In some ways this rescue wasn’t very interesting. It barely made the news at all. It was reported very briefly in the DomPost, not even giving an approximate location, but reporting the GPS failure. A press release from the Life Flight Trust (duplicated here) adds a few more details, but wasn’t picked up and analysed by any popular media outlets that I can find. Also being a press release from the helicopter operator, its main focus is that they rescued people with their helicopter rather than explaining why those people needed rescuing.

The mention of “deep snow” in the Alpha Hut area means they were probably coming over from Aston (on the Tararua Southern Crossing route) or around Quoin Ridge in the water catchment zone. From reports it’s unclear exactly why there was a problem, if the two of them intended to be out overnight, or even if they’d actually requested a rescue or if it was just lack of information that resulted in the decision to send a helicopter. If a message had not gone out, maybe they would have simply reached Alpha Hut, or just had a night out walking around in circles in calm but cold weather. Such things happen, but usually go unreported.

From informal chats I think what happened is that in attempting a Tararua Southern Crossing, they took a wrong turn at Alpha Peak earlier in the day, apparently not having a proper map or anything, and went down Quoin Ridge instead of towards Alpha Hut. Then the Sun went down. From the result it sounds as if they were probably not carrying their own shelter, and relying on reaching Alpha Hut that night for their safety (see The Hut Fallacy).

I found this story interesting because of how the GPS was mentioned. I’ve also met at least three people now who heard the news and independently expressed similar feelings. The implication from the reports is that the failure of the GPS was a key factor in causing the rescue. I’m not sure this can ever be the case, though, because a GPS isn’t the kind of tool that it should ever be necessary to rely on if other preparations have been made.

It’s sad how the media machine can simplify a story like this, through no intent of anyone specific but by how it operates, republishing information and then simplifying it to fit in small spaces. Irrespective of what actually happened in this case, the worst thing is how the presentation could just reinforce impressions that anyone might already have that a GPS makes things safe, and that it’s perfectly acceptable to assume one can send a text message from a cell-phone and expect a helicopter rescue to be called out when a GPS fails. It’s the same kind of media simplification that suggested a cell-phone would have saved a couple of unfortunate people about a year ago (see this specific example from Newstalk ZB) when really there were a plethora of reasons that added together. In that case it essentially came down to bad preparation and some dreadful decisions. The cellphone factor was almost a completely irrelevant red herring, but for a while was pushed to the front of many media reports, probably because it simplified things in terms with which more readers were familiar, reinforcing whatever false beliefs readers may have already had.

Sometimes I think the reported messages are irrationally harsh on those being rescued, to the extent that people can get called idiots or stupid even if they were mostly well prepared and did 99% of things right but just made a silly mistake that resulted in a high profile rescue. Maybe rescuers have been quoted out of context or in the heat of the moment, or are just trying to take advantage of any media attention to get another safety message published through the media lens (although to be fair there are a lot of people rescued who’ve done some pretty idiotic stuff). This time it’s the opposite. Nobody’s out there denouncing the two rescued people as morons (which I think is good), but there’s also a very skewed presentation of what the actual problem was. If anything it could only lead to a worse understanding of what happened, and how to avoid it happening to others in future. If that’s all that’s going to be printed in an outlet like the DomPost, it probably would have been better for everyone that it didn’t get printed at all.

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.

In other news, I finally busted my relatively cheap altimeter a couple of weeks ago (during the Renata trip), which isn’t entirely unexpected given I haven’t been going to great lengths to look after it. That particular one was a bit unreliable on occasions in any case, including when compared with other altimeters on the same trips, and more of an interesting toy and something to practice with rather than something I’d want to rely on for an accurate reading. Now I finally have a good excuse to go shopping for something worthwhile.

Anyway, we’re off to the Ruahine Range this weekend, to make another attempt at getting from Rangiwahia over to Sawtooth, and back around via Pourangaki. We first attempted this about 6 weeks ago in March, but it just rained and rained and a couple of things unfortunately went wrong.

In the past I’ve tended to overlook the Kaimanawas. Driving along the desert road, the mountainous areas of Tongariro National Park on the other side have usually grabbed my attention, whereas legends of wild horses in the Kaimanawas give the impression of them being a rather large, publicly-owned pet food factory. Wellington Anniversary Weekend was a good introduction which challenged my perceptions, and I discovered I was wrong before the trip even began. Contrary to my former impressions, I found that much of the Kaimanawa Range is privately owned. I was going to start this report with some background information about the private land issue in the range, but I decided to post that part separately after it became a bit long.

