immediately around the corner, a large section of the hill-side had fallen away, roughly east of Mt Lyell (1092). There must be continuing plans to extend mountain bike access at least as far up as here, because DOC seems to be cutting a well graded track into the side of the slip. Such a track would keep the same gradient and I presume the relevant engineers believe it to be a workable idea, though we came away wondering if the slip could just take away the new track again in the future. Allen ran ahead and discovered that there is a thin route around the side at the moment, but markers still re-direct trampers upwards and over the top, via an ad-hoc route through the bush. After a short rest, this is what we followed and the sudden up-ness and softer ground made a nice change to everything up until then.

Robert, Steve and Dmitry.

An hour or so later at about 4pm, we were high enough to have entered the vicinity of dracophyllum. About the same amount of time again later, we finally reached the saddle near the top, quietly marked by a couple of pink tags, and decided to camp having considered the chances of finding reasonable campsites further down. The nearby ground was spongy and leaked water as a tiny stream emerged from the ground, one of several that would converge into the Mokihinui River below, and this was to be our main source of water. We were pretty much at the high point of the entire trip at about 840 metres, however, and water certainly shouldn’t be an issue after this giving we planned to walk the length of a major river. Between seven of us we set up three tents on the track, with Allen and Sue, Dmitry and Mark, and Robert and myself. Steve decided to bivy out in the open, wrapping his sleeping bag in a blue tarp and his pack liner. The weather was playing nicely and allowed us to cook up a brew, and dinner from fresh vegetables and pasta without and problems before bed. Robert and I celebrated the arrival of the year 2010 at 9pm, then fell asleep. Some time during the night, a forth tent had mysteriously materialised over Steve.

Day two, 1st January 2010

Steve followed by Allen at the
upper southern Mokihinui.

We were away shortly before 8am, and discovered that past the saddle on which we were camped, any remnants of a marked track quickly disintegrated. A photocopied description of the area that Steve had obtained indicated that we should be able to follow a bearing more or less north-west, however, which was consistent with the map, and then drop into the head of the south branch of the Mokihinui. With about an hour of careful sidling and eventual dropping down what became a rib, we eventually hit the very modest creek that was well smothered with fallen branches through which we needed to clamber. The occasional South Island Robins and Fantails followed us, as they do, taking advantage of our kicking up the insects that they enjoy. It was probably a good thing we hadn’t carried on the previous night, because apart from one possibility, there wasn’t much camping down here at all.

Mark, followed by Steve and Dmitry.

The creek became decidedly easier to walk along over the next 30 minutes as it opened up slightly, but still with regular obstacles that required some thought. The occasional footprint indicated that someone else had been this way in the past few days, but we never met them. We still weren’t moving as quickly as we’d hoped, which was a concern given the forecast was for some rain to be coming that night, and we’d hoped to be a long way along the river before that happened in case flooding became an issue. We stopped at 12pm’ish for lunch at a small side catchment coming down from Mt Montgomery (1332) to the east, and by now enough side creeks had come in to have built what was initially a tiny creek into a respectable waterway.

Steve gets wet.

At 2.20pm, we reached the confluence with Granite Creek, which comes down to meet the Mokihinui from its true right. We spotted a giant DOC triangle marking the beginning of a route up the hill-side on the true left, and initially thinking it might be related to getting around some bluffy areas further along the river, we followed the markers. The track doesn’t follow all the way over the bluffs, but instead drops back down the the main river just on the south side of where Silver Creek comes down to meet the Mokihinui from its true left. It wasn’t immediately clear why this track led up above the river for that short stretch, but looking through the trees it appeared there could be some difficult-to-negotiate rapids in the main river.

Checking out the markers near
a vacant worker camp.

We ceased for several minutes as we came back down to river level, because on the opposite side of the Mokihinui (the true right) there appeared to be another vacant worker camp with a massive stack of firewood, and a roughly marked track leading perpendicularly away from the river. If we’d contacted DOC beforehand we might have had more information about this track, but we weren’t sure so we didn’t follow it. It may be a route that veers around north-wards behind spot-height 383 on the true right, so as to get around some very bluffy areas on the main river. Without knowing exactly where it went, or for how long it’d stay on the true right, however, we elected not to follow it. By now, despite some very sunny weather to date, we were beginning to feel conscious about the coming rain, and not wanting to risk stranding ourselves on the true right of the Mokihinui River lest it come up too high for us to cross back. Instead we decided to try and remain on the true left, or at least within clear reach of it, and this would possibly mean we’d miss staying at Goat Creek Hut further down, located on the true right.

A dyslexic marker arrow.

As might be expected, avoiding the most likely track around the limestone bluffs, which begin on both sides of the river at about NZTM 284877, did nothing to solve our problem of getting around these bluffs. Steve’s photocopied instructions implied that there should be a route somewhere up high on the true left of the river, though it was sketchy about any specifics. After a lot of messing around and clambering up some fairly steep slopes with the help of sturdy trees, we worked our way along an approximate route above the bluffs. It wasn’t a marked route so we were following our noses for a time, and it was also unclear when we should be heading down-wards — Steve’s photocopied instructions simply indicated we should continue to follow our noses down once we were past the bluffs, but even after we thought we were past the end, we couldn’t see any obvious way down for some time. We finally discovered an orange arrow marker nailed to a tree at NZTM 286885. It was a very old marker, and furthermore it was a dyslexic arrow that pointed left-wards, away from the river into a ditch (after which there was one further marker and apparently nothing else), rather than right-wards down the hill towards the river. This was really a set of markers intended for getting up the hill, but we found it easy enough to follow the other way. Within 20 minutes we stood back on the bed of the Mokihinui River, which was becoming increasingly impressive in its ability to channel water. By now it was 6pm, and we had around 3 hours until sunset.

There’s a wonderful geology along this stretch of the Mokihinui on the north side of the bluffs. Huge slabs of limestone rock line the banks, having been thrust upwards during past earthquakes. The river now surges over them eroding a smooth channel. Occasionally a giant house-sized monolith has toppled from the gorgey walls and slammed into the riverbed below, to be slowly eroded away by the water as centuries and millennia pass by. That’s what it looks like to my untrained eye, at least, though I may be very wrong. For practical purposes, the river walk in this region involves walking along the flat slabs above the river, generally okay except there’s often a covering of slippery slime for which obtaining friction is tricky. In the rain it could be treacherous, so it was a good thing for us that the rain hadn’t yet arrived.

We discovered another track marker leading away on the true right at roughly NZTM300900, but once again it wasn’t clear where it was heading. Despite following the first couple of markers into the bush, we lost it very quickly. It’s possible that it headed further back and eventually to Goat Creek Hut, although to get there it’d still have to cross a major side-stream (Stern Creek), or perhaps it was the returning marker of that other track we’d seen leaving to go around the bluffs on the true right much earlier in the day. We never found out for sure. By 7.45pm we were debating how much further we should go, given that it was forecast to be raining by the following day. Ideally, we really wanted to not just be on the true left of the Mokihinui River, but also past as many significant side creeks as possible. By the start of the day we’d intended to get at least as far as Goat Creek Hut, opposite Hennessy Creek, but we were still nowhere near it, and hadn’t even reached Owen Creek that entered on the true left about 3 km earlier.

Approaching sunset.

We continued a little further and eventually established our camp-site for day 2 at NZTM303905, on a sizeable vegetated peninsula jutting into the true left of the Mokihinui. We named it dead goat island, after the discovery of two dead goats. As Steve noted, goats rarely drop dead spontaneously in such situations, so it seemed likely a hunter had shot and left them. We didn’t check.

Steve toasts a marshmallow.

And we chopped our vegetables and cooked our dinner on the campfire, then toasted marshmallows on a clear, calm and quiet night. High above us the occasional cloud slowly coasted through the sky. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, twinkled violently. Some wild turbulence was brewing in the upper atmosphere, and it was soon to cross our path.

Day three, 2nd January 2010

Steve, shortly before leaving
dead goat island.

The front must have finally arrived and rain began some time in the early morning, perhaps 3am, prompting a low key getaway at about 6.30am, without messing around. The main Mokihinui River was not flooded and we were still able to cross back and forth, but only in strategic and carefully decided places with aspects of caution. We spent more time carefully edging along the side of the river than we might otherwise have bothered with.

Our final crossing, from the true right to the true left, occurred an hour after we left and shortly after the entrance of Owen Creek into the main river. It was an awkward crossing which may have been more straightforward except that the surface under the increasingly swift current was almost entirely boulders, providing virtually no flat ground on which to stand. Technically the river was still not flooded, but we decided there and then to not cross that river again until it had gone down. This decision was the end of any hopes to visit Goat Creek Hut on the true right, but in many ways it was a relief because at least we were on the side we needed to be on to get out.

For two further hours we remained on the flats. There was one difficult clamber up a bank for which we needed to remove packs and pass them around to get up, but generally we spent the time bush-bashing through trees on the true left. It was 9.30am, 3 hours after we’d left that morning, when we finally reached Hennessy Creek. Given the way it was surging it could have been the end of the day already, but we were relieved to find a useful fallen tree that allowed us to walk or shuffle to an island of scrub half way over the creek’s mouth. Unfortunately the other side of this small island was another raging torrent, but it did enable us to sight a larger tree further up the stream, spanning the entire waterway, and we were saved!

Reaching the small island.

Hopping and walking and shimmying over the mossy knee-friendly green carpet of this sturdy tree trunk that spanned the surging water below, we patted ourselves on the back and continued pushing through the river-bordering bush… for about ten minutes or so… and then we came to the enormously demoralising realisation that the Hennessy Creek we’d just crossed wasn’t Hennessy Creek at all. It was an un-named minor side stream that flowed into the Mokihinui River about 200 metres to the south of Hennessy Creek. The real Hennessy Creek really did spell the end of our day, and it was game over. Time to camp. Oh krud. Goat Creek Hut was now about 200 metres away behind the trees on the far side of the flooded Mokihinui River, yet completely out of reach. For all the time that we spent so close, we never saw Goat Creek Hut.

And so we waited. We even had a day up our sleeve in the original plan which had been set aside for lazing around in the sun. All the environment needed to do was to stop raining on us.

Not a great idea.


Home for two nights.

Having arrived at about 10am, Hennessy Creek, quite a thunderous and constant surge of water, was at its highest point that we saw (at least during the day) at around 3.30pm that afternoon. There were a few gauges we could use to measure this. For instance, I took several photos of the far side of the creek to help document the visible rocks, few as there were. A mid-sized horizontal overhanging tree dipped its branches into the creek, and completely stripped of leaves those branches were getting a severe walloping that also caused much turbulence in the water immediately past it. The “creek” happily forced its way over the trunk of this tree at its base which stuck out from the high side of the creek bed. My favourite measuring device was a couple of metres further down-stream, where a smaller tree that I mentally nick-named the Loopy Tree was looping furiously as its thin lower-most branches held an elastic pattern of becoming caught in the torrent’s surface. It was then launched erratically into the air before reaching its maximum extent and bouncing hard back to the surface of the turbulent water, only for the pattern to repeat over and over again.

From mid afternoon the rain would sometimes hold off for short whiles, giving us false hopes before beginning again and dashing them. The level dropped about 20 centimetres from its high point before finally settling on a constant state of flood that it most preferred. The top-most rocks of its true left bank were now visible on the far side, the water merely frequently lapped over the trunk of the horizontal tree rather than blasting over in a constant surge, and the Loopy Tree reduced from a frantic explosion of craziness to a hypnotic loopy pattern of an impressive radius.

We optimistically hoped this was a sign that the level would decay further overnight. Allen and Sue, banking on their past experiences, were smartly locking themselves down to half rations already at that point, but the rest of us had complete meals that evening, optimistically hoping things would improve by the following afternoon. With the size of the catchment and the sheer amount of rain that we later discovered was falling, not completely consistent with the forecasts we’d earlier seen, our optimism was unfounded. Robert and I did our best to keep water out of the tent, but with limited success. Some time that evening, Mark knocked on our tent door and asked if we’d seen Dmitry — it seemed he’d gone for a walk and not returned. It rained for the better part of the night.

Day four, 3rd January 2010

The rain continued. We discovered where Dmitry had been, though, and yes he had returned. Dmitry, who despised the idea of being so trapped, had been up river looking for possible places to cross, and he’d actually found something promising. On the morning of day four, everyone bar Allen and Sue went up the creek to check it out, and it was quite a cool concept. Despite the creek being in flood, Dmitry had discovered an underwater island that stretched about 30 metres down the middle of Hennessy Creek. From the true right bank at which we were stuck, we could reach the top end of this island relatively safely due to the shallowness of the water flowing over the gap. The water directly on the other side of the island was surging even more violently of course, since all that water in the river has to go somewhere. Due to the shape of things underneath, though, the surging water was gradually filtering over the top of the entire length of the island from the true left to the true right, taking the complete 30 metres to do so. By walking the length down the middle of the creek to the far end of this underwater island, we would then be at a point where the gap to the true left was now shallow, with the bulk of the water now surging on the true right side of the island behind us and from where we’d come. Dmitry in fact, who’s very well balanced on his feet, had already done this completely by himself the previous evening, and come back again. Looking at it collectively, however, we didn’t reach a positive consensus about everyone in the group being able to get through safely. The water was still reasonably swift over the length of the island, and so we decided to wait things out for longer.

I checked the level using my measures when we returned. There was no difference from yesterday’s settling point, with the mesmorising Loopy Tree in its comfortable circular pattern. As I stood and stared at Hennessy Creek, trying to picture a good landing space in case I might somehow construct a giant pogo stick from the available raw materials, one of the many South Island Robins fluttered past and landed on a low branch on the far side. It looked back and chirped, demanding to know why we weren’t on the far side of the creek, kicking up more insects to ease its foraging.

I went back to the tent, and that’s where both Robert and I spent most of the day enduring increasingly annoying back-aches from so much lying in a confined space, phasing in and out of consciousness. I spent some time browsing FMC Bulletin number 178, and came to realise just how much I take for granted all those moments when I have the freedom to mix a cup of chocolate chips, a cup of drinking chocolate, half a cup of strawberry jam, a litre of gooey raspberry ripple ice cream, 3 cups of couscous (to make the whole thing acceptably healthy), and then eat it. In fact, I couldn’t believe I’d never ever done such a thing, and it seemed absolutely wrong that I hadn’t taken the opportunity during any of the many times I’ve been able to. Thus I made a private resolution that I’d mix this recipe once we finally emerged from the mess we were in, but meanwhile I daydreamed that I was swimming in chocolate ice-cream mush. So thank you Warren Wheeler of the Palmerston North Tramping & Mountaineering Club, for your Mt Doom Chocolate Volcanic Cake that allegedly serves 12. Your submission inspired my imagination that evening, and took my mind to a distant land in which I wasn’t hungry, even though it sounded like pitiful-sized portions if dividing it between so many.

Strangely I didn’t feel much like eating any of my 2 day expired pita bread that day, and satisfied myself with a couple of slices of cheese. Robert and I went to sleep to the frequent claps of a thunderstorm, but I soon noticed inconsistencies. There were no lightning flashes through the tent, the thunder invariably originated from the same directions, and the volume wasn’t as variable as it should typically be as a storm passes over. It soon dawned that the ambient thunderous thuds were localised to the raging torrent within about 30 metres on two sides of us. We were surrounded on both sides with the echoes of heavy river boulders being driven down the flooded rivers and occasionally torn from the banks. I learned later that Allen had been concerned enough to rise during the dark and scope out potential alternative camp-sites lest we quickly need to evacuate our residence on the forested river rocks. The thuds continued throughout the rest of the night, as the Mokihinui continued its constant evolution as a wild river, eroding the environment around it in a way that only such an aquatic juggernaut can.

Day five, 4th January 2010

The Mokihinui — a flooded Hennessy Creek
comes in behind the trees on the true left.

The rain had slowed, and even largely stopped by the morning of day 5, but the rivers on both sides remained high, with such large catchments and possibly with more rain occurring further up. We couldn’t tell for sure. Robert and I spent some time sitting on the rocks next to the bank of the Mokihinui, which we’d by now figured out how to reach through the trees, and were even able to dry a few things during intermittent sunshine. Some time around 8am, a helicopter came completely unexpectedly from the south, swooping low along the river and directly over us. It looped around over the river and down to the ground behind the trees on the opposite bank of the Mokihinui, almost exactly where Goat Creek Hut should have been. The helicopter sat for several seconds in its obscured position before suddenly lifting off and flying away further down the river, the fumes from its engine silently drifting down to where we stood.

We had no obvious explanation for this, and despite having tried to wave from our positions in our colourful polyprop, we had no idea if anyone in the helicopter had seen us to be able to note that we were stuck here. It occurred that perhaps the hut over the river had occupants, maybe even someone with a mountain radio, but there was no way to tell and if such people were there, they weren’t coming down to the main river where we could see them. Probably we should have found some brightly coloured pack liners or similar and anchored them out in the open, so that any future aircraft cruising along the river might realise someone was camped in the trees behind Hennessy Creek, just in case we were so late for there to be a Search and Rescue alert. We didn’t think of it at the time, however.

I went back to the tent, deciding to empty my miniature dry bag from the top of my pack, and try to dry out some of the items inside that had collected water. That means things like a wallet, cellphone, head torch, GPS, and all those things that absorb water really well when there’s a lot of it. Fortunately though, I discovered the two most absorbant things in my dry-sack were a spare cotton handkerchief, sopping wet, and a sticky mish-mash splodge of white goo. I couldn’t figure out what this was until I pulled it out and realised it was the 20 cent mixture of lollies I’d been given at the Lazy Cow Backpackers at Murchison. On another day I might have thrown it away (or at least not eaten it), but right now this was a treat! I managed to peel away the layers of paper gunk (well, most of them), and get at the sticky marshmallow. The splodge included at least a couple of jelly beans and a jet plane, and if I handled it carefully enough it was possible to un-twist the wrappers around the toffees. All in all, a good bonus meal.

Free energy.

With the rain receding but the rivers taking their time to go down, Allen took some initiative to start a campfire. Doing so with so much drenched wood isn’t an easy task, but Allen showed us a valuable trick, which is to find vertical wood. If the wood is standing up rather than lying on the ground, it won’t have absorbed anywhere near as much water, and thus becomes much easier to burn. So we spent late morning and early afternoon scouring the surrounding bush for dead wood that hadn’t settled on the ground. We soon had a large pile, and Allen had a good fire going that we could use to repeatedly boil water for perpetual brews, toast 3 day expired pita bread for a reasonable lunch (much nicer than raw pita bread), stand around to keep warm and pass the time, and (at least in one person’s case) dry out underpants.

By mid afternoon, Hennessy Creek was still up some way, but we decided we’d finally try Dmitry’s suggested crossing location. It took about 30 minutes to pack up, 15 minutes to walk up river, a few minutes of careful crossing in pairs and one group of three, an amount of trawling through a deep bog on the far side where I personally found myself thigh deep in mud having taken a wrong step, some extra time to scramble up a miniature bluff to the flats of the higher ground, and it worked. At 5pm we were across, with another 4 hours of daylight.

From here we took a bearing roughly north, walking over the flats inland from the river. The flats in this vicinity are a nice composition of greens, but there’s little camping as the area’s full of shallow sink-holes between the tree roots and swampy regions. We avoided some of it by sidling up the slope towards the west. As we followed our bearing through the shin-deep aquatic wonderland, we began to encounter ribbon-tied survey markers of some sort, with occasional blue ribbons that anchored specific points (perhaps for regular bird counts), and with pink ribbons leading trails between them. We spent some time trying to follow these ribbon trails on the pretext that they probably went approximately where we were trying to go, but were careful to maintain an appropriate north-ward bearing whilst doing so. At around 7.15pm, we emerged above the now impressively widened Mokihinui River, looking down over a giant flowing channel of water. The late evening sunshine waved goodbye to the land from somewhere above and behind us. At a distance below, a convoy of six Whio — New Zealand’s endangered and unusual Blue Duck — swam by in formation, occasionally diving underwater to feed as they saw fit to do so.

A troop of Whio swim below.

We soon dropped to the level of the river to look for a reasonable camp-site, and eventually settled on a grassed region slightly above the main river at NZTM324981, on the edge of the second of the Mokihinui River’s two giant meandering horseshoe-shaped bends in this region. As we were about to set up camp, however, we had a brief debate about whether we’d be better to continue. Eventually, keeping in mind that we didn’t know for certain whether more rain was coming, we decided to press on to Limestone Creek, or possibly even Mokihinui Forks Hut if it proved easy enough to reach. The creek was the main problem though. Steve’s photocopied notes indicated it was complex to cross, even on a dry day. With an hour of daylight remaining, we decided it may be easier to approach before any possible rain arrived, if we could make it in time. Thusly we packed up again, headed up the hill, and pushed through more bush and swamp until finally reaching the creek. It was not a go-er at all, being too late and too deep.

Checking out near the
mouth of Limestone Creek.

Limestone Creek is a very slow moving waterway, effectively a deep, dark and wide ditch full of water. At first glance, it could require swimming or pack-floating because there isn’t a bottom to walk on, and the steep and high sides would potentially make this even trickier. Furthermore, with the Mokihinui River still in some state of flood, back-wash from the main river was causing the creek to come up even higher. One option might have been to have sidled around above the top of the creek’s catchment earlier in the day, which to be fair Sue had actually proposed early on though we hadn’t done so. We walked to the mouth of the creek where it meets the Mokihinui, but couldn’t see any easy way through there, either. We discovered much later, from a local hunter, that there’s apparently a limestone shelf not far under the water near the mouth of the creek. Reportedly it’s straightforward to simply walk across for those who know where to go. We weren’t in the know at the time, though, and perhaps the state of flood meant this bridge was too far underwater to be usable regardless. Instead, we returned to a reasonable camp-site we’d spotted on the way down to the mouth, and set up camp, planning to hope it didn’t rain, then figure out this problem tomorrow.