Dates: 18th-21st January, 2008
Location: Kaimanawa Forest Park, Urchin Road-End.
People: Craig, Ruth, Paul, John, Mike and me.
Huts visited: Waipakihi Hut (1 night).
Intended route: Begin at the Urchin road-end, walk over Urchin to the Waipakihi River, up Motutere and around Middle Range past Thunderbolt, down to Waipakihi Hut for the night. Then out to the Umukarikari road-end via the Umukarikari Range, camping somewhere.
Actual route: Over Urchin and up the Waipakihi River to the hut, back over Te Hiwiokaituri Ridge and back down to the river before camping overnight, then out over Urchin.
[Photos]

This was a trip of altimeter arguments, contradicting and incorrect weather forecasts, and a high quantity of photographs of varying quality. In fact, the trip was so much about altimeter arguments and taking photographs that I couldn‘t possibly do those topics justice, so I won’t spend much time mentioning them from here on.

The six of us were accompanied to the end of the road by Geoff and Yibai. Geoff had offered to drive the bus while Yibai had offered to make sure the door of the bus opened and closed at the appropriate times. The two of them planned to go hunting while they waited for us to return. Having left Wellington at about 6 with a 30 minute stop for dinner at Bulls, we arrived at the Urchin road-end at about 11.20pm. Ruth knew of a good campsite clearing a few minutes’ walk in the opposite direction from the start of the Urchin Track, and that’s what we aimed for. As it turned out, Mike and I were the only people interested in setting up a fly, but even we gave up after trying to get the first peg into the very hard ground. It was a calm night so we joined everyone else and put away the fly, sleeping out in the open.

We were all settled and on our way to sleep by about midnight. I think I must have slept well because after falling asleep underneath the constellation of Canis Major, the next thing I remember was being under a dense part of the Milky Way which was most likely near Sagittarius. By the time the Southern Cross was overhead, traces of dawn were showing, and a sprinkling of songs started echoing through the trees. The two most prominent belonged to a Grey Warbler, and what I think were Bellbirds. We didn’t have any significant problems with dew on people’s sleeping bags, although Paul’s had somehow gotten slightly wet on the outside, possibly if he’d somehow rolled it into a puddle.

Everyone in our group was packing at 6am. Geoff and Yibai – respectively the gun-toting bus driver and gun-toting bus door-opener – had already left for their hunting trip by that time, probably hoping to spot a deer in the early morning. John boiled some water for a brew, and was a little surprised when Mike and I weren’t interested. (Neither Mike nor myself usually bother with much other than water when on trips.)

There’s no source of water at the Urchin road-end, which is important to note because the first water available on the journey still requires a 600 metre climb followed by a 450 metre descent before reaching the Waipakihi River. Fortunately Ruth had thought ahead, and left a 3 litre bottle of water on the bus that we could raid before we left.

Somehow everyone in our group had turned up with a different forecast for the weekend. They all contradicted each other, but none of them were particularly good forecasts and the main thing we determined having mashed them together was that Saturday was likely to be the best day. From Sunday onwards things would probably get steadily worse – in some cases a lot worse. With this in mind, we decided to attempt a very long day on Saturday to get around as much of Middle Range as possible, hopefully all the way to the hut, and would later decide how to use up the remaining two days.

We left our campsite near the Urchin road-end just before 7. After a quick stop at the bus, we began walking up the hill, with Craig making subtle comments about the unusual heaviness of his pack. The track from the road-end up to Urchin is a nice, consistent gradient, and the ground is quite soft which makes it good to walk on.

Craig at Urchin Trig.

We reached the bush-line at 8.15am, and the wind progressively picked up from there, complete with wind chill. Less than 10 minutes later having arrived at Urchin Trig, it was actually getting quite cold. We re-assessed the day’s plan once we broke onto the tops and could see the rapidly moving clouds to the east which suggested suggested that Middle Range, along which we’d intended to walk, was probably sheltering us from something much worse coming from the north-east. Instead, we decided to spend the day walking up the river in the valley below.

Looking down from
the Urchin Track.

The Urchin Track is poled along the tops, which makes it easy to find the way down to the track in the bush-line on either side. Although cold and windy enough for everyone to add an extra layer, it wasn‘t too much to manage and the visibility was good. We covered the 2 kilometers or so on that part of the tops without much trouble, and were on our way down into the bush on the other side within 45 minutes. The Urchin Track heading down the south-eastern side is quite a bit steeper than the other side by comparison, but really no worse than a typical up-hill track in the New Zealand back-country.