It was dark by the time we set up camp on the evening of day five. We spent minimal time before going to bed. With the prospect of us being stuck for another day, I didn’t personally want to spend too much food at this point, so left my main de-hydrated meal. Instead, I traded half a slice of my 3-day-expired pita bread and cheese for some of Robert’s salami. The two of us had a hastily assembled sandwich for dinner, and went to sleep.

Day six, 5th January 2010

It didn’t rain overnight. We awoke at about 6.30am, and with prospects of going somewhere, Robert and I enthusiastically prepared and consumed last night’s dinner (in my case half of my remaining de-hy meal) while everyone else feasted on their regular breakfast cereal, or whatever came to hand. We were now officially a day late, having been due out yesterday, but not much could have been done about it.

There was still the problem of getting through Limestone Creek, and it didn’t appear to be any lower this morning than it had been the previous night. It wasn’t long before Steve had concocted a plan, however, having gone for a short mission up the river and discovered a fallen tree. The only catch was that the tree didn’t span the entire creek. Rather, it dipped down into the creek from the southern side (true right) towards the north, meeting the water about half way across. Beyond this point the trunk continued to sink underneath. Falling off would mean a swim or a pack-float, but hopefully this wouldn’t be necessary. On closer inspection it was clear that the tree had been sawn by someone specifically to make a bridge, but it either didn’t work as well as that person had hoped, or it’s since collapsed into the creek. It worked, however.

Steve on a one-way trip.

Steve was first to inch his way down the trunk, and with some effort he found a way to clamber over the underwater branches on the far side of where it met the water, eventually reaching the far bank below a miniature bluff. Over the next 15 minutes we all followed, and we were over. Although it wasn’t certain if we’d be out tonight given some notes about the state of the track ahead, this crossing had been the last major expected hurdle of the trip. Given how long we’d been stuck and how frustrated some of us had become, it was a nice relief to finally have it behind us. There was finally some light ahead, and with some sunshine in the sky there might even be something to look forward to.

Robert in front of Mokihinui Forks Hut.

During another 90 minutes of sidling through thick tangled bush, we saw several more robins and fantails, and also three baby goats huddled together under a tree without a mummy or daddy goat in sight. Eventually, in the middle of the bush, we began to stumble on ancient human-made remnants of structures such as slabs of rusty corrugated iron. I suspect we were at an old site of Mokihinui Forks Hut, because the LINZ map shows the hut about 100 metres from where it actually is (according to my GPS). Soon after, at 9am, we pushed through the trees to finally reach a hut. It’s a standard 6 bunk hut located under a giant Rimu tree, with a wonderful wide view of the forks of the north and south branch of the Mokihinui River below. We stopped for a break, and applied insect repellent which very suddenly became necessary. Browsing the book, we found that a group from the Nelson Tramping Club had been stranded at this hut during the floods, having already been two days overdue before finally managing to leave about the previous day. Perhaps this had been the point of the helicopter earlier on.

The remainder of the walk out to the road from Mokihinui Forks Hut is shown as tracked on our map, and parts of it are well tracked with Department of Conservation orange triangles and all. Realistically it should only be classed as a route, though. Signs at both ends warn that it’s for experienced trampers only, and there’s good reason for this. The route, which follows the historic gold miners’ track cut into the cliffs high above the true left of the Mokihinui River, crosses numerous slips. Three or four of these slips are especially awkward, and while completely crossable and reasonably safe with care, you should expect to be traversing some narrow paths around bluffs, using fixed wires for security in a couple of places, and so on. The western end of the track also includes numerous creek crossings, and one waterfall under which we all had to get wet. Some had quite strong currents and needed thought before leaping in, though the recent rain could possibly have made a few more full than they would have otherwise been.

Mokihinui Forks, where the
south branch meets the north.

A notice in the hut claims the route takes 6 hours, the sign at the far end claims the route takes 8 hours. With seven of us including occasional breaks, it took about 7.5 hours. The route isn’t well marked to begin with, and even the Nelson Tramping Club (which had unsuccessfully tried to get out twice) had stated in their entry that they’d had to bush-bash north of the hut for the lack of any obvious track. We soon discovered that with the current conditions we could head down to the river level in the long grasses, and follow an approximate direction north-ish, during which we somehow spent lots of time walking within a rather deep ditch, to where the south branch of the river meets the north and it swings around to the west towards the coast. We reached this point at 9.30am, and stood on the beach for a few minutes admiring the scenic surroundings, before taking the lead of a bright orange triangle that led up the hillside above some bluffs over the main river, prior to coming back down again over a few more flats.

Views from above.

Crossing Specimen Creek.

At 11.15am, we reached Specimen Creek, coming into the Mokihinui from the true left. This creek is another waterway with a substantial catchment, and no doubt it could also have been problematic with significant rain, but at this time it was easily crossable. The marked route then heads up the hill-side, for the most part leaving the river well below, offering regular glimpses through the trees of an increasingly giant Mokihinui River below. It was compelling to consider just how much the river had changed from the tiny, barely significant tree-smothered creek we’d first stepped into four days earlier. The total catchment is massive and by comparison the river below was huge. For much of this time, we crossed slips — some old and overgrown, some appearing quite active. Several slips, as mentioned earlier, required careful thought and caution to negotiate safely, but all were eventually doable.

One of the more awkward slips.

At half past twelve we stopped for lunch, and I felt disappointed at how much food I had left on what was now almost certain to be our last meal of the walk, given how I’d spent so much effort carefully budgeting just in case. It pays to be safe though, I suppose. All that remained was to get out, and apart from the regular slip or creek crossing, this last section just goes on and on, roughly 20 kilometres of long, straight walking (except for the slips and creeks) from Mokihinui Forks Hut to the end of the road. In places where trees opened up, I looked over the edge and tried to imagine what this gorge would be like should it be dammed, with a 14 kilometre lake to smother the wild river below. At 3.45pm, we walked past the top end of Rough and Tumble Creek, aptly named for its rapids and the excessive noise it generates as it hits the Mokihinui. With an artificial lake, this spectacular entrance that’s been carved and moulded over the millennia would be gone.

Rough and Tumble Creek.

Much of the track along here is surrounded by a forest of young Rimu trees. One day — notwithstanding any decisions to fell them in the future — it will probably grow into something rather magnificent. As we left the main track and approached the road, we passed two crosses commemorating the deaths of David and James Russell, two gold prospectors (father and son) who died in a slip during the massive Murchison Earthquake in 1929.

After a substantial sit at the road in the vicinity of 5pm, we began our walk out to the small township of Seddonville, which isn’t a long way along the road. As we finally walked this stretch, Donna came driving up in a van to collect us, coincidentally having guessed that we might have arrived about now if we’d been walking all day. It was a nice relief.

Robert and Steve at the end.

Seddonville, the small township near the end of the Mokihinui River and whose population would probably all fit inside the Seddonville Pub, was on an evacuation alert during the early days of 2010, at about the same time we’d been penned behind Hennessy Creek. In the past few days, levels of the Mokihinui River that had been unprecedented for many years. Donna, also a day late out from her own trip further north in the Kahurangis, had already stayed a night in Seddonville and been assured by the locals that there was no way we could possibly be getting out that afternoon. I think they’d assumed we’d have aimed for Goat Creek Hut on the far side of the river, rather than camping 200 metres away in the rain for two nights.

The local hunters had ordered helicopters to bring out their mates, and on hearing about us, they’d even been trying to rig up a way of getting us out on the back of one of the other flights, wonderful people that they were. Ironically if we had stayed on the true right behind the large river to aim for Goat Creek Hut, we might have been spotted on the morning of day 5, perhaps even lifted out by the helicopter that buzzed over Robert and I to land in front of the hut and look in to see if anyone was home. This was not to be, however, but I think with so much uncertainty at the time we would have appreciated it a lot there and then, and happily divvied up any resulting expenses between us.

I’ve seen rivers in flood before, but this is the first time I’ve been stuck in such a way. Although no fun at the time, it was fulfilling and I think I’ll go into future experiences with more confidence about preparation and expectations around waiting for rivers to go down. It’s nice to reach the end of such experiences, though.

The beginning (day 2).

The end (day 6)

Edit 21-Jan-2009: I earlier mentioned allegations that Meridian paid the Department of Conservation to not make a submission, but have just noticed I had the wrong link, and can’t locate a reference. (That link refers to a different case that doesn’t involve the Mokihinui.) The Department of Conservation made a submission against the Mokihinui Dam proposal.

The full published results are available on DOC’s website.

The original proposal of the Te Araroa Trust was to go more or less via this route, but the Trust put together the alternative proposal to build a track along Oriwa Ridge, below the bush-line, after the DOC Wellington Hawkes Bay conservancy expressed concern that the earlier route could be too dangerous for the often less experienced trampers that Te Araroa might be expected to attract. This has been brewing for about a year now, and has unveiled much controversy over balancing the seclusion of dedicated wilderness areas and the promotion of recreation, and all that.

Having gone through the submission process with 218 submissions, DOC has decided that its initial concerns are no longer relevant. It’s decided that for various reasons Oriwa Ridge probably isn’t that much safer anyway, that the reasons against the Oriwa Ridge proposal out-weigh the reasons in favour, and ultimately that there will be no track built through Oriwa Ridge. Reasoning that the Te Araroa Trust has since included rugged exposed alpine routes in other regions of the track, DOC has now also come out in favour of the original Te Araroa proposal that it initially had concerns about, to follow the existing and more exposed route through the Tararuas at higher altitude. As long as everyone who walks this section of the Te Araroa Trail takes standard precautions (ie. doesn’t take undue risks), this should be a win for everyone.

It ruffled feathers and caused stress for people on both sides early on. Oriwa Ridge is within one of two Remote Wilderness Areas in the Tararuas — special areas set aside to receive little or no development. This is so experienced people really can get into the wilderness without having to run into tracks, huts, helicopters, and too many other people. Despite having been a popular route many decades ago, Oriwa Ridge itself has a reputation (deserved or not) of being a remote ridge to walk along thanks to a famous storm in the 1930s that left behind lots of tree-fall, causing the ridge to be a comparably challenging, but rewarding route for people who enjoy getting out to that sort of place. The Te Araroa Trail proposal would have ploughed a more heavily walked track along the ridge, which contradicts the idea of a remote wilderness zone and (being on the ridge itself) would have made it difficult for people visiting the region to avoid.

When the Department of Conservation eventually requested submissions on the Oriwa Ridge idea back in August, it triggered debate amongst many of the locals who visit the Tararuas. The Te Araroa Trust encouraged its supporters to make submissions in favour of its proposed route. At the same time, however, several of the local tramping clubs approached the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand, which made a strong submission against the proposal.

In some ways it’s a shame that so much time and effort has been spent both by people in the trust, in DOC, and other interested parties, certainly with much stress along the way, to effectively arrive at the conclusion that the initial idea was always the best. I suppose at least it’s been thought through in a lot of detail now, however, and hopefully everyone can at least see there’s been reasoned consideration.

Perhaps the last word is that anyone who still wants to walk along Oriwa Ridge, as part of their own Te Araroa route or not, can continue to do so. I’ve never been there, but I intend to see it sooner or later. Unlike many countries, there’s no legal requirement to fill in any forms or pay any admissions, or stay on any marked track. All that’s required is to leave it as you find it, and to be fully responsible for yourself. Once these things are accounted for, Oriwa Ridge and nearly anywhere in New Zealand’s back-country is there to be visited in a relatively un-touched state. It’s one of the beauties of our public estate which I hope I’ll never take for granted.

It’s a windy coastline.

It turns out I was the only person walking the walk to Honeycomb Rock last Sunday. A family group of about four began a few minutes before me, but turned around within the first ten minutes. I don’t blame them, but having driven for a couple of hours to get there, I wasn’t about to do the same. I’d heard that Honeycomb Rock would be an interesting place to visit, but didn’t really know what to expect. Information about the walk is fairly scarce, and this was combined with my general lack of research before I left. Being ill informed as I was, I ran into a few issues. The first was that aside form the starting point (Glenburn Station), I didn’t really know where to start. The second was that aside from somewhere around the coast, I didn’t really know where to go. The third was that aside from something about fancy rocks and a seal colony, I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t help that I’d for some reason been thinking it was “Honeycomb Rocks” instead of “Honeycomb Rock”, but I guess now I know better.

Date: 13th December, 2009
Location: Glenburn Station, Wairarapa Coast.
Route: Walk to Honeycomb Rock and back, wherever that is.
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

The walk is administered by the New Zealand Department of Conservation in the Wairarapa region, but is entirely on the privately owned Glenburn Station (sheep and cattle farming). It’s officially closed when Glenburn Station is in baby-raising mode (ie. lambing season), but even the DOC signs only say that this is “usually” about September and October (despite the website info being specific about this), so if it’s near this time and you have any doubt you should probably contact an office in the Wairarapa to find out before going all the way out there. It’s not a major enough walk for much information to be available through DOC’s passive resources beyond a sparsely clad pamphlet downloadable from the website, and as a coastal walk it’s probably targeted mostly at people who live in relatively nearby places such as Carterton or Masterton. It’s not often that I go out for a daywalk and spend two thirds of the time driving, but I wanted to see what it was.

Driving over the hill and down to the coast, it was already clear just how windy it was simply by looking down on the fields and seeing the giant waves of wind racing over the grass-lands below. The unsealed road passes through a couple of farm gates, so if you’re going this way it may be necessary to open the odd gate — the standard New Zealand farm code applies of course, which is to leave the gate as you found it. (ie. Close it if it was closed, and leave it open if it was open.) Some time after 10am on Sunday morning, I parked the car in an intimidatingly strong wind beside the end of the road, and ducked outside finding some ad-hoc shelter under the car to sort out my gaiters. Gaiters probably aren’t needed here as a rule, but I’ve often found them to be very useful around farm-land even when it wasn’t clear they would be. Good footwear is a must, but that’s probably the case anywhere with a significant walk.

The DOC track leads over the ledge
directly above this beach for a short
distance, so I just hopped down.

I watched the family group (mum, dad and a couple of children) leave a couple of minutes ahead of me, clutching coats around their ears to keep the wind off, and followed the along the fence-line for a few minutes, which is marked over the farm by occasional DOC orange triangles. DOC goes to great pains to stress to people that the beach cannot be legally reached from the track, probably because people would otherwise wander over farm-land where they shouldn’t be. The marked track does actually follow directly alongside the beach in places, however, and one such place is within a few minutes of the start, where it heads direct to the beach and routes people outside the farm fences for a while, practically on the beach, before hopping back over the fence to be slightly further in-land. It was during this short stretch on the beach that I overtook the earlier-mentioned family group, and I don’t think they went much further than this because the wind in the air was just so frustratingly and consistently strong.

Wide and windy flats between
the coast and the hills.

Although the rule is to stick to the DOC-marked track and never leave it, I did find the entire thing fairly ambiguous. Having followed the markers over a fenced field from the coast and over a fence, I just lost the markers and didn’t pick them up for ages. At this time I decided to follow the coastal farm road on the assumption that it was probably where I was supposed to be, and my lack of research prior to arriving wasn’t helping. After 10 minutes of this, I started to wonder if I’d missed a critical marker completely, and if I’d been supposed to head up a small spur onto the top of the hills above the coast. During this time I met the only other person I’d see for the entire walk, driving a farm vehicle the other way back towards the public road. He grinned at me as he sped past and I took this as a sign that I wasn’t in a horribly illegal place, but it didn’t help on reaching a farm gate further up the road that was ambiguously un-marked by anything of a DOC nature.

I eventually discovered on the way back that there is a sort of a track, even with occasional markers, that sometimes seems to run parallel with the farm road on the coastal side, at least as best as I can tell. If you find yourself around here and can’t find the nice, legal DOC track, I’d suggest just sticking to the road unless you notice otherwise. Chances are you’re within a few metres of the legal track anyway, and the primary purpose of this restriction is to ensure that people don’t interfere with work or conditions on the farm in unexpected ways, antagonise animals accidentally, fall into holes and sue the Glenburn Station owners, or whatever else might occur as a consequence of people being in unexpected places. Being on the road, at least, is probably the next best way to minimise potential problems if the DOC-marked track isn’t visible. I did venture from the road at least once, which was necessary to find a rock behind which I could hide from the wind while I applied some sunblock. I also replaced my sun-hat with a beanie to protect my ears from the wind blasting, and this was one of the few times that I’ve felt I had to periodically check to see if my beanie hadn’t blown off my head. Several times it came close.

Looking back along the road. It think there’s a legal
DOC track buried somewhere to the right.

There were three gates in total, and it was only shortly before the third gate that I began to notice the occasional pole poking low out of the ground with small broken fragments of orange plastic nailed to them. The second gate, still not clearly marked by anything DOC related, holds a sign saying “Coast”, and it’s after this that the road moves quite close to the coast. As opposed to running about 50-60 metres inland, it’s now a hop, skip and jump of less than about 2-3 metres away. Although DOC states loudly that there’s no legal access to the beach from the DOC track, the road at least gets very close here. As it turns out, parts of the DOC track obviously do reach the coast regardless, because there’s a marker I’d missed in the vicinity of the major seal colony about half way towards Honeycomb Rock, and the seal colony is (of course) on the coast. Generally though, they don’t want people randomly wandering over the farm-land, with good intentions or not, for good reason.

First signs of unusually-eroded rocks.

The third gate, just before Honeycomb Rock, actually does have a small orange triangle marker attached to confirm that it’s still a DOC-managed route. As soon as I opened this I could suddenly smell the stench of the New Zealand Fur Seal, but it I didn’t see the straight away. The rock itself stands out clearly on the coast, and I took a couple of photos. Not have a clue what to expect, or if I’d reached it, however, I thought that perhaps I was supposed to be reaching a much larger cluster of rocks rather than a single rock, so I kept walking for a while.

The third gate, which actually has a marker.

The wind had been blustery and strong all the way, but on turning the corner at the gate it suddenly became much extreme. Occasionally it would be carm, but the stirring of the trees in the distance would always turn into approaching waves of dancing grass, and spray from the waves being thrown in what was surely the wrong direction. There would be about enough time to quickly examine yet another creative variety of four letter words scrolling through my mind before having to rapidly duck to the ground thinking “oh krud, not again”, before it would hit.

The cows didn’t mind.

Moo.

These cows that I mention were the crowd of cattle cautiously eyeing me up, and being careful to stay together in the herd, as cows do, whilst I carefully negotiated my way around them. Soon after this was a shallow and un-bridged stream running into the sea, which I walked through, and a short distance later was another gate that looked even less as if it was designed for casual walkers to pass through. At this time, with the wind battering me, I decided that i really didn’t mind if I’d reached whatever it was I was supposed to be looking at, and I’d turn around now.

Honeycomb Rock, I think.

Having slowly come to the conclusion that perhaps I’d already passed all of the honeycomb, I stopped on the way back for a more proper look at what I later confirmed actually was Honeycomb Rock. A number of grumbling seals were basking near it so I didn’t manage to get too close to the sea (not wanting to disturb them or cause them to feel uneasy by getting between them and the sea), but it’s quite an interesting formation I guess. Not the kind of rock you see every day, unless you live in a place like Glenburn Station I suppose. What I should have done was to look on the southern end of the rock, where there’s supposed to be the wreck of the Tuvalu, “a Fijian trader which ran aground here on its maiden voyage on 11 January 1967″.

Seal guardians at the rock.

I’ve been trying to find out the geological details of Honeycomb Rock, about how it formed and why it’s like it is and such. A quick and lazy search on the web specifically about Honeycomb Rock doesn’t reveal much more than several plagiarised verbatim-lifted-and-uncredited copies of the DOC description that states it’s “a spectacular outcrop on the Wairarapa coast, so named because of the remarkable cell-like weathering pattern which gives the rock a honeycomb appearance.” So far the best reference I’ve found about the general concept is the Wikipedia article about Honeycomb Weathering, which essentially says it’s a reasonably common process on porous rock on horizontal planes in coastal areas. The salt-water settles within the pore spaces in the rock (rather than simply running off), and the salt from the water then crystalises as the water around it evaporates. Because it’s inside the pores, it the crystals eventually start to break seals open as they grow within the rock, and this opens up the rock to other kinds of erosion in a certain way that result in the honeycomb appearance. If I understand it correctly, anyway, but please correct me if you know otherwise. Pretty cool, actually.

More Honeycomb-eroded Rock next
to the beach on the way back.

Now on my way back, I thought I might try to walk on the DOC track that I could see poled one metre to the right of the road, although I stopped from time to time to sit on the beach and have staring contests with seals before the track and road left them behind. It was basically an animal track more than anything else, and when the DOC markers disappeared again (as far as I could tell), it just became several fairly non-distinguished animal tracks roughly between the road and the coast, occasionally converging back to where the road was at places such as gates.

More rock guards.

As I reached the mini-peninsula point that juts out about half way back, I spotted another DOC pole poking out of the ground with a marker on it, and took this as a happy sign that I could legally cross the farm-land, if for no other reason than to get back onto wherever the DOC track was supposed to be, since apparently it wasn’t where I was right at that time. The point of this marker was to provide access to the main fur seal colony, and at this time of year there were quite a few hanging out. I didn’t count, but certainly at least 50, and perhaps triple that if counting the others spread up and down the coast to Honeycomb Rock. I spent a few minutes having another staring contest with a big grunty seal sitting on a rock. Then I turned around and walked back to the road.

The spray tears back into the
sea as the waves come in.

Nearing where I’d parked the car, I finally managed to replace my sun-hat, and the cord that ties it down proved its practicality on several occasions when my hat blew away. The sea was still rolling in with as I approached outside the edge of the farm-land, the wind wisping away any spray well back into the sea, and I stopped for a few photos before reaching the car.

With a roughly 2.5 hour drive each way from Wellington and much of that on unsealed roads (and stopping for things like a very late lunch), I worked out that I was walking from 10.20am to 2.07pm, so a little less than 4 hours of walking — it may be wildly different for different people depending on how much of a hurry any given person or group is in, and the length of time of the staring contests with the local wildlife. It’s roughly similar to the DOC posted time to the “Track End” on the sign at the beginning, whatever that means. The same sign states it’s 3 hours return to Honeycomb Rock, and the online DOC information estimates a far more conservative time of 5 to 6 hours. So I’m still not really sure which rock is which, or how far I was supposed to go — perhaps the three hour “Honeycomb Rock” was the one I saw part way along that was practically on the beach, and the other big one that I thought was Honeycomb Rock was the 4 hour end of the track. Ultimately it doesn’t matter because it was an interesting walk, but I find it frustrating not knowing these details lest I might have missed something interesting.

It’s a photogenic walk on a day like today, especially without too many people around and if you can prepare things to tolerate the wind if it’s present. I was relieved to be able to sit in the car and recover from the wind for a few minutes, but looking back on the photos I took along the way, I feel quite good about where I went.

The Orongorongo Valley.

I was actually supposed to be going with some others into the Tararuas, but that arrangement fell apart a day or two before, and I doubt I’d have been able to go along with it anyway since I’ve been having some knee problems since arriving back in the country. I really didn’t want to do nothing, though, and made a last minute plan to walk into the Orongorongas from Catchpool Valley, stopping to camp at whatever point my knee decided it could go no further. This plan eventually led me to an ad-hoc campsite next to a river underneath Papatahi where I stayed for a night, before walking out roughly the way I’d come on the following morning.

Dates: 5th – 6th December, 2009
Location: Rimutaka Forest Park, Catchpool Valley road-end.
People: Just me.
Huts visited: Baine Iti Hut (0 nights), Shamrock Hut (0 nights), Haurangi Hut (0 nights), and a heap of private lodges.
Route: Catchpool Valley to the Orongorongo River, up the river to North Boulder Creek, camp in the creek below Papatahi, then back the same way.
[Photos]
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The end of Turere Stream as it
reaches the Orongorongo River.

And thus it was that after a late start, I arrived at the Catchpool Valley car-park at about midday. I’ve been here before, but my first impression on the day of this entrance to the Rimutaka Range was that it might not have been a good idea with a dodgy knee. It’s probably by far the most popular entrance to the range, and the Orongorongo Track, which is the main route to the Orongorongo River, is hard enough on the legs that it might as well be cemented. A little over an hour later, though, I reached the main Orongorongo River, and walking on the sandy river rocks made things easier on my problem knee.

Many people were around during the sunny Saturday, especially near the junction of the main Orongorongo Track. This is probably a reflection of the accessibility and popularity of this area, and the numerous nearby places to stay, and so much the better to see everyone out and enjoying the place. The area is flooded with private batches, and most of them are concentrated in this part of the valley. They tend to be hidden in the trees and so besides the occasional hut poking out from the trees, their presence isn’t overbearing on a walk up the river bed.

The bed of the Orongorongo River is very wide and braided. Most of the time it’s low and easy to walk along, but it’s still necessary to get wet feet. There’s a track along the western side somewhere for part of the way which is where many of the batches are hiding, but when the river floods it’s very possible to be trapped on the wrong side. This certainly wasn’t happening on Saturday, though.

One of a pair of Paradise Ducks.

A New Zealand Pipit (I think).

I met a noisy pair of Paradise Ducks half an hour up the river, and an NZ Pipit not long after, which was nice as although fairly common, they’re the kind of birds I don’t notice much in many other places I visit. Around two hours after leaving the carpark, I arrived at the mouth of Matthew’s Stream, with Baines Hut on one bank (operated by the Hutt Valley Tramping Club) and Baine Iti Hut hidden deep in the trees on the other bank. The latter is the oldest remaining hut in the valley, having been built in 1930 to replace a previous hut. Unlike most of the locked huts in the valley, Baine Iti Hut has been donated for open use by the Baine Family, to all comers. It’s very cost but only a 4 bunk hut, so not the kind of place to visit without being prepared to camp outside if necessary. (It’s a good camping spot.)

Baine Iti Hut.

Matthew’s Stream is the turning point for most people wanting to climb Mt Matthews, which at 941 metres is the highest peak in the range, so I suppose this would be as far up the Orongorongo River as many people go. It’s also the point at which private lodges seem to thin out a lot, and from here on things finally began to feel more remote, in a sense. I wasn’t walking along the track in the trees (I couldn’t see the point on such a nice day), but I think it’s about this point where that track stops. LINZ still considers there to be a track heading up the river, but as far as I can tell it’s effectively the same as the 4WD route up the river, even so far as the Department of Conservation marking the road with very occasional orange triangles, such as the route up to Shamrock Hut — one of the locked DOC huts to which I went for a quick look. If you’re planning to follow the “official” track and happen to lose it, the easiest thing to do is probably to ask yourself where a herd of rampaging elephants might go (or have been), and that’s most likely where you’ll find the 4WD route. In most cases there’s little need, though, because it’s a whopping big river bed and very difficult to get lost unless you happen to be looking for a very specific place along the edge.

Approaching North Boulder Creek and
the entry to the water catchment.

I continued up the river, and at about 3.45pm (roughly 3.5 hours from the Catchpool Valley carpark, though I suspect this is a fairly quick time by some standards), I found the point where the 4WD route more or less stops and the main marked DOC track heads up to Papatahi, eventually over to the Wairarapa in the route known as the Papatahi Crossing. Actually the road possibly continues further up the main river, but it’s not legal to continue without permission because it’s from here that the Orongorongo River emerges from one of Wellington’s main water catchment regions. Prior to leaving I’d had a plan in the back of my mind to look somewhere up there somewhere for a nice camp-side, based solely on the terrain shown on the map. I suppose now I know better. With lots of daylight, though, I kept walking further up North Boulder Creek, where the Papatahi Crossing route goes, and although the potential good campsites up that way seemed hard to come by, I managed to find a small patch of sandy rock that was reasonably flat and just large enough to pitch my fly. It’s probably been used for camping in the past. I made a note of it but with so much daylight left, I was thinking about heading up to Papatahi for a look.

The final stage up to Papatahi.

At 902 metres, Papatahi is the second highest peak in the range after Mt Matthews, and it seemed a shame to be so close and not visit. I made it as far as filling up my water bottle and preparing virtually everything, but I turned around within the first 10 metres of climbing from the river. Unfortunately it’s one of those tracks that climbs very steeply to first get up onto a spur, and while that in itself seemed normal, it didn’t feel quite right to be going up something like that when on my own, particularly when I was already feeling my sore knee again, and without knowing exactly how long it’d be like this before the gradient shallowed out and became easier. Actually given the state of my knee and only 3 more hours of daylight, thought of getting down again if I had an accident concerned me too. So I turned around, returned to my nominated camping platform, and pitched my fly. I’ll visit Papatahi some other time, perhaps during a proper attempt at a Papatahi Crossing.

An ad-hoc campsite.

It wasn’t a terribly well pitched fly in the end given the difficulty in getting pegs into rocks. One day I’ll probably learn and attach some ties to my fly to make it easier to use in this situation (ie. tying it to rocks), but on this occasion I just found some heavy river rocks (sometimes with large and interesting looking spiders underneath) to weigh down the edges. It looked ugly and was probably bad for the canvas, but without much wind it did the job well enough and I wandered out to soak up the last of the sunshine, boil some water and rehydrate my dinner (Yum), and read this book I found by Jane Austen and some other guy. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve been tramping solo and had a night completely alone (without running into other groups). Despite being camped alongside one of the main tramping routes over the Rimutakas, I saw nobody between about 2pm Saturday and 11am Sunday.

Saturday night.

I’d had an idea in the back of my mind that if I got away early enough on Sunday morning, and felt well enough, I might be able to dash up Mt Matthews on the way home, which I’ve also never done. Things didn’t work out so well though, and despite best intentions and opening my eyes at 6am, I didn’t bother to drag myself properly from my sleeping bag until 2 hours later, and then not getting away until after 9. I’m sure I needed my sleep, though.

If there is a track near the river in this region, I think it goes somewhere along the true left (south-eastern side) of the North Boulder Creek and Orongorongo River. In fact, I saw clear evidence of people (or possibly animals) having stumbled and shimmied down the sandy banks in the past. As I was leaving I thought I might investigate to try and find any track, but all I found immediately at the top of the bank was lots of barely penetrable and tangly supplejack, and a solid knee-full of Onga Onga (also known as Stinging Nettle), which regrettably stayed with me for the rest of the day. Maybe a good point is that on the occasions that I thought it stopped stinging, it seemed to be numbing the pain that was around my knee before it… it was probably my imagination, though. So I went back down the creek, more or less the way I came up. There must be reasons to go up the bank, but I’m not completely sure what they are. Perhaps there’s a really good track that I just didn’t look hard enough for. It might sometimes make sense when the river and creeks are flooded, but it seems necessary to cross them so frequently in this area regardless anyway.

A less ad-hoc campsite.

Back along the Orongorongo River, I checked a couple of other places where there were obvious short tracks down the high sand banks, and on one occasion found what was a very nice campsite on the true left. (I tagged it on my GPS so it’s marked it on the map attached to this post.) It’s probably one of many nice campsites in the area, although few would be clearly visible from the riverbed, and if I’d found it the night before I expect I would have come back to here rather than camp on the edge of the river where I’d found myself.

Mt Matthews is well signposted
from Matthews Stream.

On reaching the mouth of Matthews Stream (between Baine Iti Hut and Baines Hut), and still only being mid-morning, I thought I might at least wander up the stream-bed a little to check out what was there, and how easy it is to find the track as it leaves to climb up to South Saddle and Mt Matthews. The LINZ map data actually shows a track that doesn’t go directly along this stream at all, but which enters the trees on the southern side of Baines Hut before criss-crossing Matthews’ Stream further on. Looking for this route seemed obsolete, if it even exists, and there was also a big obvious orange track marking stake in the middle of the wide stream mouth, which I took as a likely sign that walking up the stream-bed was a preferable option. Following it around the corner to be parallel with the Orongorongo for a short stretch, it was barely 10 minutes before I found the well marked and verbally sign-posted beginning of a track up to South Saddle, Mt Matthews or alternatively the coast. It would have been very tempting to try and dash up to see what was there, except for the whole knee issue combined with knowledge of a family function I wanted to attend later on Sunday evening. So I took some photos, enjoyed the silence, and returned to the Orongorongo where I met the first people I’d see all day — a group of about five who were preparing to walk up. I’ll come back and take a look up some other time.

Haurangi Hut.

I made a token effort to find the walking track inside the trees on the true right of the Orongorongo River, which supposedly begins about here. I wasn’t successful, though, so continued to follow the river bed until I saw a dark green shipping container balanced in the trees on the hill-side. It turned out I’d reached Haurangi Hut, another of the locked DOC huts in the valley and similar in status to Shamrock Hut where I’d visited yesterday. I wandered up for a look, and for future reference, before leaving at about 11.20am.

From this point on, what remained was a nice, casual river walk, albeit careful given I didn’t want to do myself any more damage. I stopped for a brief lunch as I reached the end of the Orongorongo Track after another hour, before finally leaving the river. The track wasn’t quite so hard on the way back for the final hour, and I’m unsure if it was to do with walking the opposite direction, or perhaps my various leg muscles had this time been warmed up in advance. Or perhaps my knee’s just getting better as time goes on. I was just happy that I managed to get out and do something for the weekend, and also that I finally was able to see another side of this mountain range which, until now, my impressions have been biased with ideas of built-up private batches everywhere, and vehicle access. I think returning some time to explore more of it will be an easy decision.

The Orongorongo Valley.

I found a new way into Belmont Regional Park that I’d previously not known about, heading up through Granada North where there’s a new sub-division going in, then just following the roads until they fade away. In hindsight I think I might have accidentally crossed about 50 metres of private land (hopefully no more), which I realised upon emerging at the end of someone’s driveway, so I’m not 100% sure if there’s a complete public access corridor going through there.

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I decided about half way through the day that I’d like to get to Whitby, which is the suburb in which I grew up. It would have been nice to have been able to follow Duck Creek from Belmont Regional Park all the way, but unfortunately it’s blocked off as more private land and so I had to divert back into suburbia and walk around the streets.

It was strange walking around Whitby. I haven’t lived there for 17 years, but there are memories everywhere, and much of it doesn’t seem to have changed so much. Other things have, though. Everything seems so much more condensed. Great hills that I remember as taking much effort to climb feel unusually shallow. Walking through my old school in which I spent my entire primary and intermediate career, all of the buildings feel smaller. It’s hard to imagine how we spent so much time running around here without constantly hitting the walls. I guess people grow up.

The property developers have taken over some of the great areas of recreation. I have wonderful memories of flying kites through the area that’s now a fenced off retirement village. It was always going to happen, and despite having been very sad to leave in 1992, I’m not sure I could go back to live there again, at least with the same expectations.

It was late in the day, in any case, and I resumed my plan of aiming for the 6.34pm train from Paremata back home again… more of a challenge than I expected given how my feet were starting to give up. There was still enough summer daylight left to make the walk around Pauatahanui Inlet worthwhile, and when I arrived at the train station at exactly 6.34pm, it was only a shame the train was running 20 minutes late.

I guess what had turned into a 43 km walk was quite a shock to the system when it’d been a while, and my right knee now seems to be playing up. Hopefully things will improve in the next week or two, though.

I’ll dispense with the complete story of our holiday, except to say that Laos is a fantastic place. (Some photos of the whole thing may be found here.) It’s not yet quite so touristy as neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam (having to pay the US$1 going rate to the Vietnamese immigration guy at the land border just so he’d stamp my passport was a disappointing introduction to Vietnam), and Laos has only been generally open to tourists since the 1990s. There’s a project to at least double tourism over the next decade, adapting facilities in to bring in more overseas money. The place will probably change a lot in that time, and I only hope the attraction of the tourist dollar doesn’t cause any more of the country to become like Vang Vieng, which ten years ago was a tiny village but has now turned into a giant pub crawl town aimed at young English-speaking young backpackers who typically go there to get hammered.

Laos has a devastatingly war-torn history through the last few centuries, having been hastily usurped into “French Indochina” in 1893 as part of the race between France and Britain to be first to colonise as much of the world as possible. Not long after the communists finally kicked out the French, Laos became tangled in the Vietnam war, and the USA dropped more bombs on eastern Laos between 1964 and 1973 than were dropped during the entire second world war. (Reportedly that’s about one B-52 payload being dropped every eight minutes day and night over 9 years!) To this day, Laos holds the unenvious title of being the most bombed country, anywhere, ever. It’s a sad story, especially having seen how polite and generous the people are, but on the other hand it’s good to see it’s no longer happening. The entire region is full of limestone, dotted with numerous pinnacle structures and caves. During the various wars, people frequently hid in caves, surrounding themselves with Budda statues for protection. Until relatively recently, typical life expectencies were as low as about 45, with about 25% of children dying in their first few years. With roughly 1/3 of the 260 million bombs that were dropped never having detonated, people who live in that region still suffer indiscriminately from tripping unexploded live ammunition.

Slow boats like this are a common
sight in Laos on the Mekong River.

Our holiday didn’t involve much walking or tramping or hiking, apart from the odd three hour staged walk to a waterfall here and there. From what I saw there was a lot of potential scope for tramping around Laos, but it’s not really an angle being pushed by anyone there, as far as I can tell. I asked someone about such possibilities as we spent a couple of days floating down the Mekong River, but I had to repeat and re-phrase the question a couple of times because he didn’t understand the concept of what I was talking about. Walking around in the wilderness for recreation doesn’t make a lot of sense in a place where people already do this as part of their lives. In particular, certain nomadic people live along the banks of the Mekong River, re-locating their settlements as the months go on to wherever it’s appropriate for them to farm and grow what they need, prior to packing up and moving somewhere else so the land can re-generate.

Local people in Laos have far more to worry about than enjoying the wilderness. When you already live in it, it’s everywhere, and you have to think about day-to-day living, recognition of the wilderness as something for leisure or preservation takes a back seat. I’m sure there are parallels here with early colonisation of New Zealand. When the first people arrived 1000 years ago, massive amounts of forest were burned off to make way for humans to live. There was so much of it, after all, and New Zealand bush does tend to be impenetrable on average in its natural state. The pattern was repeated 200 years ago when European settlers arrived, fresh with new farming techniques and newly-developed technology that could be used to turn nearly all of the country’s native wetlands into valuable farm-land, giant thousand year old trees were felled all over for short term gain, birds became extinct and other birds became severely endangered as their habitat was destroyed. Ecologically it was a tremendous disaster, and I’ve often wished for the chance to see New Zealand as it might have been before humans messed it up so much, but these also established a stable economy for settlers who needed to live and sustain themselves in a new land.

Things change over time. Life becomes more comfortable, people get more luxuries and discover ways to live reasonably without spending every waking hour at work. People have leisure time, and they begin to appreciate things around them more, perhaps having reason to notice what’s around them, and see reasons to preserve and protect it rather than unsustainably suck it dry. Throughout the 20th century, New Zealanders established a culture that involved more leisure, getting outdoors and enjoying the environment of their country, whether by exploring the mountains, tramping, climbing, or just by getting out to the campgrounds or having barbecues on the beach. I suppose I’m fortunate to live in New Zealand now and not before — it’s undoubtedly a different world.

This is something that doesn’t really exist to the same extent in a place like Laos, at least as far as I can tell. Despite people having lived in Laos (and all of South East Asia) for a very long time, the history means that absolute preservation of the complete environment as it exists today isn’t necessarily at the top of the priority list. People have far more to worry about than preserving every piece of scenery, as Laos is a country that needs to attract more money to help people to improve their way of life. I guess this is where the mineral part of the story comes in, because the other major place besides tourism where Laos is searching for income happens to be mining.

Laos has minerals — it’s uncertain exactly what minerals are there, but it’s believed there’s quite a lot of mineral wealth buried underground. There aren’t many people in Laos with the skills to search for minerals, or get them out, so the present plan has been to involve large international mining companies, especially some of the big Australian mining companies, and give them a cut of the proceeds as part of the deal. The hopeful end result is that local people will be trained up, and over time the country will become more equipped to extract its minerals on its own.

Recently in New Zealand, there has been much controversy just on the mention that the government wants to look at the conservation estate to get a stock-take of what minerals exist and where they are. This is without even explicitly saying that anything will or might be mined, but the concern has been more about what went un-said, and later Official Information Act requests discovered that Gerry Brownlee (Minister for Economic Development) already knew that he wanted to look at opening parts of places like Fiordland, the Kahurangis and Paparoa national parks for mining operations. Mining companies claim this criticism is unjustified and their footprints are minimal, and to many people this will be completely true because obviously people have different opinions on what’s acceptable depending on how important they see things.

I think the outcry is a reflection of the culture I mentioned earlier that New Zealand has built over the past century, with so many people seeing their outdoor environment as a critically important part of their lives that shouldn’t be messed with. If it really were just a stock-take, I’d think it was awesome. Coming from a relatively scientific background, I see it as a great thing to be learning as much about everything as possible. Under normal circumstances, criticising the government for simply wanting to discover more about our environment would seem bizarre, but in this case I sympathise with those who were quick to jump the gun and assume the worst. It’s unlikely that clear details for people to argue over the specifics of will be released for some time, but it seems there’s good reason for concern. I’m also very concerned.

It’s strange having just returned from a place like Laos which is also considering mining of its natural resources, because in Laos my opinion about mining might as well be a polar opposite. It’s possible that the limited amount of what I saw has skewed my opinion, but it at least seems as if mining in Laos seems will have a much more definite and positive effect on the quality of life for the people who live there, as long as it’s done carefully and with consideration about where the money goes.

Some of the 700 monks in Luang Prabang go
about the morning ritual of collecting offerings of
sticky rice from the local populace.

Late last month, a petition was opened on the Wellington City Council’s e-petition page titled Ban on smoking along the city’s “Golden Mile”, with the idea being that smoking on the main central Wellington streets should be completely banned — so far, the only CBD street in which a by-law prevents smoking is Cable Car Lane. As I write this, it has 550 signatures. To add to all of this, however, another e-petition titled Continue to allow smoking along Wellington’s Golden Mile was created by another local today, intending to show support for an opposing view that smoking shouldn’t be banned.

I’m generally skeptical of petitions for various reasons including how they’re sometimes used to claim and campaign for things that don’t match the wording under which people signed. Even in this case I’m still unsure whether I agree with the exact wording. I put my name against the first petition after some days of thought and the lengthy consideration, however, mostly because I think it’s a great issue to actually be discussed.

Restaurant and cafe owners on the main strip probably wouldn’t support such a bylaw, since (as proposed) it’d make it illegal for them to cater to smoking customers when it might not be so for competitors just around a corner. I’m also not personally certain a complete ban on smoking is the best answer, despite liking the idea of strongly encouraging and better facilitating people who want to smoke to give better consideration to those around them without alienating smokers into a reject hole.

Ultimately, I’m simply glad that this issue is being brought up and seems to be arousing interest in the community. Irrespective of whether new by-laws are needed, or just better facilities for and communication about the problems, it needs to be discussed out loud. Presently, I sometimes feel as if I can only get a breath of fresh air by stick my head into the middle of the road because today’s cars seem so much cleaner than today’s cigarettes (albeit not a scientifically-derived assertion on my part). Some people would probably say I’m just overly sensitive, but I don’t think I’m too far out of line to feel a little miffed at the current state of things. I’ll be keen to see what kind of discussions and viewpoints come out of this.

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It’s probably just as well I didn’t go tramping in the Tararuas, though. At times it still felt as if I was only using 2/3 of my lungs. The last time I went tramping with a cold like that I had a rather bad time (also because of silly decisions I made about what to wear at critical times, to be fair), and it wouldn’t have been good for anyone in the group given the yucky weather on Saturday and all the bush-bashing in that region. Now two weeks later I can still notice the effects, and I hate the way the remnants of colds can just hang around sometimes, but I think it’s dissipating now.

In unrelated news, Stacey and I are about to head overseas to South-East Asia for 3.5 weeks. (Specifically Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.) It’s the first proper holiday we’ve had for a couple of years and it’ll be fantastic to get away for a while. I suspect there’s not a lot of Wellington-based tramping in that part of the world, however, so I’m unsure how much I’ll update this blog during the coming month. When we return in mid-November I’m expecting one potentially stressful week and weekend at work, and after that I’m certain I’ll want to get out for a tramp or two.

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Along the ridge-top of the Skyline Walkway, the wind was really starting to blow — not to a leaning-against-it level, but certainly enough to cause the odd stumbling. It also wasn’t enough for the turbines over at the Makara Wind Farm to be switched off. The area’s full of high-tension power lines, and they make a major racket when the wind’s blowing through them to that extent.

Funnily enough, I notice that Erick Brenstrum recently wrote a short piece over on the Met Service Blog about ridge top winds, and how they operate.

I met the odd person coming down, but the presence of other people evaporated as I moved along the ridge. I eventually ended up at the junction to turn down to Chartwell Drive, and had to sit down behind a big rock for some relief by that point — seriously. Having just experienced some quite extreme wind, without even having crossed what is usually the windiest part of the ridge (ie. the saddle area between there and Bells’ Track), I decided that right now was the time to get down. I think the last time I’ve felt wind that strong was on the tops in the Ruahines a couple of years ago (despite them being about 4-5 times the elevation), and it wasn’t pleasant then either. It probably would have been possible to get over to Bells’ Track and get down that way without a serious incident, but in this particular case I’m using the word “probably” in its most literal sense and it didn’t seem worth the gamble. And so I followed the track down to the top of Chartwell Drive, with a violent wild tail-wind pushing me along for the first hundred metres or so before I was properly into sheltered space, after which everything returned to normality — the most fierce wind now being channelled some distance above.

It was a worthwhile couple of hours’ walk, in the end, albeit very windy in places. I even managed to stop to grab a few groceries on the way home, which seems to’ve shown up in the map since I’m slack about removing these details.

Rain

It rained and it rained and rained and rained
The average fall was well maintained
And when the tracks were simply bogs
It started raining cats and dogs

After a drought of half an hour
We had a most refreshing shower
And then the most curious thing of all
A gentle rain began to fall

Next day was also fairly dry
Save for the deluge from the sky
Which wetted the party to the skin
And after that the rain set in

– Anonymous tramper, 1984

I thought this was the end of it — just a very amusing poem from an anonymous tramper in 1984, seemingly very New Zealand-like to me (as a New Zealander) — until I started to look around the web.

It turns out the poem’s been spotted on at least several continents. Although many sightings have been in New Zealand (such as Architect’s Creek Hut in Westland National Park) it seems unlikely that it originated here as far as I can tell. It definitely dates back much further than the 1984 that was given by DOC’s visitor’s centre staff.

The best resource I’ve so far discovered is this helpful womens’ Morris Dancing website (scroll down that page a little) which initially suggested it might have been one of Barry Crump’s written ramblings based on his New Zealand experiences, but then notes that it was also published in the 1979 edition of the Cambridge University Ramblers’ Club songbook. This doesn’t necessarily rule out Barry Crump as he was very active in the 60’s, but unverified claims suggest it might also have appeared in the 1950 edition of the Cambridge songbook. The page collects together three distinct variations of the poem from various parts of the world, none of which exactly match the one I transcribed (though the Architect’s Creek Hut one comes close).

Wherever it originated, it certainly found its way around and people who tramp in New Zealand have adopted it quite well. I guess things people can identify with are like that. Who woulda thunk it?

Dundas Hut at sunset.

By now, we’re narrowing down some ideas. Over Holdsworth to Neill Forks might be worth doing in dodgy weather, and it’s near the top of the list. Looking more closely at the forecast though, it seems as if things may become more bearable late on Saturday. From somewhere an idea dawns that we could do what we originally planned in reverse, and it seems better and better the more we think about it. Getting over Cattle Ridge on Saturday with its reputation of exposure to wind could be a problem, but maybe it’s worth a try all the same. There are really only a few hundred metres to cross over the top before heading down the other side. Mmmm, sleep would be nice.

Dates: 18th – 20th September, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Putara road-end.
People: Illona, Amanda, Richard and me.
Huts visited: Herepai Hut (1 night), Roaring Stag Lodge (0 nights), Cattle Ridge Hut (0 nights), Dundas Hut (1 night).
Route: From the Putara Road End to Herepai Hut for Friday night. Then past Roaring Stag, up and over Cattle Ridge, down to cross the Ruamahanga River, then up to Dundas Hut for Saturday night. Over Pukemoremore to West Peak, East Peak, Ruapae and Herepai, then down past Herepai Hut back to the Putara Road End.
[Photos]
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Sometimes I wonder what I’m getting myself in for, but it usually pays off. One way or another, I’ll enjoy it or enjoy the end of it. Besides, as long as good decisions are made between points of safety, bad weather tramping lets you see places in a way that’s often missed.

It really is raining by the time we roll up to the end of Putara Road at 8.30pm, gateway to such fascinating places as Roaring Stag Lodge and Herepai Hut. Thankfully nobody wants to camp in this, so we’ll be walking for a while to avoid it. Two large vehicles are parked at the road, which look distinctly like the types that would belong to people who’d more likely be at Roaring Stag, fitting nicely with our plan to instead walk to Herepai Hut in the other direction. It’ll mean doubling back tomorrow, but Herepai’s also closer, and we want sleep, or I do. After some time we cross the long swing bridge over the Mangatainoka River, and after that there’s about 400 metres of walking mostly up-hill. Trudging up the muddy track by torchlight isn’t the most riveting experience, but at least there’s some drying out to look forward to, and it usually pays off. Right now it’s just raining and cold. 2 hours after leaving, when we do reach Herepai, it’s a happy relief to find it empty, so we’re not be disturbing anyone.

Unpacking and hanging things up doesn’t take long, not to imply that many things ever actually do dry out but sometimes it’s good to feel as if you’re doing something useful. With a quick assessment, we resolve we’d like to be away by 7am, meaning a wake-up call at 6. Seven hours of sleep will really help, and I slink into my nice comfy sleeping bag as the sole occupant of the top platform. Rain pounds on the roof for most of the night. Every so often a strong gust of wind rustles surrounding trees, but that’s all outside. With luck it’ll stop some time tomorrow morning, and in anticipation of the wind also dying down, we’re looking forward to a good weekend.

For some reason Illona’s alarm goes off at ten to six. This is ten minutes earlier than advertised and she probably planned it. I can hear everyone rummaging around below, but really can’t pull myself out of bed. The deal I’d made with my brain was for 6am, and until then it isn’t going to help me at all. Eventually the clock ticks over, though, and I slide down, slip on some crocs and look outside. Part of the main range is visible within the dingy lurking cloud, a thinnish layer of icy snow settled on the area between East Peak and Ruapae. It’s still raining, still windy at the top, and I’m very glad we decided not to head straight up this morning.

Illona and Richard preparing to leave.

Thankfully due to people more organised than myself, the billy’s boiled, and a quickly mixed hot brekkie helps. Before 7am, we’re fully packed, have latched the door, and commence wading through the track that’s become much more boggy overnight. It’s getting warmer with the walking and, even better, the barometer readings imply the weather has improved from the previous night. Shame about the rain.

I suppose one of the things easiest to notice about the route we’ve chosen is the excessive up and down. It starts with a climb of about 500 metres up to Herepai Hut (which we’d done on Friday night), followed by a drop of about the same amount down to Roaring Stag Lodge on the banks of the Ruamahanga River, which we’re now doing. A little demoralising in some respects given what’s to come.

The Ruamahanga River outside
Roaring Stag Lodge.

Roaring Stag Lodge is in a nice place on the banks of the Ruamahanga River, and it’s a good site for a hut. As we arrive at about 8.30am, we’re greeted by two lively and enthusiastic hunting dogs, supervised by three guys preparing to leave for the day. As they head off back up in the direction we’d come from, we take off a layer because it was getting hot. It’s still raining, though.

From Roaring Stag Lodge, we cross the long swing bridge over the Ruamahanga River to the base of Cattle Ridge, and begin climbing. Despite having climbed about 500 metres on Friday night (and dropped the same amount earlier this morning), getting up to Cattle Ridge Hut is the first big climb, straight up from around 450 metres to about 1150 metres where the hut is placed. We lose the track momentarily within the trees on the way up and have to sidle around some slippery soil, but otherwise it’s a fairly standard up-hill Tararua track. The rain is less noticeable under trees, and by the time we reach the bush-line it’s finally stopped, thankfully consistent with our most recent weather forecast. In fact, there are even traces of blue sky phasing in and out. Now we only need to contend with a freezing breeze whenever we’re exposed. There’s a wide landscape below, straight down to Roaring Stag Lodge which is directly visible for most of the climb, and right until the track curves over the top of the ridge to where Cattle Ridge Hut sits, just above a murky tarn. The two huts are only separated by 2km on a flat map, but there’s around 700 vertical metres of climbing in that 2 km, which makes it feel further.

Richard outside Cattle Ridge Hut.

We reach Cattle Ridge Hut at 10.30am, having coasted into the base of some of the lower clouds, and stop for a very early lunch. Flipping through the hut book, we also discover we aren’t the first people to pass through for the day. In fact, a group of three apparently crazy guys have been through at 8.30am, roughly the same time we’d been at Roaring Stag, with the intent of walking our entire weekend circuit back out past Herepai before the end of today. This seems very ambitious, not solely because they’re doing it in a single day (which seems feasible for a very fit person), but because they’re doing it on this specific day with gale-force southerlies forecast for much of the time, which seems potentially very miserable compared with what they might get a day later. Perhaps their schedule is restricted. Anyway, as long as the make good decisions they’ll be fine, and perhaps we’ll see them at Dundas Hut if they decide not to go beyond. Looking at how freezing, windy and clagged in it still is on the main range and with the knowledge it’s likely to stay that way, it isn’t exactly something that would appeal to me right now.

Cattle Ridge Hut is more run down than what I remember from 18 months before, but still perfectly adequate. The hut is (I think) being considered for removal thanks to its close proximity to the much more modern Roaring Stag Lodge below, despite the vertical distance between the two. The stove was removed a while back (since there isn’t much dead firewood above the bush-line). For better or worse, a 44 gallon drum which a tramping entrepreneur had last-time left at the hut with instructions about how to use it as a replacement stove has now also been removed. Furthermore on a similar theme, Cattle Ridge Hut is one of the huts that had a bunk removed as a victim of the unfortunate fire exit technicality that affected DOC 18 months ago. Even though the bureaucracy is sorted thanks to some emergency negotiations with New Zealand’s Department of Building and Housing (which administers building regulations), Cattle Ridge Hut is still down to five bunks as a reminder of the confusing ways that governments can work. If anything, the missing top bunk does mean there’s more space to sit down for lunch without having to bend forwards.

Crossing over Cattle Ridge.

After our 45 minute early lunch stop, we finally leave Cattle Ridge Hut at around 11.15am, venturing back out into the frozen and murky tops. Cattle Ridge is notorious for wind, being very exposed to the freezing southerly and sou-easterly that’s occurring right now. We follow the network of cairns and, eventually, marker poles, which lead to the route down the western side — fortunately despite the wind, it’s not clagged in so we don’t need to be as concerned about navigation. I’m really glad we have full storm gear for this part, even though it’s only a few hundred metres over the top before we shimmy over the ridge. There’s a very icy wind chill, despite the wind not being uncomfortably strong to stand in.

Rounding an inconspicuous corner, however, the wind is suddenly gone, and we’re at the top of the small scree gut (perhaps 50 metres down) that marks the beginning of the descent. It’s not a tricky scree gut and has a lot growing on it, so with the usual care it’s quite easy to get down as these things go. Alpine plants are fantastically trustworthy for how solidly rooted they are. As we glance over to the main range from near the top of Cattle Ridge, we can see Dundas Hut murmuring in the distance, perched near the top of a baby spur that’s set back between the two more mammoth ridge/spurs that come off Logan and Pukemoremore to either side. Dundas Hut itself is coming and going at about the level of the clouds, and it’s nice to finally be able to see our destination for the night. It’s only a shame there’s a 600 hundred metre vertical drop between here and there.

Amanda nears the Ruamahanga River
on the western side of Cattle Ridge.

The track down the south-western side of Cattle Ridge is fairly steep, but (again) typical and easy enough to get alllll the way down. After walking 2 horizontal kilometres and a 600 vertical metres, at 12.30pm we’re deposited, once again, at the Ruamahanga River — apparently a river we can’t leave behind. This is a higher section of the same thing, which flows all the way around the end of Cattle Ridge before turning back on the far side past Roaring Stag Lodge where we’ve just been. I’m assured that for some reason it makes more sense to climb over the top of Cattle Ridge and go all the way down the other side, however, rather than follow the river. By now it’s actually quite sunny, and Illona’s decided to try and climb the social ladder by offering around some biscuits she brought. They’re quite yummy. Amanda points out that we’re now within the inner reaches of the range.

With the rain overnight and earlier in the day, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the river’s flowing higher than usual. It’s not flooded, but certainly thigh-deep, flowing quite fast, tricky to stand in with any stability, and without many options up or down-stream for finding optimal places to cross. In its current state, it’s a good candidate for a technical river crossing, and carrying this out is actually quite a fulfilling exercise. Unlike some other occasions in which I’ve been involved, we actually talk to each other and reach a consensus about all the details of which method we’re going to use before we begin. This is a very positive thing, since so many people have so many different ideas about the “correct” way to cross a river, that multiple times in the past I’ve found we’ve made it part-way through a river only to find people trying to do different things.

All lined up perfectly, gripping hip-belts behind each other’s backs, we carefully nudge our way into the Ruamahanga River, staying lined up well to minimise the surface area visible to the current, and it’s working really well. Half way through, I’m starting to think that this is probably the most successful technical river crossing I’ve ever been involved in (not much of a challenge, I’m afraid). I’m busy boasting to everyone about this, and perhaps it’s my emotively flailing arms that push Richard into a big rock on the river floor, causing him to stumble slightly up to his waist. I feel some mild responsibility which I mostly keep quiet about, but no matter. It’s still the most successful technical crossing I’ve ever been involved in.

We pause for another snack on the far side, then at 1pm we climb up into the sidling track (about 100 metres above where we’ve left the river) that follows around the edge of the spur off Pukemoremore, then to the base of the baby Dundas Hut spur we could see earlier. This track seems fairly damaged in a few places. It never feels unsafe, but it’s narrow in places and on at least a couple of occasions, large trees have fallen and require awkward and creative circumventions. It’s uncharacteristic of the sorts of tracks we’ve seen so far during the weekend. At the base of the spur is the confluence where the two side-creeks meet having come down the gulleys on either side, we pause for yet another snack, and it’s up-hill to Dundas Hut on the main range.

Amanda crossing the confluence
at the base of the Dundas Hut spur.

Looking up towards the
Tararua Main Range.

This will be the final climb of the day, and it’s another 600 metres more or less straight up. At least it’s a completely honest spur, with no messing around and undulating. Within 30 minutes we’re back above the bush-line, and the surrounding environment is impressive to take in. We’re well sheltered from the sou-easterly by the two massive spurs on either side, which means it’s a quiet and calm atmosphere for most of the way up. The creeks on either side of the spur are loud and easily audible, but it’s funny to only be able to hear one at a time, alternating as the track up the spur alternates from side to side, as little as a couple of metres either way.

At 3pm, the spur flattens out slightly, for a short while, just before the final climb up to the perch above Dundas Hut, and 15 minutes later we finally reach the sign which diverts traffic bound for Dundas Hut down to the right, off the spur. Sure enough, Dundas Hut is lurking in the hazy depths below, and within 10 minutes we’re sitting inside. It’s surprisingly warm, given the air temperature outside and the lack of insulation. Perhaps there’s been an unlikely coincidence of sunshine coming through the skylight and warming the inside of the hut at about this time of day, or perhaps we’re imaging it. Amanda pegs her socks outside on one of the metal cables that anchors Dundas Hut to the ground, perhaps in the hope they’ll dry in the remaining sunshine and wind. Nobody else is quite so enthusiastic. Looking up to the main range, no longer far above us, the clouds are shifting quickly in the air, but we’re well sheltered down here. We were curious if those three guys might have stopped here for the night rather than continue their circuit, but they haven’t, and in fact they’ve written in the book that they passed through for lunch. They must have been having an “interesting” day, and they’re most likely still going.

Amanda looks up towards
Pukemoremore near sunset.

Tonight, however, we’re focused on preparing to stay the night. Illona’s planned a very nice Soba Satay noodle meal with a ginger cake dessert. Tramping dinners can be fantastic when they’re well planned and with the food divided, and this is no exception.

The late afternoon dwindles as I’m scrubbing the plates outside the front door. We have a colourfully muted sunset with lazy clouds dangling around Pukemoremore and its spur off the main range behind the hut. As time goes on, the cloud movement above the range slows down, thankfully as was forecast, and hopefully to stay that way for tomorrow. It’s getting cold, though, and as the sun drops to the west we’re spending more time in sleeping bags for warmth. Dundas Hut survived the 6th-bunk-purge that had affected Cattle Ridge, but the redundant wood-stove that was once here is long gone, evidenced only by the nailed covers on the floor and ceiling, and therefore there’s no extra heating. I am, once again, on a top bunk, and Dundas Hut as with some other smaller huts, has special rules which state that those in top bunks aren’t allowed to sit upright. To ensure of this, the designers instituted a cunning system of ceiling support beams that lie in strategic places relative to the bunks. At first it makes climbing into the top bunk a challenge, but one is rewarded with a satisfying feeling once it’s completed, and therefore it’s well worthwhile. Obviously more huts and bunks should be designed like this, not because I want to use them all the time, but because I think it adds to the tramping experience.

Having settled into my sleeping bag and only hit my head once, I pull out my book to read, only to realise that after 2 pages it’s finished. (Damn these books with 10 blank pages at the end.) Amanda shuffles outside having remembered the socks hanging on the anchor cable, and brings them inside in a fairly crusty state, half way to being frozen. This prompts an idea of bringing in all the boots and socks, some of which are still in the old wood-shed part of the porch just outside the door, to prevent them from freezing. So far I’ve managed to avoid getting up, but at that point Amanda rather annoyingly points out that the tap might be frozen in the morning, so perhaps we should fill up on water now. (Nothing annoying about Amanda, of course, only what she stated.)

Grrrr, this means I’ll have to get up, even though “I bet it’s not frozen in the morning.” All the same I unzip my sleeping bag, pull myself out of my liner, roll over and fall to the floor in a semi-controlled fashion, then rummage around to find my water bottles. Richard’s doing something similar, and Illona’s pretending to be asleep, perhaps having already been through all of this while I wasn’t paying attention. I hop outside onto the freezing deck in bare feet to fill them up, shake icy water from my fingers (brrrrr), haul myself back up onto the bunk, hit my head on the beam as I’m trying to slide back into the delicate configuration of sleeping bag and liner, roll over and re-arrange my things, then lie quietly. Amanda briefly ventures outside again, comes in and comments how clear the sky has now become, with a brilliant Milky Way outside. I choose to believe her, but despite my efforts I can’t make much out through the corrugated plastic skylight directly above me that’s rapidly attracting condensation. It’s a quiet night, bearable but not exactly warm. I find myself stirring at 4am for a sip of water. Groping around in the dark, I discover a thin seal of ice around the top. Hmmmm.

Roughly Sunrise, 6.35am.

And it’s welcome to Sunday morning. With our adjusted plan that spends Sunday on the tops instead of Saturday, we’ll have a longer than expected day today, and therefore intend to be away by 7.30am. This translates to a 6.30am wake-up, although in the emerging pattern I notice everyone except for me rustling ten minutes earlier.

Well, it turns out the idea to bring the boots and socks inside was a very good idea. Unfortunately it just wasn’t quite good enough, because it turns out they’re all well frozen despite our precaution. The socks that hang on the wall are frozen. Everyone’s boots that were under the bench are frozen. The tea-bag in my cup is frozen. By this point, I’m willing to agree that there might have been something worthwhile in Amanda’s idea the previous night. We haven’t tested the tap so far this morning, however, and with all the water we saved there’s no reason to test it, so perhaps we’ll never know for certain.

Illona sips a cup of tea over frozen
socks, boots and gaiters.

Stepping outside, it looks as if it’ll actually be quite sunny today. We lay out our frozen boots and socks in an attempt to thaw them in the morning sun, but it may take some time. If I’d actually believed this was going to happen, I might have made an effort to shape my boot-laces into a more artistic and symmetrical pattern. Well, breakfast perhaps.

They’re not thawing out very well, and nobody really wants to try and pull frozen socks and boots onto their feet. It’ll have to happen soon, however. Application of sunblock could be a good diversion, even though for some reason I seem to be having trouble getting it out of the tube. Strange — usually this stuff flows so easily. Finally though, we do make the effort to freeze our feet, which should hopefully warm up and quickly thaw out as we begin to walk. It’s even less fun than pulling on soggy socks and boots in the morning, however. I think I have a clump of ice somewhere under my heel, and might need to do something about that later.

Leaving Dundas Hut on Saturday morning.

As it is, though, we close the door at Dundas Hut and leave at 7.30am, happily at the exact time we’d hoped for. It’s actually quite a climb out of Dundas Hut, especially noticeable early in the morning when getting into it so immediately. Last time I was here, I made a silly mistake of drinking far too much water which contributed to severe problems later in the day, and this time I was being much more careful. In fact, this time I’d filled up with a complete 3 litres of water which was at least twice as much as what I expected I’d probably need. Still, better to have too much than not enough if in doubt.

Nearing the top of the Dundas Hut spur, I’m already feeling quite hot and sweaty in the morning sun, though this is quickly thwarted on reaching spot-height 1415 at the top of the spur after 20 minutes, where we’re suddenly hit by what remains of the light but still-freezing sou-easterly. It gets stronger as we briefly drop into a saddle below Pukemoremore, but is never threatening. Evidence of the overnight cold is all around, though, including small remaining slabs of snow, and one small tarn which is very solidly frozen on top when I test it. We stand on top of Pukemoremore at around 8.15am, the highest point we’ll reach during the entire weekend at 1474 metres.

Early clouds on the Main Range.

We carry on over Walker (or rather sidling around to the left of it), all part of a very pleasurable ridge to follow, although with the freezing breeze it makes sense to stop a few times and all of us end up wearing over-trousers, gloves and hats to keep off the threat of the wind chill. Every so often, we spot the footprints of the three people the previous day, deeply embedded in the alpine mud, and more often than not they’ve become the moulds for icy casts of their boots that are now in-set into the ground.

Coasting along the ridge as wispy clouds waft over the range with the light suffix of a sou-easterly, turbulent patterns form over and under each other in seemingly chaotic patterns before disintegrating in a vapourous wash of transparency. To the west, the town of Levin is bathed in an opaque sunshine, shielded from the ravages of an overcast sky by the profile of the Tararuas, the silhouette of which right now includes our kitted out storm gear. If there’s any doubt about the point of going tramping on the Tararua main range, this should seal away any concerns because studies show that the weather affects people’s happiness and by adding to the profile of the Tararua main range, it occurs to me that we are helping to shield Levin from the dasterdly and treacherous light wind that would otherwise carry demoralising cloud over the district to the west. Somewhere out there, people are producing higher and more efficient economic outputs by working harder because they’re happier (as various studies imply), improving the economy of Levin and by extension the world. And it’s all thanks to trampers in the Tararuas. We’re happy, too.

Illona double-checks the map.

Amanda, Richard and Illona wait
for me to hurry up and take a photo.

As we pause at times, we can see as far as Mount Eggie/Taranaki, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe in the distance. Looking out over the plains, we contemplate how they might have been as forest wet-lands, prior to European settlers arriving with their newly-invented techniques of turning the vast majority of New Zealand’s original wetlands into land that could be used for farming, but completely transforming the eco-system as a consequence. Eventually as the sun rises in the sky, the cloud that blows over the range from the east disintegrates entirely, leaving us with a completely sunny, though slightly breezy day on the tops. On reaching West Peak, we have the last climb of any significance ahead of us, since it’s here that the main range drops into a saddle about 200 metres deep between two ridges, re-commencing at East Peak on the far side — exactly 20 metres higher than the West Peak on which we stand. I bet this is treacherous in the wrong kind of weather, and perhaps it wasn’t much fun for those guys the previous day, but for us it works out okay. Overall it takes about 40 minutes to drop into the saddle from West Peak, then climb to East Peak, and we pass it by at roughly 10.45.

Amanda and Richard climb
up to West Peak.

And suddenly our time on the Main Range is almost over. Already. Because at Ruapae, we’ll be turning off and working our way back down to Herepai Hut, where we began so long ago on Saturday morning. The only concern I have from this point is a short section of ridge I remember from last time, which has slipped on both sides and which is largely held together by Leatherwood. To an extent, the thought of it has been haunting the back of my mind for much of the weekend, especially since the Department of Conservation decided to start warning people some time ago that the ridge has fallen away and it’s necessary to be very careful. Once we arrive shortly before Ruapae, however, it’s barely noticeable such that until it’s gone, I’m not even sure if we’ve passed it by. The ridge is held together by Leatherwood and it’s reasonably steep on either side, but nothing like as bad as I remembered it. So that’s good. I’ll remember for next time that I shouldn’t trust my memory, and this experience wouldn’t be the first time.

And we leave the Tararua Main Range, turning off at Ruapae towards the East, over to Herepai. Half way there, we stop in a flattish place sheltered from the wind, bathed in sunshine, and have an early and lazy lunch. From here we can see the leatherwood-laden ridges to the northern end of the Main Range, not a good place to be stuck without sufficient planning. We take our time, knowing that from here it’s mostly down-hill. Through some bad coincidences of timing, this is actually the first time I’ve been able to get to the Tararua tops all year, and the first time on any tops since April. It’s been awesome.

Illona in front of East Peak (left) and
Ruapae (right) on the Tararua Main
Range, seen from Herepai.

Anyway, it’s time to leave after a while, and we walk past the Stan Evans Memorial Cross on Herepai at about 12.20pm. The track along this spur is tussock-laden, and it’s necessary to take care about stepping in hidden holes and such, but it’s generally easy. Within 20 minutes, we’re looking straight down to the roof of Herepai Hut, not far below, with the long upper reaches of the Ruamahanga River in the background as it flows south-ish towards Roaring Stag Lodge. Roaring Stag is hidden behind a dent in the riverbed, but from this perspective we can see roughly where it should be. It takes 15 minutes to jaunt down the steep track into the trees and reach Herepai Hut, and then we once again stretch our legs in the sunshine. Checking the hut book, it seems to three crazy guys did pass through here last night, although they didn’t leave much more information about their trip except to imply they were heading back out to the Putara Road. And this is where we were going, too, maybe in a more relaxed state.

Final views of the Main Range.

We sit in the sun at Herepai Hut for about 15 minutes, before leaving on the final leg of the weekend. From here it’s just down. It’s the third time we’ve walked along this section, and the first in the sunshine. It seems somewhat less muddy than it was yesterday morning. After an hour of walking we cross a long bridge over the Mangatainoka River, which the track follows for the remainder of the distance to the road, and from here on it’s flat. There’s a nice camp-site below the bridge, reachable from a short track that begins a minute or two from the end closest to Putara Road, and we head down for a look before finally returning to the van, a further 40 minutes away.

There’s an annoying amount of mud just before the road, which nobody manages to avoid — only irritating because it complicates the act of putting boots away later, but I suppose this is part of the whole thing. Overall it’s be a very rewarding and relaxing weekend, a good thing given the ugly weather in the beginning, but now it’s all paid off.

It’s been a surprisingly difficult decision for me to get a GPS receiver, and not strictly because of the cost. I’ve been putting it off because I’ve really wanted to get a good feeling of how to navigate without one, and I’ve not wanted to have the temptation lying around that would encourage bad habits of using a GPS without understanding the surrounding land. I definitely think that understanding maps, compasses and (sometimes) altimeters is the way to go, perhaps with a GPS to fall back on when things get unexpectedly bad or chaotic. I certainly don’t ever want to get myself into a situation where I go out relying primarily on an electronic device that runs on batteries. There’s a stigma in some tramping circles that’s attached to openly carrying a GPS receiver. To some extent I do even agree with the origins of this stigma, I think, though mostly because there do seem to be some people out there who really are relying primarily on a GPS to get them through a tricky situation without necessarily having the more fundamental navigation expertise and experience to back it up. I suspect it’s asking for trouble, which is why I’m hoping I don’t fall into the trap myself.

All of this aside, I did still take the plunge as I mentioned earlier, despite not yet fully backing my own navigation skills. I guess now I’ll have to take care to avoid relying on it. The reason I made this decision actually had nothing to do with navigation or safety whatsoever, at least not in a way that I’ve consciously identified. Put simply, I just decided I want to track where I’ve been. I guess since I bought my GPS, I’ve been playing with it quite enthusiastically to figure out all the cool stuff I can do with it. Beyond the short term, however, I really just want something I can shut away in my pack, give minimal attention to, and let it track where I’ve been.

It’s a red-lining thing. Red lining is a term used to describe the drawing of lines on a map to record where one’s been. I’ve no idea if it’s a local term or if it’s international. Some people have maps covered in lines, but it’s never worked for me. I started trying to do this early on so I could remember where I’d been, and so I could more easily discover where I still hadn’t seen, but lent my map to someone and it was lost. (Left in a hut somewhere, I think.) Then I started drawing on maps again, but a few months later the map was caught a storm and quickly became tatty. It’s easy enough to buy a replacement map, but I didn’t feel like drawing the same lines over it all over again. I know at least a few people who keep separate maps at home which they never take into the field, strictly for drawing lines on, but I don’t think I’m organised enough for that. Not to mention, I’ve never quite figured out how to represent being in the same place multiple times. I like to match a place where I’ve been with an experience I remember, which might be linked with the time of year or the conditions or other people involved. Maps aren’t well designed for this — a good map represents the land well, but there’s little space for meta information about whatever you might happen to draw on them.

This is why I eventually decided that I really want to track where I’ve been digitally, as a variety of people already do, of course. The easiest, most accurate and lowest maintenance way to do this seems to be to use a gadget to do it for me, which is why I ended settling on buying a GPS. I began by looking at simple GPS data loggers, which are essentially miniature things that do very little except record tracks, often not even having a display. They’re often used on combination with digital cameras, so geographic information can later be added to photos. I never really found one that suited what I wanted though, which was a long battery life, replaceable standard batteries and high sensitivity antenna, and at the very least a simple display so I’d be able to get a positional coordinate if I really needed it. At least, I couldn’t find what I wanted readily available in New Zealand (where the market is limited) and within my price range.

So I tried asking some helpful people on the NZ Tramper website, and was eventually put in touch with Tony of Kiwi GPS. Tony runs his own business in Christchurch, importing and selling GPS equipment. He was a pleasure to deal with, put absolutely no pressure on me to buy anything, and during an exchange of several long and detailed emails, he even directed me to a good deal he’d noticed going on Trademe, which would have been no benefit to him whatsoever if I’d gone there instead. (On this topic, I absolutely recommend getting in touch with Tony if you’re looking to purchase any GPS equipment within New Zealand.) The discussions were useful, especially once I discovered that I might need something slightly further up-market to store tracks to a level of accuracy I wanted over the lengths of time I was thinking of with minimal maintenance. The consequence was that I had to up my budget a little to reach the ranges that included external memory cards, and I ended up getting a mapping GPS as an indirect result.

Apparently one of the most popular hand-held GPS models for tramping in New Zealand is the Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx, and (to my understanding), this is also the model generally used by New Zealand’s Search & Rescue teams. It’s a mapping GPS that also has a built-in barometric altimeter and electronic compass. In the end though, I settled on a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx, which is about the most sophisticated of the (usually basic) eTrex range, although looking at the specs it seemed to be very similar to the 60CSx. Tony told me it’s not as popular because it has a smaller screen, and the 60CSx is only slightly more expensive, but the deciding factors for me were that it weighs less, and supposedly has a longer lasting battery life, which is really what I want for tracking. Even better? I get what seems to be a very nice barometric altimeter. The party trick will be to pull out my GPS in front of other people during a navigation exercise to use it entirely for the altimeter, without them thinking that I’m cheating by using the GPS functionality. I fell into that trap last weekend, but I guess that’s part of it.

Getting this GPS thing to interface with my home PC has been challenging to begin with, mostly because all the software is designed to work with Windows, rather than my chosen Linux-based operating system. I don’t run Microsoft Windows on my home PC for various reasons that are difficult to describe in a paragraph, so getting the software to work has been quite an exercise. It’s the sort of challenge I’m used to given that I’ve been doing this for some time, however, and it’s beginning to behave. Of course, it would have been far nicer if Garmin would support non-Windows operating systems to begin with, but I guess you can’t win everything.

What now? Well I suppose I’ll keep using it, and see what comes out of it. The biggest thing that concerned me at purchase time, not having actually seen and played with it, was whether the smaller screen would be an issue for me. Fortunately I haven’t found it to be any problem whatsoever. I’m also looking forward to taking the data that it produces about tramping trips I go on, and see what I can do with it.

Alistair and Patricia navigating
down Te Mara.

Dates: 11th – 13th September, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ruamahanga and Kiriwhakapapa road-ends.
People: Marie, Alistair, Patrisha, Richard, Tim and me.
Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night).
Route: From Ruamahanga Road End up a south-east spur to Blue Range, heading south-west along the ridge to Blue Range Hut for Saturday night. Then up to Te Mara, and down to the South East. Out at Kiriwhakapapa.
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

We spent Friday night in Kiriwhakapapa Shelter, sharing it with another club group, even though we weren’t intending to start from there. It’s not quite as exposed as the Ruamahanga road-end further north, though. The rain was coming down persistently by the time we drove up, and one way or another anyone on the edges migrated further inwards overnight. Eventually the bellbirds began to wake, and some kind of bird that I couldn’t identify began making a lot of noise as it started fluttering around with its nest in the ceiling.

Our plan for the morning, after driving slightly further north, was to head a short distance up the track on the true right of the Ruamahanga River before turning straight up a spur, and navigating our way onto Blue Range. Alistair looked up a grid reference for the point at the bottom of the spur we planned to climb up from the Ruamahanga River, and we keyed it into a GPS so we could confirm the approximate point we’d want to head up-hill, just in case there was any doubt. Ideally we wouldn’t need it, though.

Ray, from the other club trampey group, was very kind to drive us around from the Kiriwhakapapa Shelter and drop us at the Ruamahanga Road End on Saturday morning, which we finally left shortly after 8am. Perhaps it wasn’t quite raining, but it wasn’t far off. We began by climbing a fence, and this was undoubtedly the climax of the trip until that point. Shortly after this we made our first navigation error, embarrassingly enough as we tried to navigate along the track markers over the farm-land. It did take us to the highest altitude we’d been during the morning to that point, although some mild depression followed once we realised and had to turn back the way we’d come.

The flooded Ruamahanga River.

The Ruamahanga Road entrance to the Tararuas actually has quite a long walk before the park entrance, to the extent that we actually walked for a good hour and 45 minutes before reaching the park boundary. (This, of course, included our unintended detour up a windy farm track, which probably added half an hour.) Still, much of the walk seems to be in a buffer zone between the forest park and the farm-land, which isn’t really farm land. During this walk we could look down to the Ruamahanga River from the sidling track high above, well endowed with muddy flood water, and it was nice to know we’d not need to go anywhere near it in the next couple of days. Eventually we passed a sign indicating the official border of the Tararua Forest Park, and the surrounding trees very quickly changed to provide a more consistent canopy over the track.

Alistair working his way
around the creek.

Soon after entering the park, we had our first minor creek crossing, followed by a much more gnarly creek in a small gorge of its own, though there were plenty of hand-holds to get up and around the edges without any real concern. At this point, we were more or less at the bottom of a very nice, direct spur (east of spot-height 635), heading upwards towards the south-south-east, making it fairly straight-forward to plough upwards and be confident of getting onto the main Blue Range Ridge.

The route up this particular spur is overgrown in places, especially for the first 10-20 minutes. As usually happens, though, it became clearer higher up, and animal tracks along the obvious and a handy deer track developed to make the going somewhat easier. Alistair reckoned he noticed one or two markers, but apart from this we didn’t really see much sign of people at all, although it’d be a reasonable assumption that it’s quite a well walked route.

Our lunch stop occurred on the high point of our initial spur, north of spot-height 875, and we stayed until 12.45, then headed along the main part of Blue Range towards the south-west. By now the rain was coming down steadily, but the tree canopy was holding most of it off, apart from all the water settled on the vegetation we had to push through.

Patricia on the ridge
towards Blue Range Hut.

It’s an okay ridge and certainly not difficult to traverse, but I wouldn’t personally rate it as one of my favourite to walk along. It was interesting though, because it was one of the few ridges I’ve visited so far which felt as if there was much more of an animal track than a human track. I guess people must follow it from time to time, but there wasn’t a lot of evidence of this — Marie found a single ribbon marker tied to a branch on the ground, but that was about all. There was a very nice little track to follow, however, which made good diversions around many obstacles that weren’t always immediately obvious. Animal tracks tend to have good ideas, though, so it was generally a good idea to follow them. I guess my only regret is that deer aren’t about a metre taller. For however much the route was relatively easy-going, everything that hit tended to be about chest and head high, and there was a lot of it. Furthermore, the track would every so often divert into a small space under a big fallen tree, or something similar, which would either require a little pack dragging or some awkward circumvention of various obstacles. Maybe things wouldn’t be so difficult if the New Zealand back-country hosted introduced herds of wild elephants rather than introduced herds of wild deer, but that also wouldn’t be quite the same.

We continued to follow the ridge until about 4pm, at which point the bearing carried us into a thick patch of something where it wasn’t quite clear whether it was best to push through it, or sidle around. Marie did some investigations pushing through, and after some fighting with a variety of dracophyllum, suddenly emerged onto the short side-track that leads down to Blue Range Hut. And this was the end of the day’s walking.

The other group of club people, who’d walked up to Blue Range Hut from Kiriwhakapapa that morning, were happily relaxing and reading in the hut, not very bothered to get out of their sleeping bags as we walked soppily through the door. The first order of business was to get a brew going, which was well worth it.

The next order of business was to get a couple of tent flies set up outside, since there wasn’t going to be enough space in the hut to comfortably shelter everyone. Trish, Richard and Tim elected to spend a night on the floor, but Marie and Alistair preferred a Huntech fly outside, and soon after I decided I’d rather have my own space. There are two or three possible tent sites outside Blue Range Hut, but all are fairly thin and not well suited to the tent fly’s we had, and so we put them up on the flat area out the back, partly anchored to the hut’s picnic table. Alistair gave me a hand with my own, and as we were threading the pole through the fly, it snapped, which is never a good sound to hear — especially when it’s raining. It turned out to be not too bad-a-break, though, and very fortunate that the fly would still go up. Still a bit of a pain, but more of a relief that it wasn’t the end of the world. Overall it worked quite nicely, with the only problem being that I wasn’t able to angle my own fly very easily with the wind, and ultimately I nearly lost a peg overnight. No matter, though.

Back inside it was nearly dinner time, and Alistair took some glee in smoking out the hut with prime steak for everyone in our group except the two vegetarians (who’d brought some kind of pasta thing). Everyone who’d been hanging out their clothes to dry probably had a meaty scent left on them by morning. Dinner was fantastic, as it usually the case when Alistair’s involved.

Cattle Ridge in the distance
on sunny Sunday morning.

The rain kept falling, and hadn’t relented at whatever time it was that I wandered back out to the fly to get some sleep. I think it’d stopped by about 2am, although recurring gusts of wind would whip themselves up in the surrounding trees as a threat before descending to the fly. I woke on Sunday to the machine gunning sound of a Whitehead in the upper branches, and noticed that my badly-angled tent fly had nearly lost a peg in one of the front corners. I lay there for a while having discovered it was 6.20am as the occasional light gust caused the corner to flap rather wildly, then decided it might be in my better interests to reach out and try to plug it back into the ground. Optimistically warm morning sunshine glinted through the lower branches, but not direct enough to dry anything out. In the distance through the gap in the trees, Cattle Ridge Hut reflected the Sun’s rays as a bright dot in the distance.

RIchard stands in front of the
sign pointing to Te Mara.

We left at about 8.15am, intent to get back to some more off-track navigation. This would begin by heading up to Te Mara — the high point of Blue Range at 1104 metres. Alistair knew of a side-track directly up the spur from the direction of the hut, which I happily managed to walk straight past — doubly amusing because there’s a sign nailed about 2 metres up a tree which I didn’t notice at all. Noticing track markers really isn’t my strong point, I guess.

Sidling around below Te Mara
after we made a minor nav error.

Te Mara’s marked by a drainpipe in the ground, and it was here that we calibrated some altimetres before navigating down the spur to the south-east, probably about 8.30am or so. It’s a very nice route to follow down, where the bush isn’t too dense, there’s plenty of space to walk, and the ground is comfortably soft. It took a while, though, and there was at least one place where we nearly fell off the spur. There’s a ribbon-marked track all the way up, though, and if we had any doubt we were able to look around for a marker. The route ends on the old bush tram line between the Kiriwhakapapa and Mickey Mickey road ends, right at the point of quite a nice picnic seat. We stopped here for quite some time, had some early lunch at 11.30am, and tried to dry out a few things in the sunshine that was by now beginning to creep through the branches.

Sunning on the tram-line route down below.

From here there’s just a cruisy walk out along the old bush tram-line route, which gradually descends down to the Kiriwhakapapa Road End. Those in the other group were sitting around in the sunshine waiting for us when we arrived, having been there for about an hour or so. All good.

The first in the news was a Wellington man who slipped whilst descending from the summit of Mt Tapuae-o-Ueneku, slid about 400 metres, and managed to walk away with little more than a few bruises. This strikes me as extraordinarily fortunate. The second is the case of Victorian government minister Tim Holding, who spent two nights disoriented in freezing conditions near the top of Mt Feathertop in the Victorian alps, after he slipped off the track and slid several hundred metres. He was lucky to be found, and now he’s recovering.

One valuable quote from Tim Holding’s insights into his experience was in the above-linked article.

“I slid very, very fast and if you’ve ever slid in the ice before, you’ll know you start slowly and you slide faster and faster and you gather huge momentum.”

Self arresting is the technique of stopping when you’re sliding down an icy slope, and stopping is the all-important thing in a situation such as the one above. If you can’t stop sliding on your own terms, you’ll be stopping on the mountain’s terms which will just as likely be off the end of a high bluff or slammed into an uninviting rock-face as not. If you’re into mountaineering, you’re most likely familiar with all this stuff already. If you’re more into tramping (as I am) then it’s a very handy and sometimes essential thing to know, especially if you spend a lot of time above the bush-line.

Self-arresting is usually done with an ice-axe, and involves ramming the pick part of the ice-axe into the snow and ice, lying face down on top of it, and then to jam as much weight directly onto the adze (the flat edge part) of the ice-axe as you possibly can until it stops you…. and then hope it actually does stop you. (Don’t take this short paragraph as instruction. I’m not a qualified instructor, nor very good at all this stuff anyway. Besides, you really need to practice!) There’s a handy video that describes the technique from the British Mountaineering Council on Youtube, but you should really consult an organisation such as the NZ Mountain Safety Council or equivalent for proper training.

There’s also a technique for self-arresting without an ice axe, if you’re unfortunate enough to be without. The technique confused me when it was first explained, as I found it counter-intuitive. Summarised, the technique is to try and orient face down, arch your back and place hands and feet on the surface, then put as much weight on them as possible to try and dig in. It’s important to try and minimise surface area by keeping your stomach off the ground, since doing so will then increase the force on the pressure points that are touching, to help them dig in. (Think of your hands and feet being like an ice axe that’s digging in — it’ll hurt but there’s a better chance it might stop you!)

I found the hands-only technique counter-intuitive at first, because I usually think of more surface area as meaning more friction and a better chance of stopping. Extra surface area doesn’t work with ice, however, thanks to various physical properties of ice. You’ll just end up turning your body into a sled, getting faster and faster.

As an important side note, the most recommended way to save yourself is to avoid slipping down the ice in the first place. If you do slip, try to be holding an ice-axe before you fall, because the hands-only method is a whole lot harder to do effectively, if it’s even possible which it isn’t in some cases. Even with an ice-axe, it’s not always possible to stop, especially once you’re going really fast. Slipping is unexpected, and this quote (from the climber on Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku) isn’t an uncommon story to hear from people who’ve survived a slide:

“I do remember the descent, I was airborne on occasion and going at speed. I was conscious all the way down, but, because of the solid ice and speed I was going, I couldn’t use my ice axe to self-arrest.”

Still, better to actually know and be familiar with the optimal techniques for stopping before they’re needed. Otherwise there’s very little chance. Practice with self-arrest techniques is absolutely necessary before they’re needed, because when it happens there won’t be time to mentally go through the process. Next time I have an opportunity in a safe environment, I might make an effort to figure out the hands-only technique.

Usually when I go out with the trampey club, it’s on overnight and weekend trips. The club runs many daywalks around the Wellington region too, however, and I thought I might join in for a particular walk that Darren was organising up Mt McKerrow in the Rimutaka Range. I did exactly the same thing back in 2007, with a different group of people.

Date: 29th August, 2009
Location: Rimutaka Forest Park, Catchpool Valley entrance.
Route: Along the Orongorongo Track, up to Mt McKerrow, then down Clay Ridge.
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

We left about 10am, following the Orongorongo Track for about an hour to the base of the McKerrow Track. The Orongorongo Track climbs by about 70 vertical metres over this time, but it’s not very noticeable and it’s an easy walk. There are several side-tracks off both sides, one of which is Browns’ Track, and is not officially maintained although it’s still used — it’s a handy (though potentially steep and slippery) way up to Cattle Ridge, and then down to the Orongorongo River on the other side. I made a note to look for this because I’ve tried to find it several times in the past without luck, and happily on this occasion it stood out really well. I marked it in my GPS and on the attached map so maybe I’ll find it more easily next time, but it’s also marked with a broad piece of ribbon.

It took a couple of hours to climb to the summit of Mt McKerrow. The summit itself is a five minute walk past the top of the Clay Ridge track, which we intended to walk down. At roughly 700 metres it’s still under trees and ceremoniously marked by a drainpipe poking out of the ground. It here that we sat down for lunch at about the same time that a chap came wandering up from the Wainuiomata direction to the north. He commented on another track that was supposed to be near here, which he’d not seen, leading down to a scout camp on the Wainui Coast Road to the east. I checked my 2006-published LINZ map which implied that such a track should be leading down a spur to the west, almost straight off the Mt McKerrow summit, but there was no sign of anything apart from a short 2 metre track to a possum track. A quick look around and bashing through the nearby scrub still didn’t find anything that looked to be a likely track, and we abandoned the idea in favour of heading further north along the obvious track, hoping to find some nicer views. And there were a few places where the track emerged from the trees, making it possible to see a long way over East Harbour Regional Park to Wellington Harbour, and also north to Wainuiomata.

The Forestry Service Marker 60 metres
west of the Mt McKerrow summit.

Some people continued to wander further down, but I didn’t feel like coming all the way up again, so I abandoned that idea and returned to the McKerrow summit to wait, at which point I resumed looking for this elusive track entrance. And eventually, I found it. Contrary to first visual impressions, the track does head west almost directly from the McKerrow drainpipe. It appears to fade out after just a few metres, but there’s still a faint hint of a track that winds around a little, and 60 metres away (at least according to my GPS), I found an old Forestry Service white rectangle nailed to a tree. Someone’s tied a ribbon to another tree a few metres behind it, so it seems this track is probably still used enough that it’d be reasonably walkable. (Certainly nothing like the standard of the other tracks in the area, and it was already quite boggy, but sometimes that’s a good thing.) From what I could see it appeared to be curving around to be on top of the spur it supposedly went down, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise. I marked the location of the marker as another waypoint, and that’s the waypoint showing near the top of McKerrow in the attached map. Perhaps I’ll return here at some point to see if I can follow it properly, but it wasn’t part of the plan today. We left around a quarter to two.

Darren out in the open.

From McKerrow, we headed back to the track junction 5 minutes below, at the top of the Clay Ridge Track. Shortly after we began to head down, the trees opened up and we were suddenly walking right along the ridge, far more exposed and able to see a long way once again, at least for about a minute. These were probably the best viewing points of the day. Clay Ridge is comparatively steep in places, though nothing frightening and it’s completely doable. It’s actually a really nice walk.

A nice river walk.

Near the bottom (90 minutes later), Clay Ridge track splits into three. It’s possible to either keep going straight ahead over the last part of the ridge, go south-east and connect back to the Orongorongo Track, or go west down the side of the ridge, and walk along the river at the bottom. All three options can end at the same place (the carpark), and for whatever reason we chose to turn right, and follow the western path down the ridge. From here it was a 20 minute coast sidling above a nice river valley, on a good track, back to the Catchpool Valley carpark.

Morning at Mangahao Flats.

Dates: 21st – 23rd August, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ohau and Mangahao region.
People: Amanda, Dirk, Illona, Richard, Duncan and me.
Huts visited: Mangahao Flats Hut (1 night).
Route: From Poads Road to the Ohau River (camping a couple of minutes before it), up the Ohau River to Deception Spur (where the North and South Ohau split), up Deception Spur, down into the Mangahao River on the other side, and to Mangahao Flats Hut for Saturday night. Out at the Mangahao Dams on Sunday.
[Photos and Movie]

We began having made some vehicle relocation arrangements that dropped us at the end of Poads Road, east of Levin, at around 9pm, and from there we walked about an hour in the darkness to what’s a very nice camp-site about 2 minutes before the track meets the actual Ohau river, almost exactly at the point that a dry weather track heads up the Gable End Ridge. There’s a walk through some often muddy farm-land at first, past the moo-cows and electric fences, but after that it’s all under trees. The campsite has an open clearing with a fire pit, but the best camping spots are under the nearby trees, and there are lots of them.

Last time I visited this camp-site was with Craig, John and Paul, and at that time we had plans to do something very similar to this weekend. For various reasons, we changed our plans and I missed out on seeing the Mangahao River at the time, but on this occasion it all worked out.

Entering the Ohau.

Having woken at 6.45, we packed up and were away so that we walked into the Ohau River — the water supply of Levin — shortly before 8am. River levels were conveniently low, albeit with very cold morning water, and it was a straight-forward walk up the Ohau to the base of Deception Spur, 40 minutes later, which is where the South Ohau and the North Ohau rivers join. Each of these branches has its own hut further up, with each hut being named after the branch on which it resides. On this occasion we didn’t want to follow either, but instead head up the spur between the two.

The lower end of Deception Spur.

Deception Spur is actually really steep in places for the first 15 or 20 minutes, more-so than I remembered it from a couple of years before. There are several places where it’s necessary to clamber up walls several metres in height that at least feel near vertical, and which are steep enough to allow for quite a slide if you slipped. It still seems very safe, however, simply because there’s so much dense kruft growing on the spur that it’s difficult enough to move, let alone fall off. Although it can make things awkward to bash through, it also means there isn’t really a shortage of hand-holds and foot-holds. The biggest danger is probably getting a pack caught on something and having it spring you backwards with an unexpected great force, so there’s still some need for care in that respect.

A brief window through the trees.

Things thin out a little after about 20 minutes, and although there are patches of thick scrub to awkwardly push through, it’s easier, and becomes more typical for the 600 metre climb towards spot-height 865. There was a small window in the trees after a couple of hours, from which we could see some of the higher ridges towards the north. I took a photo for the record, but all of Deception Spur remains under the bush-line to the top, so this particular view is unusual. Perhaps half an hour after that, we reached the ridge-line at the top of the spur, and found a place just over the top, where warm sun was creeping through the tree branches to have some lunch. From here we’d be navigating down the far side on compass bearings, and when it became apparent that we used different methods for compass reading and therefore ended up with different bearings, we spent much of the time arguing about which is the more True North — grid north or magnetic north. I guess the irony is that neither of them is parallel with the Earth’s rotational axis.

Our plan, from spot-height 865, was to head south-south-west to the top of a slip (marked on LINZ’s topo map), then head roughly east down a vague spur to the Mangahao River, which we began at around 12pm. It appears very steep at first, but there’s not much alternative so it’s really just a matter of being cautious to hold onto things as appropriate and not to slide too far. The first thing to take note of when doing this is to avoid wandering west along another spur towards spot-height 660, and eventually down towards South Ohau Hut. That’s the wrong way (unless you’re trying to do it for some reason). The second thing to be cautious of is walking off the top of the slip. It’s a wide open view through a small gap in the trees above the slip. The ridge in that direction trends towards it, and it’s probably not a bad idea to stop before falling off. It was also the point at which we’d turn to the east. The route east from here wasn’t clearly marked with any obvious trail, but it wasn’t so thick and overgrown to make it difficult to push through the trees.

There was some debate about whether we should try to stay on the ridge, or sidle it in the gully to its north. Things became clearer when half way down, we started seeing blue triangle markers on the trees which were consistent with what Illona identified for us as stoat tunnels, which are used recurringly to monitor the densities of stoats that enjoy peanut butter so that DOC knows how much to budget for when it feeds them, or something like that. At regular intervals, someone will walk up the route and bait the tunnels, then come back the next evening to count the tracks of stoats left in the tunnels and get a better idea of how many there are. We followed the marker trail all the way to the Mangahao River, which ultimately took us down the small side creek to the north of the spur, and the numbering on the markers gave us a handy count-down to indicate our distance from the river at the bottom. We reached it at around 1.10pm, just over an hour after leaving point 865.

Duncan, Richard, Amanda, Dirk and Illona
on the edge of the Mangahao River.

With a hop through the river and after a short sit-down, we were now able to walk along 2 km of the track beside it towards Mangahao Hut, our destination for the evening. Although it’s generally quite a nice track as Tararua tramping tracks go, there are one or two places where the track alongside the Mangahao River gets a little hairy. Storm damage from a couple of years ago still hasn’t been completely worked around, and at least one of the side creeks had us placing rather a lot of trust in some loose-feeling branches in order to climb up to where the track continued. Overall this is just part of it, however, and we reached the sunny Mangahao Flats Hut at about 2.30pm. We expected to meet another group here this evening but they hadn’t arrived yet, so we stretched out, rinsed off, and went on a firewood collecting mission.

Mangahao Flats Hut.

Mangahao Flats Hut is a really nice hut. It’s a similar design as Waitewaewae, with 16 platform bunks and a heap of room on the floor or outside if it’s needed. When our other group showed up and we could exchange van keys, we still weren’t crowded. There’s a nice vista out over the river, which has wide banks, and it’s possible to go for a nice walk over the rocks. Still being near the end of winter months, the sun was setting by 6pm and with Dirk having built a fire, we settled into Amanda’s nicely organised dinner of smoked salmon pasta.

Mangahao River during early morning.

After 12 hours of sleep, people slowly began to rise in sequence some time before 7am, albeit with no major rush to leave. I wandered down towards the river as I muched my brekkie to take in some of the quiet morning atmosphere as the sun slowly emerged. The Mangahao River must be one of the nicest rivers in the Tararuas. It’s wide and scenic, and it’s also gorgey in places which must mean lots of good swimming holes. I’d like to walk along it in the future, keeping in mind that there would probably need to be at least some pack-floating to do it properly.

It was about 8am when we finally left, heading along the main track towards the Mangahao Dams, where our vehicle was parked. About the third major side-creek on the true right, about 25 minutes north-east of the hut, is probably the most awkward along the entire walk. Storm damage still remains from a couple of years before. To stay on the track it’s necessary to clamber up a rather steep wall, although we had an option of walking along the river if we’d wanted to.

The track sidles high above a slip from where there’s a scenic view of the Mangahao negotiating a hair-pin bend, before it descends back to the level of the river. At this point an informal sign nailed to a tree notifies those coming from the direction of the dams of the option between the wet feet and dry feet routes. The track itself continues along the river bank above some areas which appear quite gorgey, and we stopped quite often so Illona (the resident ecologist) could point out all the Bellbirds, Squeaky Tricycles (aka Tomtits) and Machine Guns (aka Whiteheads). An hour from the hut (our time), a bridge crosses Barra Stream. 30 minutes later, just before another bridge crosses Harris Creek, there’s a very nice camp-site at the flats on the river-side of the track. It comes complete with a picnic table, and we also noticed a couple of folded tarps pushed under nearby branches which probably means the site is well used.

The bridge over the
Mangahao River.

We ambled our way to the major bridge over the Mangahao River, reaching it at 11am. The bridge is currently one of the classic 40 year old swing bridge designs, but it appears DOC is gearing up to replace it with one of their more modern designs, given that both ends show preparations. 45 minutes from the bridge, we walked off the marked track and into the wide and mostly dry bed of the Mangahao River, just before it reaches the No 1 Reservoir behind the top dam. With the weather that we had, there was no need for the marked track any longer, and we left it inside the trees to follow the main route of the river out in the wide open.

The Mangahao tree cemetary.

Probably the reason the river bed is so wide is because it borders the reservoir, and at times this entire area would be artificially filled behind the dam. The region itself is a cemetary of dead trees, remnants before the time of building the dams in the 1920s, and drowned nearly a century ago during times when reservoir was filled to a higher level. Today they’re simply skeletons, surrounded by a sea of river rocks. It’s strange to think of the Tararuas as a place that would be dammed like this, yet in the middle of the 20th century there were plans for even more massive damming which would have changed the landscape of the range to an even more massive and noticeable extent. We stopped for lunch in this curious landscape, before resuming the 15 minute walk to the dam, to the parked van, and to an exit from the Tararuas early on Sunday afternoon.

I’ve already written about the Skyline Walkway at least a couple of times [1, 2], so I’ll focus more on the parts around Makara Peak.

Date: 15th August, 2009
Location: Makara Peak and Skyline Walkway, Wellington.
Route: Walk up to Makara Peak from South Karori Road, down via Zac’s Track, then along the Skyline Walkway to Mt Kaukau, and Johnsonville via Old Coach Road. (Also see the map at the end of this post.)
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

Makara Peak is a dedicated Mountain Bike park, choca-full of mountain bike tracks that are maintained by the community. This is the second time I’ve been there. The first time (before I was really writing things down), I wandered into a few areas that caused me to be really worried that a speedy bicycle pilot would come careening around a blind corner and run me over. It didn’t feel quite the same this time, though, possibly because I had a better idea of wanting to stay to the wider tracks, and perhaps because there seemed to be less people around.

I live in Northland (the Wellington suburb), and started late (about midday) by walking through the Karori Shops (collecting lunch along the way) to the end of the Karori Park bus route, then up South Karori Road to the main car-park area after about an hour or so. There’s an information board under a small shelter which I went up to take a look at, but it didn’t have much in the way of maps so I turned to leave, and promptly walked straight into a post holding up the shelter’s roof. Ouch. All good, though.

The number of cars had me concerned that there might be lots of people riding around on bikes, but it didn’t eventuate into a problem. I nearly always find people on bikes to be careful, cheerful and considerate in off-road areas both to other bikies and to poor impoverished pedestrians alike, even when they’re in their own playground. Sometimes accidents can still happen though, so the possibility of lots of bikes around had me concerned for a little while. I didn’t meet many people though. I followed my nose upwards until I reached Makara Peak, where a couple of guys with bikes were sitting down staring at the view.

Dormant turbines.

Once again the Makara Wind Farm (aka Project West Wind) dominates the skyline from the top of Makara Peak, which shouldn’t be surprising. The building of the wind farm should be nearly finished now, but what’s there is already operating. Even though it was overcast with some recurring very light rain, the air was still and most of the turbines were barely moving, if at all. Maybe this is why there weren’t as many people obviously riding around, or perhaps I’d only been frequenting the boring places since I’d made sure about half my route up was on the fairly wide servicing road to the top.

The transmitter at the
top of Makara Peak.

There’s another servicing road leading down to the Skyline Carpark, which is my made-up name for the carpark opposite the start of the Skyline Walkway on Makara Road, because I don’t know what bikies call it. As there as almost nobody at the top, though, I thought it would probably also be reasonably okay to walk along Zac’s Track, also noting a big sign that warned bikies that people might be walking on Zac’s Track. It goes to roughly the same place as the road, and the only two people I saw along here were a couple of guys with a bike, a dog, and a bucket of dirt, who were doing some track maintenance. That track ends half way down the road, at which point it’s possible to cross the road and head down another track (with lots of switches) called Varley’s Track… or alternatively down one called Vertigo, which had a big warning sign announcing it should only ever be attempted by expert bikies in good weather. Despite walking, I didn’t think I should check that one out just yet.

Cattle stops for walkers are everywhere.

Some time after 2pm, I was back down at Makara Road, and commenced walking the Skyline Walkway, which was noticeably vacant of the flocks of people who might often have been walking along it. Perhaps this was because the day wasn’t one of brilliant sunshine. The Skyline Walkway’s undergone some maintenance since I last walked it. Every farm-gate along the track has been improved to have pedestrian cattle stops alongside them. With so many people walking the route, the council probably got sick of people leaving gates open, or perhaps just having them wear out with so much opening and closing, and the consequence is a much smoother walk around all the gates without having to walk through them.

I went on a detour up Johnston Hill, which I usually do when walking the Skyline Walkway, and for some reason I became very confused. I’m unsure if the ongoing maintenance has caused the routes up Johnston Hill to be altered, but I was just walking up happily when I suddenly noticed all of Wellington City was on the opposite side from what I expected, and I was walking the wrong way. It was really weird to have an orientation flip like that, and despite completely recognising the top, being able to see Mt Kaukau in the distance, it took some careful thinking to convince myself to walk towards it because my brain really wanted to do something different.

It reminded me of a book I read a few years ago (Inner Navigation by Erik Jonsson), which is full of anecdotes about this kind of thing. Eventually I had to back-track the way I’d come to a point I properly recognised as being the right way around. That probably added about 500 metres to my route, but it was all in good fun. Weird.

It took about 2 hours to reach Mt Kaukau this time. Having left the Skyline Walkway Carpark at Makara Road at around 2.15pm or so, I walked up to the giant television transmitter, without which Wellingtonians wouldn’t be able to enjoy quality free-to-air television like Survivor and the “We’re not going to tell you what shocking thing happened until you watch our commercials” prime time television news. On arriving at this point, which is where all the dog-walking tracks converge and where the lookout platform is, I did something I believe I’ve never done before. I walked to the actual peak of Mt Kaukau.

Mt Kaukau Trig.

The actual peak is about 300 metres to the north of the television transmitter. There’s even a giant trig sitting on it which is visible from many places, but it’s not easily visible from the lookout platform area since it’s behind a big clump of trees. There’s a servicing road up to the transmitter from this side that passes to one side of the trees I mentioned earlier. I can only presume there’s not been much problem with people walking the final 300 metres to the actual top of Kaukau. The most obvious visible way back is to first go down to this road, and it seemed a little strange when I found myself separated by a barbed wire fence from the trees I’d recently freely walked through. Why have a barbed wire fence when anyone can just walk around the end? The road led into a maintenance parking area around the transmitter which felt more and more as if I wasn’t supposed to be there, and in the end (because I couldn’t bothered back-tracking), I had to climb a small fence to get to where I wanted to be.

Looking west at sunset.

By now it was around 4.40pm, and the sun would be setting in less than an hour. From here, as I was still going in quite good time, I thought I might walk around the Old Coach Road way to get to Johnsonville before hopping onto a train to get home. The track down this way is well signposted, but it splits off to several other streets that have entrances to Mt Kaukau, and I did the same thing that I’ve done three times now, which was to walk straight past a major track junction and find myself approaching a street called Woodmancote Road. Of course, by the time this becomes obvious I’ve walked into a deep hole, and so have to turn around and walk all the way up again, around 600 metres back to the junction which is well sign-posted and very obvious for people coming from this direction. The good news is that this time I was tracking my entire day’s walk with a GPS receiver, and I’ll keep the GPX file so that I’ll be able to follow the same track and make the same mistake every single time I do this from now on.

The Old Coach Road route is a nice way to finish this walk. It’s over farmland, and despite being very accessible, it sidles along hills on the inside of the valleys, which gives the impression that the track is more isolated than it really is. I finally exited at McLintock Street, and from here it’s very easy to simply follow the down-hill roads which lead back to Johnsonville, almost straight to the railway station. All good.

A generic collection of river rocks which was
not especially characteristic to this walk.

The Rimutaka Rail Trail is one of those things I hear a lot about, but until now I’ve never made the time to go and check it out, mostly thanks to being busy with other things. The entire trail crosses from Upper Hutt to Featherston, crossing the gap between the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges (or “the range” if you’re the sort of person who thinks of them as the same one). Historically, it’s the route that the railway line followed to connect Wellington with the Wairarapa, and special “Fell” locomotives, designed with low gear ratios and a centre grip track, were built specifically to slowly haul trains over the very steep (for a train) 1/15 gradient climb over the range. Building this long, snakey route over the range, including three tunnels, was a huge task for a lot of people in the latter part of the 19th century, but economically it was very important. The line was decommissoined and the specialised Fell Locomotives retired in 1955, at the opening of New Zealand’s longest railway tunnel of the day (8.8 km) which passes directly underneath. The Rimutaka Rail Trail was re-opened as a walking and mountain biking track a few years ago, and in that time it’s become very popular.

Date: 9th August, 2009
Location: Pakuratahi Forest, near Upper Hutt.
Route: Walk up to the Rimutaka Rail Trail Summit from Upper Hutt, then back again. (Also see the map at the end of this post.)
[Photos]
[Download GPX] [Load map][Display in new window]

It’s common for people to visit the summit from either side, then walk back the way they came, although sometimes organised people will walk all the way across, and ambitious people might walk all the way over and all the way back in a long day.

This time, I walked from the Upper Hutt side, and back again. It involves one short tunnel at about the 4.8 km mark (of a 10 km distance), but there’s a 500 metre tunnel just after the summit, which is very accessible, even if you’ve come from the other side. Ultimately it was just me, about ten or so other people out walking, and then about 150 or so people who woke up in the morning and decided what a fantastic idea it would be to get out and ride a bike up the Rimutaka Rail Trail. Apparently everyone in Wellington except for me owns a bike^*, and people here like riding them. I can’t blame them really, since the Rimutaka Rail Trail is well optimised for easy-graded mountain biking. If you’re on a bike, you probably can’t get much easier than a long, almost flat road that winds and curves its way up an extremely eventual 100 metre climb. But I wasn’t on a bike, and I’m just thankful that people are polite enough to avoid running me over.

Up the trail from Upper Hutt.

I left the carpark in bright sunshine at about 9.50am, and the conditions stayed similar to this for the entire time. Very quickly you go past a shooting range which (if anyone’s there) can be a surprise if it’s unexpected. This is not a typical walking track — it’s basically a road, and if there weren’t a couple of locked gates along the way it’d probably be possible to drive a truck over the route, assuming the bridges would hold up. I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise given the route’s history. A large part of the route runs alongside the Pakuratahi River, and I decided after a while that it’d been pointless to pack 2+ litres of water before I left because there were so many places to get water. I reached an area called Munitions’ Bend after about 45 minutes, where the road fords a stream. It’d be possible to jump in these conditions, but there’s a mammoth pedestrian bridge built beside the road anyway, so there’s no need to even risk getting wet feet.

Inside the Pakuratahi Tunnel.

The 90 metre curved Pakuratahi Tunnel is about 10 minutes walk further along the road, I think at about the 4.8 km mark along the track, and it’s the only tunnel before the summit on this side. It’s not really necessary to have a torch, certainly when it’s so bright outside, but maybe it’d help if it was a little darker. The summit side of the tunnel is the site of the mid-point ventilation shaft over the current 8.8 km tunnel roughly 116 metres deep. Until you realise what it is, it just appears to be a small building of no clear significance.

No motorbikes!

There was one really weird sign about here, which wasn’t too obvious. On one side of the road, there’s a short set of wooden steps down to stream. The don’t obviously go anywhere else, and I guess for whatever reason the council simply decided to build some steps down to a stream under trees. Maybe so people could collect water, or just look at a small stream or something. The sign on the post of the top of the steps says three things, which are typical of signs on these kinds of structures:

• Maximum 10 people. (Okay, so don’t crowd the steps.)
• No horses. (Hmm, so I guess if you were on a horse, perhaps you shouldn’t lead it down these steps to nowhere.)
• No motorbikes. (Eh???) Maybe motorbikes are allowed on this track in the first place, but I’m fairly sure they’re not. If they are, someone would really have to be pushing it to try and take their motorbike down these thin little steps to a stream-bed. All I can imagine is that this sign is either a mis-print, or that somebody’s actually tried it!

20 minutes further up the road is one of the old railway truss bridges (now restored) over the Pakuratahi River. Apparently, according to the helpful sign, they were a popular design in New Zealand up until about the 1930s.

Anyway, the route from here is more long straight parts followed by occasional corners. It goes upwards very very slowly, and very frustratingly if you’re in the frame of mind that you’d like like to hurry up and get the climb over with rather than all this winding and very gradual climbing. I must admit that although I bet it’s great as an easy mountain biking track, and I found the historical side very interesting (especially having grown up in an extended family of railway enthusiasts), as a walking track I didn’t find it at all inspiring. After a while, I found the hard ground underneath to be taxing on my knees, and had to take extra care because of it.

I reached the “Summit” at around 11.40am, which is almost exactly 10 km along the route from the starting car-park on the Upper Hutt side, according to my borrowed GPS in any case. It’s important to note that “Summit” is not the summit of anything in particular except for being the highest point of the railway route. It’s also the name of the old and small railway township which supported the families who lived here to operate the railway switching yards at the top. The area is still home to some historic rusted remainders of old Fell locomotives, an old station house, some public toilets, and (it seems) a large number of nice people coming in and out on mountain bikes.

At Summit.

The rail trail continues past Summit and down to Featherston, but I wasn’t too keen on following it all the way down. It had only taken a couple of hours to get here and at that rate it would probably take 7-8 hours to walk the entire track return, but I wasn’t finding it the most interesting place to be out walking, and noticing that I’d forgot to pack any food alongside the 2+ litres of redundant water more or less sealed my decision to return from here the way I came. I did carry on a little further, though, to check out the Summit tunnel which is only a couple of minutes walk further on from the township.

The entrance to the 576 metre Summit tunnel.

The summit tunnel is awesome. It’s a mammoth 576 metres long. It felt a little strange walking into it on my own at first and after a while I started wishing I’d brought my heavy duty tramping head-torch instead of the dinky little one that I carry around in my daypack, which wasn’t terribly useful. It was fine though, and the tunnel’s completely straight so the main thing to be careful of is accidentally drifting too far to one side and walking into the wall. People ride bikes through this tunnel, often without lights, so while it’s not really necessary I guess I did feel slightly safer having a head-torch simply because it meant I was more able to be seen… and I did say hello to a couple of groups of 5 to 6 cyclists who came past me in the dark.

Miscellaneous picnic spots.

I didn’t really leave the summit until about 12.20pm, around 40 minutes after I arrived. There was just something off-putting about the long, windy, hard road that would very gradually make its way back down to where I started from. I consoled myself by taking a couple of small 5 minute diversions down to the river on the way back, which was quite a nice place to be in the sunshine. When getting back to Munitions Bend I guess I walked through the small ford over the road, splashed around in my boots and got my socks wet on principle. It just felt better that way, heh heh. I got back to the start a couple of hours after leaving the summit.

It’s actually a really nice walk and I find the historic part of the trail, and trying to visualise the building of and the use of it to be a really interesting experience, but I guess it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for on the day as far as a walk was concerned. In short, there wasn’t enough up and down. At some point I’d like to come up the trail on the other side, but probably more so I can say I’ve done it and to get the other side of the history rather than because I expect it to be too different. This is definitely optimised for easy cycling, although I say this without having seriously ridden a bike since my BMX days.

* The only true bike worth having is a BMX, but I haven’t owned one since I was about 12.

Shortly after the search concluded, one of those involved posted an amateur 4 minute video that shows an interesting snapshot of a SAR operation in progress. If you’ve not already seen it, it’s worth a quick look, and if you click through to the YouTube page you can read a better description about what’s going on.

One outcome of the Coroner’s report seems to be that DoC review its branding of “Great Walks”, noting that the term “Walk” might create confusion for some tourists whose first language isn’t English and who might incorrectly interpret the term to mean that there’s no potential danger. On the face of it and without all the information at hand, I’m not convinced it would have helped in this situation, but perhaps there’s something to the idea.

LINZ has a large section of their website which describes the project in detail, explaining how it will affect people’s use of maps, GPS devices and other related systems. It’s good to see this actually happening — we’ve been hearing about it for several years now.

Everything you need to know is behind the link above, but I thought I might try to summarise the changes, perhaps to help people understand it better but as much to help myself to get a grasp on what’s changing and why. I’m doing my best to get this as correct as I can, but please keep in mind that I’m an amateur at this. If you notice inaccuracies or omissions, I’d appreciate it if you could point them out by posting a comment. If necessary, I’ll correct the post and credit as appropriate. Meanwhile if you’re keen to get more authoritative information from the source, a good place to start is the LINZ Publications & Other Resources page. The downloadable Topo50 map Reading Guide and the Where in the World Are We? booklets are especially helpful, and much of what I’ve written here is really just a dumbed down version of them.

For a long time now, LINZ has produced both the NZMS260 and NZMS262 series’ of maps, the former of which is used extensively for tramping. These maps are about as official as it’s possible to get for topographic maps of New Zealand. It’s taken decades to produce the entire series, with each map having been manually drawn. As the series of maps has been produced over such a long time, some maps don’t even match properly with neighbouring maps in properties such as colouring, especially if the maps were produced at different times. A few years ago, LINZ announced that as a major project, the map system would be changing and the various coordinate systems associated with New Zealand mapping would change with it.

There are a variety of reasons why it makes sense for LINZ to update the mapping system, but the most important is to make it work more nicely with the alternative “Geodetic Datum” that LINZ decided to adopt a few years ago. To understand why on earth this was necessary at all, let alone what a “Geodetic Datum” actually is and why LINZ cares about it, it’s necessary to understand something about how maps work and how they’re put together.

It’s all about projections

If you’ve dealt with maps before, you’ve probably heard something about map projections. A “projection” is the necessarily imperfect answer to the problem of how to represent the curved surface on a flat piece of paper.

Each of the maps in the NZMS260 series, the NZMS262 series, and probably most other series’ that LINZ publishes, is drawn on a flat sheet of paper, but the land that it represents isn’t flat. What it comes down to is that a flat map is not a perfect representation of the land it represents, and it can’t be. If every map in the series were laid side by side, the combined land area would look very skewed, and if the maps were pushed around to make the land appear closer to the correct shape, they would no longer line up properly side by side, and all of the nice, parallel lines of the overlaid map grid would no longer be parallel. In practice, the Earth is so large that the area represented by a single map is almost flat, and for most common uses (such as trampers taking compass bearings), it’s easily good enough for the job.

This is what a projection is. To ensure that the map can be displayed most usefully in a flat context, LINZ has to skew the shape of the entire country both so it’s not quite correct, and so it’s as un-obvious as possible that it’s not quite correct.

Points of reference and coordinates

Until recently, I’d intuitively assumed that things like latitude and longitude were very easy concepts. ie. With a specific coordinate, just draw a line from the centre of the Earth in whatever direction some brilliant maths indicates, and the geographic point for a given latitude and longitude will be where that line intersects the Earth’s surface. The intuition falls apart once it’s realise that to do this, just for starters, some way is needed for deciding where the centre of the Earth is. It falls apart even further when it’s realised that the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere, or even a sphere with mountains and valleys messing up the surface. It’s actually an oblique spheroid, which means it’s a flattened sphere that’s much wider in the middle than at the poles. The simplicity of projecting lines from the centre is getting less simple all the time.

You don’t necessarily need to know the centre of the Earth to draw a decent map that’s a good representation of an area, but you need reliable points of reference for which you do know the latitudes and longitudes already. The reference points can’t move, because if they do then it means you can no longer be certain about every measurement you’ve taken from them. New Zealand is a geologically active place, where the land moves around, and this is essentially the problem with the old NZGD1949 Geodetic Datum on which the existing LINZ topo maps have been based until now.

Geodetic datums define the reference system

This is where we come back to geodetic datums, because a datum is essentially the reference system on which everything is based. It might be something derived from the centre of the Earth, or it might be something else. It’s essential that it’s reliable and well understood, however, or everything derived from it becomes confused.

NZGD1949 is what’s known as a “local horizontal datum”, and also a “static datum”. It’s a reference system based on the known positions of trig stations around New Zealand that have been measured very accurately, and it also assumes that they never move. This isn’t exactly true, and the way the datum works makes it more difficult for surveyors to model geological movement without a lot of effort. Therefore this kind of system is not sufficient for use in New Zealand for some of today’s needs, because it’s not a reliable reference to the level of accuracy those needs require. Another issue with NZGD1949 is that having been designed to only fit New Zealand’s land-shape and nothing else, it’s not naturally compatible with much of the globally-aware navigation technology available today, notably GPS systems. To work with NZGD1949 and systems based upon it such as the New Zealand Map Grid, such technology has to incorporate lots of conversions. Through doing so, they waste resources and lose accuracy.

NZGD2000, the new Geodetic Datum which LINZ internally adopted in 1998 (but didn’t immediately use publicly in place of the NZMS260 or NZMS262 series’ of maps), is known as a “geocentric three dimensional datum”, and a “semi-dynamic datum”. It’s a referencing system based on a particular definition of the centre of the Earth and it’s been designed from knowledge that takes the whole planet into account. It’s designed around a model that estimates the shape of the entire Earth well beyond just New Zealand. Obviously the use of NZGD2000 doesn’t prevent New Zealand’s land-mass from morphing by about 5 cm relative to itself each year, but through its design it does help the surveyors and geographers at LINZ keep track of what’s actually moving around in New Zealand much more accurately. Otherwise it’s like trying to measure a distance while someone’s pulling the carpet out from underneath you. Also, being a globally-defined datum, it’s much more easily compatible with the GPS network, which operates in that context.

Collateral damage to coordinate systems

Being naive about the topic as I am, it hadn’t occurred to me until I learned of these changes is that latitudes and longitudes, which I’d always assumed were absolute everywhere, are really only subjective to the system used to plot them and that the systems vary in different places. When LINZ switches its maps to use NZGD2000, all places in New Zealand will be assigned a new latitude and longitude, as far as the predominant series of maps are concerned. Effectively, if you were to go to a specific position of latitude and longitude according to an old map and then again according to a new map, it will be as if New Zealand has shifted about 190 metres north and 10 metres east. (Check out the Differences section of the LINZ FAQ for more information about this.) What’s really happening, of course, is that those latitude and longitude lines are slightly offset from where they used to be because New Zealand is properly aligning itself with the same reference point used by much of the rest of the world.

The New Zealand Map Grid (NZMG) will also disappear, to be replaced by a new grid called the New Zealand Transverse Mercator projection (NZTM2000). This happens for the same reason, because the old NZMG was projected onto New Zealand using systems derived from the old NZGD1949 reference system. With NZTM2000, drawing the old map grid doesn’t quite work any more.

Even though LINZ has been doing its surveying using the new NZTM2000 for more than a decade now, it’s certainly possible to hack together maps with the old grids on them and use the old numbers and draw the old lines. In fact, this is what’s been happening over the past decade. During all this time LINZ has still released newly surveyed editions of their NZMS260 and NZMS262 topo maps with all the internally surveyed new coordinates converted back to the old coordinates for publication. This has been so that the new maps would be compatible with those already in circulation, giving LINZ more time to prepare for the change-over which is now here. Ultimately though, this is inefficient and leads to more and more complications and maintenance problems. Sooner or later, it all has to change.

Change happens on 29th 23rd September 2009

On 29th September 2009 (edit: 23rd September 2009), LINZ will finally release its new series of maps into shops. The old NZMS260 and NZMS262 series’ of maps are no longer being produced, and they’ll be completely withdrawn on that date. At the same time, the complete series of all Topo50 and Topo250 maps will be released, and LINZ is taking the opportunity to make several additional changes to the production system of its maps. Notably,

• The standard printed size of map sheets will become smaller and more consistent. In the NZMS260 and NZMS262 series’, maps were printed on a non-standard, and very large, sized sheet. Some maps were even sized inconsistently with their neighbouring maps, especially if a small segment of land existed off to the side, and making an existing map slightly wider would remove the need to print a new map of mostly water. With the new Topo50 and Topo250 map series’, all map sheets will be produced as metric A1 size. In cases where a map will only have tiny amount of land to be nearly useless for land navigation, LINZ will overlap the maps with neighbouring maps to ensure that every map displays a useful amount of land. Therefore some land may be duplicated on multiple maps, but will also do away with maps that are 95% water.
• Maps will be cheaper. LINZ really wants to encourage people to switch to the new Topo50 and Topo250 maps as soon as possible. Part of this encouragement is to make them available to anyone at the wholesale price of $3.50, as long as 20 or more maps are purchased. (ie. A minimum of $70 spent.) This means you could potentially replace your entire map collection relatively cheaply, or alternatively you could put together an order with several friends. LINZ is switching away from sub-contracting the printing of maps, and will now print them in-house, and this is contributing towards the cheaper costs (as I understand it, at least).

  To help people figure out which maps they might need, LINZ has provided material that compares the NZMS260 and Topo50 Map series’, including diagrams showing how grids of the map sheets overlap each other. If you have a collection of NZMS260 maps and need to know which Topo50 maps to buy for the same areas, it’s a good place to start.

The Topo50 maps are already accessible, in a sense. The complete database from which they’re produced is available using NZTopoOnline, part of the LINZ website which can be used to generate and print maps of sections of New Zealand on the fly. Presently the maps from NZTopoOnline don’t come out quite the same, however, because it’s an automated system that only has raw mapping data to generate from. Apart from having been printed professionally and with predictable consistency, printed LINZ maps, once available, will all be rendered more nicely as a consequence of people having gone through the data to ensure it looks readable, notably by doing things such as ensuring labels of features don’t overlap each other, and that kind of thing. With the natural move towards a more digital and centralised storage of all the information, however, it may become much more feasible in the future to print maps on demand, or have agents do so on LINZ’s behalf rather than require retailers to stock hundreds of different maps just in case someone might walk in wanting one. This is more towards the future, however.

Consequences for old maps

Obviously the old NZMS260 maps will still work, and it’s not as if geography changes simply because the New Zealand government decides to draw a new set of lines over it. There’s an underlying theme of encouraging people to stop using their old NZMG maps, but it might take a while for them to disappear completely. I certainly won’t throw out my maps simply because they’re old, and I doubt many of my friends will. Old maps are a great source of information about things like old tracks and routes that are no longer officially marked. Some people have lots of lines and marked up information drawn over their existing maps which is great for reference material when visiting somewhere, and that won’t be thrown out quickly. What I expect to do, however, is to move towards the Topo50 series of maps and take them out tramping with me.

The real problems will occur when communicating information about maps using two different systems, however. For instance, the potential of confusion if someone gives an NZMG grid reference from a 260 series map, which another person tries to apply to the NZTM2000 grid of a Topo250 map. New Zealand’s Land Search and Rescue is taking this seriously, and at the change-over date, all of SAR will immediately switch to the new mapping system in an attempt to avoid confusion when communicating between each other.

The confusion between the two map grids has been of particular concern, and a decision made to reduce confusion has been to design the new NZTM2000 grid so that the New Zealand land mass which it describes does not even overlap the same land mass in the NZMG when the reference numbers are the same. In other words, a grid reference in either system for anywhere in New Zealand will appear as if it’s pointing to open sea if it’s applied back to the wrong system.

Now it’s just a case of waiting

Hopefully this is a reasonable summary of not just what’s changing, but why it’s changing. The “what” part is easy, but having written this up I now feel as if I’m getting a better grasp on what the reasons and problems are. As I wrote earlier, I’d appreciate feedback and corrections, and whatever further thoughts or comments anyone might have on this.

I guess the most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s coming very soon. It seems like a very significant and important change in the use of maps in New Zealand, yet to date I haven’t seen much publicity of it outside tramping circles. I’ve wondered if there may be large clusters of people whom it might affect, who aren’t even aware that the entire mapping system is about to change.

I commented to Craig and a couple of others earlier this afternoon that to me it seems the most embarrassing kind of tramping accident that didn’t necessarily involve idiocy might be to become trapped inside a sleeping bag. It’s just been a pet fear of mine for a while now and something I might one day like to produce a horror movie about. I find something disconcerting about completely zipping oneself up inside a sleeping bag on a cold night without the certainty of being able to locate the zipper in the morning, or having the zipper get stuck on something and refuse to move. For some reason this leads to mental visions of a giant sealed sleeping bag bounding out of the Tararuas.

The reason this topic of conversation arose was because I’ve taken the claustrophobia one layer further and bought myself a nice little bivy bag, primarily for emergencies and as a possible alternative to carrying around my Huntech 2 to 3 person fly as backup shelter when I’m not planning to camp.

I spent two or three weeks scrutinising the options, only to decide there really weren’t very many because New Zealand’s such a small economy, these days nearly everything’s manufactured overseas, and it’s uneconomic for the (usually) one national importer to ever import more than a few models of anything. Eventually I settled on what seems to be the cheapest and lightest bivy bag easily available, which is the Vaude Active Bivy that retails at around $150 before whatever discounts you might be able to get. Apparently it’s not active enough to be listed on the international Vaude website, and mostly seems to be being retailed in New Zealand and the UK from what I can tell. At 500 grams, though, it’s quite nifty for an emergency bivy bag. I’ll see how it goes, and hopefully I won’t get too tangled up inside.

For a while I had my eye on some of the Outdoor Research Bivy Bags. The two most easily available in New Zealand of the current range are their “MicroNight Bivy” (also very light at about 550 grams, and around $250 in NZ — Craig loaned me his to try out) and their “Alpine Bivy” (heavier, slightly more heavy duty with a pole, and about $500 in NZ). The latter seemed overkill for my needs and I wasn’t sure about the former, and after much scrutiny I decided I really wanted their “Aurora Bivy“, which is in the middle. I’m not sure exactly why, possibly that marketing principle of which I forget the name whereby given three options, people will often naturally go for the middle one. I searched around for about a week though, only to discover that it’s not actually being imported into New Zealand, and to do so would be far too complicated and expensive to bother with.

It’s all done now, anyway, and I have a new toy to play with. As with many things, I suppose if it turns out to be not exactly what I want, I won’t have thrown away too much money and I can make a more informed and experienced decision about something else later on.

From Cannons’ Head down to Stratton Street.

I had some free time during rather nice weather on Sunday, and decided to drive out to Petone and spend it doing exactly this. With the opportunity, I also decided to do some red lining and take a look around a few areas of Belmont Regional Park where I haven’t yet been.

Date: 19th July, 2009
Location: Belmont Regional Park, from Cornish Street.
Route: A clockwise loop up to Belmont Trig via Bridleway, over to Cannons’ Head, down to Stratton Street and back to Cornish Street via Korokoro Dam.
[Photos]

I began in a place where I’ve entered the park many times before, at the end of Cornish Street in Petone. Cornish Street is an industrial street and although there’s a modest amount of public parking at the end, near the entrance to the park, it doesn’t have much other space where public parking is legal. This is, at least, what I discovered for the first time yesterday having turned up shortly after what I think were people from a tramping club milling around their cars, though I didn’t ask which one. The street is incredibly wide and quiet, but it wasn’t until I had to find somewhere else to park that I discovered virtually the entire length of the street is made up of industrial driveways and access points to private parking spaces. I did manage to find a legal area about 100 metres away, though, and left at about 9.30am or thereabouts.

My usual way in from here is to walk up to Belmont Trig via the main ridge track up from Baked Beans Bend, but this time I thought I might try to red line some of the parts I hadn’t been to before. For this reason, I decided to head up to Belmont Trig via the Bridleway track, which (from the Korokoro side) coasts around the back of Belmont Peak before climbing up the far side.

The main track from Korokoro continues along under the trees past the Korokoro Dam and it’s a really good track shared with runners and mountain bikers. Before that point though, about half an hour after leaving, a major track junction leads off to the left and up towards Belmont Trig. Only a short distance towards the trig, the track begins to criss-cross a stream which, especially if it’s raining, would make it difficult to get through without getting wet feet. (Anyone really determined might find rocks to hop over if they look hard enough, though.)

Where the track first splits up
towards the Bridleway spur.

Baked Beans Bend is about 15 minutes further up the track. There’s an ad-hoc camp-site here (though I’m not sure the regional council would appreciate someone having a campfire as has obviously happened), and it’s here where the route begins to climb. It’s also very soon after this bend that the main Belmont Trig track splits from the Bridleway Track. The Trig track climbs more or less evenly up its spur, but the Bridleway track hovers in the depths of the valley for a while, undulating up and down a few times. The R27 Wellington LINZ map from the 260 Map Series (published 2006) then indicates that the Bridleway track climbs sharply up a spur further further around, shortly after it splits again with the other option heading out to Horokiwi. This is what I initially thought I was going up when the track very obviously split, and it definitely climbs steeply. It turns out there’s another spur between the Trig Track spur and the Bridleway Spur, though. Half way up, I saw a pole further around to the hill-side, and after some checking of my map I figured out I was on a track the map hadn’t marked. The two spurs joined each other, though, so I ended up in the same place where the Bridleway Track emerges not far below Belmont Trig.

The main ridge leading up to Belmont
Trig from Baked Beans Bend.

On a nice day in Belmont, it’s unusual to go without seeing many people, and I expected to encounter others by the time I reached the trig. There was nobody. The morning was sunny, virtually no wind, and there was nobody.

At 457 metres above sea-level, Belmont Trig is the highest point in the centre of the Wellington Region. It’s not above any natural bush-line, but the park is a farm park and there comes a point where one emerges from the native bush into council-operated publicly accessible farm-land, and there’s a similar sentiment to reaching the tops in New Zealand’s more mountainous back-country.

Looking towards Porirua Harbour.

I sat under the trig, spent a couple of minutes strapping my feet, hoping to ward off blisters from only the second outing of my new Scarpas, then I found a grassy patch slightly down the side of the hill and stared towards the Tararuas which were basking inside some grey cloud. Colonial Knob behind Porirua, and on the edge, is slightly higher than this, but to be well above Belmont Trig without flying, it’d be necessary to be in the Rimutaka Range to the east on the far side of the harbour (the Mt Matthews high point in the distance is a little over twice the height), or in the Tararua Range to the north where Mitre Peak is more than three times the height of Belmont Trig. From here, though, the Tararuas were still a cloud-covered smudge in the far distance.

Say what you might about high tension power cables being strung over regional parks, they make it much easier to identify locations on topo maps. As I sat on the northern slope of Belmont Peak with the map unfolded in front of me, it was easy to pick out the upcoming route around Cannons’ Head, down a spur to the Stratton Street park entrance that I’d visit before continuing back to the Korokoro Dam.

After 15 minutes of sitting on the grass-covered slope, I eventually heard the chatter of a group of people approaching up the main ridge from Baked Beans Bend, and with the peak about to be overrun by the next group of day-walkers it was time to carry on.

The Tararuas from Cannons’ Head.

It took about 40 minutes to reach Cannons’ Head, during which time I passed one enthusiastic mountain runner and nobody else — surprising given the weather so far. Cannons’ Head shares a name with Cannons’ Creek, visible below, which is one of the fore-mentioned locations in which lots of state housing was built during the mid-20th century. In the past the area has had a reputation of one of the highest crime rates in the country and admittedly it was an area I tended to avoid when I was growing up nearby, but I’ve walked through it several times in the last few years when approaching Belmont Regional Park from the other side, and I’m actually really impressed with how it doesn’t feel anything like as run-down as it used to. It’s possible to walk down the street as a stranger and smile at someone, and get a smile back. Perhaps there’s more pride in living there than there used to be, or maybe I’m just imagining a difference where the only difference has been inside my head. Either way it’s really neat.

Not being in any kind of rush, I once again managed to find a nice place in the grass near Cannons’ Head where I could sit for another 10 minutes and gaze towards the Tararuas. By now they had emerged from the grey clouds and were showing some snow-covered peaks. Perhaps another day.

Leaving Stratton Street towards Belmont Trig.

The walk from Cannons’ Head down to the Stratton Street entrance took about 25 minutes down a spur, and there’s a picnic area that seems quite nice in the sunshine. Not having left a vehicle here, though, I followed the signposted track back up towards Belmont Peak. After only 10 minutes, the track splits off with one branch heading further up open farmland towards Belmont Trig, and the other directed into the bush in the direction of the Korokoro Dam.

Even though it’s a direct route between nearby entrances, this track is actually really steep by regional park recreational walking standards, and I expect it could be quite slippery when wet. Before reaching the Oakleigh Street entrance, the track around here also criss-crosses a stream in a way that was fine with tramping boots, but it’d be a challenge to keep dry feet if attempting to walk the track with regular shoes (and a dry-feet attitude). This section of track along here is very accessible, and from this point on there were many more people out for casual walks in t-shirts and with handbags and such.

Korokoro Dam.

Nobody was at the Korokoro Dam when I reached it 40 minutes after leaving Stratton Street, and I sat for five minutes to study a couple of ducks that very slowly made their way over the artificial lake behind the dam. From the dam, it was a 45 minute casual walk back to Cornish Street. All good.

This equality is one of the wonderful things about the outdoors in New Zealand. it manifests itself in the informal experiences of meeting people out of context and away from their normal day-jobs. If Craig and I or anyone else had been tramping up that way this weekend (as we’d planned) and happened to meet people, it no doubt would have made no difference who they were or what they’d achieved. You get to meet and chatter with all sorts of people in New Zealand’s back-country, and meet them on equal terms. One way or another everyone’s out there to enjoy themselves.

I won’t dwell on the specifics of what happened right now. The published information is so sparse and it wouldn’t be fair to people involved. No doubt more information will emerge from those in the know in the coming weeks. Whatever happened, it’s a testament to the impressively coordinated and largely voluntary Land Search and Rescue organisation, and to the SAR Coordination team of the New Zealand Police and all other organisations involved, that the trampers were found so quickly once it finally became possible to mount a search.

It’s strange having been to these places, even felt as if I was in some kind of trouble near there at times (especially this time), yet never for a moment having thought I wouldn’t get out safely. I’m fortunate enough to have never been in such a catastrophic situation to date, and I hope I never am.

Perhaps it helps to ease the mind if you’re as prepared as you can be, to the extent that if you make a mistake (preparation or otherwise) your further preparation will be more likely to compensate. Having experienced, competent and level-headed friends nearby also helps tremendously when things get difficult. When this kind of awful thing happens, however, it’s a saddening reminder that on occasion things can go tragically wrong, even for experienced people and in places that are well frequented and which might sometimes give the impression of being much more safe than what they really are. Probably all we can do now is try to learn from it.

What surprised me as I walked back towards town was the number of bottle caps washed up on that part of the beach around there. There were barely any plastic bottles, but there were thousands of bottle caps. They were typically the variety that comes from soft drinks and bottled water, the latter of which I think is a bizarre, inefficient and pointless thing in New Zealand, but perhaps that’s a topic for another post.

I suppose the bottles must separate and be carried somewhere else with a different make-up and density, but apparently thousands of bottle caps end up right here. Putting thoughts about lazy thoughtless polluters and the hypocrisy of New Zealand aside, I’d love to know more about the physics of what’s happening here.

It was a trip that that the club rated as Easy, organised by a fun chap called Andrew who really likes excessive good cooking on the club’s easy-rated tramping trips. We were starting from Otaki Forks, walking to Waitewaewae, and coming back. Waitewaewae (also known as YTYY) is definitely straightforward if you’re reasonably used to tramping and all the efficient packing and tuning that goes with it. It’s sign-posted at 4 hours, it can be walked in 3 by someone reasonably fit, and last time I checked somebody had crossed out the 4 on the sign and written 7 hours. The reason for this is that the YTYY track involves lots of undulation, and also walking up Saddle Creek, which can be slippery. Last time I visited Waitewaewae Hut from another direction, we were due to meet another group who never showed up, as one of their party had slipped in Saddle Creek and been airlifted out. If a group happens to be very inexperienced, the walk to Waitewaewae can be a challenging first tramp.

I going off on a tangent, though. Andrew is a chap with many fun stories, and one of the stories that he raised to convince people that the walk to Waitewaewae was very do-able was about an earlier time he’d been at Otaki Forks. Having arrived on Friday they’d stayed the night in Parawai Lodge. Whist packing up to leave in the morning, they met another club group of absurdly crazy fit people who’d walked the entire Southern Crossing overnight!

To my recollection, my first reaction towards Andrew was “why?”. At that time when I was relatively new to tramping, and to the Tararuas, I saw the Southern Crossing as the major thing to do in the Tararuas, although I now know many places I’d rather visit in the Tararuas. The thought of walking the Southern Crossing (typically a three day tramp) over a single night seemed absurdly pointless. Why??? Nobody in our cheerful easy-rated group had much of an answer.

It took a few months of getting to know more people before I was able to piece together the attraction of trying to attempt this strange feat of walking between Otaki and Kaitoke in the dark. The attraction, of course, is the combination of snow and moonlight. It’s not just a walk in the darkness with head-torches to no end, it’s a walk through the well-lit snow under a Full Moon, and it’s a way to see the Tararuas in a way that very few people do. (Even less people than the amount who see them in the sunshine, apparently.)

It’s difficult to get the right conditions, too. For a Moonlight Southern Crossing, it’s necessary to have a combination of snow-covered mountain tops, a Full or nearly-Full Moon (which occurs only several days each month), clear weather all night (ie. no or very few clouds), and, for practicalities sake, the time, ability and fitness to do it. The time, ability and fitness factors are often the most difficult, because on what is typically short notice it’s necessary to be in a good frame of mind (and fitness), to get transport at both ends, and if optimal conditions occur during the week, to potentially take two days off work.

Earlier this week, it looked as if all these factors were coming together. When Craig first asked me if I was interested, it took a night to get my head together about what was actually involved, but after I’d shaped it out in my head I became very enthusiastic. This would be Craig’s third attempt at a Moonlight Southern Crossing, with him having turned around early due to weather conditions on the previous 2 attempts. (In his blog post to which I linked earlier, Craig implies it’s only his second attempt, but Craig’s also a liar liar pants on fire.) For me, it was my first attempt, but I was very hopeful all the same.

Craig and I both arranged to take Friday off work, sleep Friday morning, do some car juggling on Friday afternoon, and be leaving Otaki Forks at 5pm. We planned to be at Field Hut by about 7pm, Kime some time before 10pm, and hopefully over at Alpha nearer the other side by about 2am. Some people walk the entire thing in a night, but we planned for the cop-out option of walking as far as Alpha Hut, and stopping to get some rest before heading out the eastern side of the Tararuas. The traditional Southern Crossing route then heads along Marchant Ridge (famous for its claimed feature of being an up-hill walk in both directions), but we thought we might adapt the main route and take the alternative across the Tauherenikau to Cone Hut, then out at Walls Whare some time on Saturday morning.

I’ve never really packed for something like this before. Craig and I were taking an ice-axe each as a precaution, but with the trip basically being a 15 hour walk overnight without much planned stopping, it’s also tempting to leave out luxuries that might weigh a bit. For a while I was concerned that I don’t really own a pack designed for shorter overnighters — the next size down that I have from my 70 litre Macpac pack is a 28 litre daypack, which is very nice for daywalks but it wasn’t quite enough for what I had in mind. As it turned out, I think I ended up packing almost the same as what I would on a typical weekender anyway, except for less food, and minus a couple of token extras (like Crocs). I also substituted my thermarest for a foam mattress, which to my surprise I managed to fit completely inside my pack. I figured that if the situation reached a point where I needed either of them, we’d likely be stuck on snow. Despite being less comfortable, the warmth insulation properties of foam mattresses outshine inflatable thermarests by a long way.

It’s difficult to skimp on things while still feeling safe. I’ve seen people leave things before on the assumption that they’ll use back-country huts, but I feel very uncomfortable doing this. Even with the well-maintained back-country huts along the Southern Crossing these days, you can never safely rely on a hut with 100% certainty in New Zealand’s back-country. Huts are a fall-back safety thing and typically if you’re in trouble and you reach a back-country hut, you’ll almost certainly be okay, but they might also be burnt down or full of smelly people, or you might not reach one as planned if you break a leg. They should really only be treated as a convenient luxury once you’re already there. Ultimately I think I got my pack for an overnight walk in the Tararuas (without water) down to about 13 kilograms including the ice-axe, which for me is akin to me not taking a hard-cover library book, so it’s not much of a saving. It wasn’t too concerning though, as I think I could still happily walk up to Kime with that sort of weight in the time we’d planned reasonably comfortably.

But, we’re not going now. Earlier today we were getting ready to leave, but in an anti-climatic phone conversation a couple of hours ago, we decided to call it off. Unfortunately the cloud’s just getting worse, and Craig commented that he thinks it’ll probably get sucked even further into the hills late this evening.

Next time, perhaps.

It’s not too bad. Realistically it wasn’t going to happen tonight, although I say this now before tonight’s happened at the risk of looking silly. I think all the preparation has gotten me even more enthused to attempt this at the next practical opportunity if I’m able to, whether it happens to be next month or a year from now.

It’s just around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around. And that’s only the first half of it. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced this when walking in the outdoors.

The Makara turbines of Project West Wind.

It’s hard to talk about the Makara Beach Loop these days without talking about Project West Wind — the initiative of Meridian Energy to build a giant wind farm on Wellington’s south coast. It took years to get through the consent process, and my most vivid memory of this was one of the few meetings I attended of the Tararua Tramping Club back in 2007. The meeting involved a representative of Meridian who described the wind farm proposal with a slide-show decorated by a large photo of a cute and happy dog basking in the wind, many noisy people whom I was later informed were not regular attendees of TTC meetings, and a lot of angry heckling.

Date: 14th June, 2009
Location: Makara Loop Walk, from Makara Beach.
Route: Just doing the loop clockwise starting from the beach.
[Photos and Videos]

The wind farm has been controversial to say the least, especially for some residents of the small settlement of Makara separated from Wellington by the hills, who have been very concerned about the visual and audial impact the wind turbines would have on their community. When the Environment Court approved the project in 2007, Meridian wasted no time in starting construction, and the hills in that area are now dotted with turbines. I hadn’t thought they’d be quite so obvious so close to Wellington, and so I was surprised just how obvious it was even a few minutes drive up the hill from Karori. The things are huge. The wind farm isn’t fully completed until the end of 2009, but it’s been operating in part since April.

Makara Beach.

I started at Makara Beach at about 11.20, walked the loop in a clock-wise direction (over the hill to Opau Bay, then back along the beach), took lots of photos, stopped to look at lots of views, and arrived back at the car at around 1.30pm.

Hovering all on its own.

The loop doesn’t split until after a few minutes of walking, at which point the track leads straight up over farmland, and up and up. It’s not long before there’s some nice scenery out to sea. The South Island was only murkily visible today, but both Mana Island and Kapiti Island behind it stood out very impressively. From the beginning of the track, the only clear evidence that there’s a wind farm nearby is the single closest turbine, which the route spends much of its time weaving around. At the point that the higher track diverts up the hill, the full blades of this shiny white turbine are visible between the shoulders of the hills on either side. The walkway climbs up to the height of the base of this turbine, but for now it’s just a giant in the distance and with the perspective it’s difficult to gauge the height. I’d be very interested to see this massive thing operating simply to see how noisy it is, as noise has been one of the posted concerns of the lobby groups.

Mana Island (closer) and Kapiti Island (behind).

It’s a nice coastal hill to walk along and with the direct exposure to the north, south and the west along the top, I bet it’s devastatingly impressive to wander around when it’s windy, but the air today was calm and still. The track goes up and up as it hugs the top of the shallow cliff-face above the sea, more or less until it starts going down. I already had blisters in my new boots by now, but that was okay because I wasn’t really in any rush.

At about midday I reached the two WW2 gun emplacements. It’s about this time, walking around to the far side of the bunkers, that the scale of Project West Wind becomes clear. Suddenly the farm-land over the hills is covered in turbines. With my imperfect eyesight I counted at least 39 although they continue back into the distance towards the south coast and the total size of the farm is slated to be 62, which is a compromised down-scaling from the original plan before the lobby groups expressed their concerns. They’re all massive, each with a total 82 metre blade radius sidding on top of 67 metre towers!

A very populated skyline.

It’s a novelty for me to walk around near a wind farm, and I stood for a while just gaping at the scale of it, waiting for a couple of noisy people whose voices were carrying to approach and overtake me. Then in the relative silence with the noises of birds and the coastal sounds of the sea below, I watched several turbines in the distance as they lazily expressed their angular momentum obtained from what must have been a barely detectable breeze in terms of what would be the norm.

Even at this lack-luster pace as one of those blades took 12 seconds for a full revolution of 258 metres (see the short movie), the tip was by my calculations moving at roughly 21 metres per second. That’s around twice the average speed of 10.36 metres per second of Usain Bolt, the current world record holder in the 200 metre dash (averaged faster than the 100m dash). There’s a lot of force in those blades, even when they appear to be drifting slowly.

Despite concerns I have about the environmental effects that such wind farms can have in some places, my current personal opinion is that in the big scheme of things the Makara farm is a good design if wind turbines have to go somewhere. I guess putting them here in an area that’s already being used for farming and industry, high tension power lines and productivity certainly beats the prospect of changing the character of wilderness areas, forest parks and national parks.

It’s shortly after the WW2 bunkers that the track curves around to the base of one of the nearest turbines. The road is gated off preventing access, but I snuck off the track by about 100 metres to a small point higher up where it looked as if many people had already been, and took a few photos of the turbine with Mana and Kapiti Islands in the background. It’s a nice spot, and soon after the track becomes a deteriorating asphalt road that leads down to Opau Bay on the coast. I reached the coast at about 12.30pm, and from here it’s a nice coastal walk back to Makara Beach.

Arriving at Opua Bay.

Looking back towards Opua Bay.

And yeah, my boots went okay but I definitely have a couple of blisters on the back of my heels that I’ll need to deal with now. I probably should have taken some band-aids with me, but I wasn’t thinking so intelligently when I left home this morning. Hopefully with two or three more short walks like this, my new boots will be good for something more demanding.

Stacey and I went for a walk down into the central city, 20-50 minutes away depending on urgency, and the view over the harbour was iconic of these kinds of days. Much of the mist would have evaporated by the time we saw it at 11.30am, but with the Orongorongas highlighted by their contrast in the background behind the city and the harbour as they lead towards the southern extent of the Tararuas, it’s a good sight all the same.

It was an expensive day. I’ve had a busy week at work for various reasons, and a certain amount of stress has been compounded my the loss of my miniature Silva L4 head-torch (like this one). It’s not the losing of the torch that irked me, but that being in mid-winter without a torch has meant I haven’t been able to take the much more scenic and through-the-forested-town-belt route on my walk home from work every night. It was the original head-torch that I bought for tramping several years ago, easily durable enough to have been through the washing machine a couple of times without a scratch. When I had more time for amateur astronomy, the red LED doubled as an excellent light for reading of star maps and fiddling with observing tools in the dark with minimal interruption of night vision.

The only thing I disliked about the Silva L4 was changing the batteries. Even in full daylight, at home and armed with a full selection of kitchen implements, I’ve never been able to get the thing open to change the batteries in less than 10 minutes. I dreaded the day that I might be trapped in the dark having to fight with it, and this was part of the reason I ultimately replaced it. The other reason I replaced it was that as great as it is for short range light, there’s not a very strong beam and so it wasn’t ideally suited for tramping at night, which is something I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Since I retired it from tramping in favour of a Black Diamond Icon, which I like for different reasons, the L4 has experienced its retirement as a handy light-weight torch that I’d simply carry everywhere I went, and was thus very handy any time I decided I wanted to walk home in the dark via the scenic routes.

I’d been looking around the house for 2 weeks, searching everywhere I could think of. With no success whatsoever, I finally decided this morning to accept it was gone, and buy a new one. After some brief research, I decided that a Black Diamond Gizmo was about what I wanted, and it was also the price I was prepared to pay (roughly $40). Literally 20 minutes later, Stacey and I were sitting on a bench in Cou