We reached the river at 9.40am, where two guys from Tauranga were camping having walked there on Friday afternoon. They‘d already encountered Geoff and Yibai who’d gone past some time earlier and continued up-river. They were also intending to be at Waipakihi Hut that evening, so we’d expect to see them again later in the day. The weather was much calmer and warmer down in the valley. With no reason to rush, we stayed and chatted for a good 25 minutes. As we left, Craig made some more subtle comments about the unusual heaviness of his pack. A few minutes further up the river, Geoff and Yibai popped out of the trees where they‘d set up a camp. They hadn’t had any luck yet. We updated them with our plans, and arranged to send a couple of people down the river to find them again if the weather became so bad for us to want to leave early.

A couple of kilometres further up the river, we stopped for lunch at the base of Thunderbolt Creek. Much of the Waipakihi River has wide flats on both sides. This point, where a spur comes down to meet the river from Te Hiwiokaituri Ridge was no exception. The time was only 11.30am and we were in no hurry, so we took advantage of a sheltered spot on the northern side of the spur, and sat down for some lunch.

John likes tea when he
goes tramping.

John used his skills to throw together a small campfire and heat water for a brew. He grumbled about how times were changing for the worse when Mike and I both told him we didn’t need any hot water once again. It was a nice day to have campfire smoke periodically wafting in one’s face, however, and we spent a good hour sitting, eating high quality lunches, chatting, and comparing the cheap altimeters with the expensive ones. It was only now that it became apparent that we actually had six altimeters between six people, albeit some of a more accurate nature than others. Mike was the only person without one, although Paul actually had two if we also counted his bright yellow GPS device.

As often happens, lunch was a forum for many important and involved discussions. The most important discussion during this lunch was to do with accurately measuring the volume of a club billy using a GPS device. The consensus was that it could be useful to have about 1000 billies so they could be lined up alongside each other, and perhaps then it’d be easier to measure their diameter and height more accurately. We packed up and left shortly after 12.30pm, with Craig making a few further comments about the weight of his pack

The wide flats along the edges of the Waipakihi River make it possible to walk much of the distance outside of the river, but it‘s often necessary to cris-cross it and, of course, we often found it more convenient to simply walk up the middle. On this occasion the river wasn’t at all flooded, and it was never necessary to wade through anything deeper than about thigh-deep water. There were quite a few deeper and slow moving areas which would have made good swimming holes, however.

Where we waited
for Craig.

We nearly lost Craig shortly after 1pm, when we dropped off the flats down to a curve in the river at what I think was a grid reference of about 616238. Craig was last in the group at the time (or at least that‘s what we thought), but he never turned up when we sat down to wait. After about ten minutes of waiting and with some concern mounting, further investigation revealed there were several diverging tracks through the flats than the one we’d followed. It was possible that he might have dropped down to the river at a different place somewhere ahead of us, and missed us completely. Just as we were discussing the possibilities, however, Craig turned up, having been just around the corner for the entire time, ironically waiting for us.

Somewhere along this stretch, we overtook the two guys from Tauranga, who’d passed us at some stage when we were hiding in our lunch spot. We stopped for a few minutes and had another chatter with them before continuing.

Mike, Craig and Ruth
in the shade.

At about 3pm, our relaxed pace dictated the need for yet another rest. Ruth was keen to find somewhere with shade, while John wanted some grass next to the river. The lack of locations to match all requirements caused some vigorous debate over the next ten minutes, but in the end we just stopped in the shade, except for John at the front who hadn’t noticed we’d stopped, and continued around the corner to find his grassy riverbank. This stop lasted another 30 minutes, during which time I’m sure I heard snoring. By now it was starting to get later in the day, however, and John asserted that there should be no more stops before we reached the hut. We picked up our things and got going again, with Craig making a few comments about the extra weight he thought he must have been carrying. Once again, we overtook the chaps from Tauranga, and this time they were quite surprised and confused to see us. Presumably they hadn’t seen us snoring in the shade.

At 4.20pm, Mike and I (at the back of the group) finally saw what was either the Waipakihi Hut in the distance, or a very good cardboard cut-out imitation of it. I’ve sometimes thought it could be funny to build a giant cardboard cutout of a hut in the distance, but this time I hoped it was the real thing and was pleasantly rewarded for my optimism. Mike and I were the last two people to reach it. We wandered up the steps at 4.40pm, trying to look as authentic as we could as we strolled past a crouching John who wielded the impressive new camera he’d recently given his wife for Christmas, and added our soppy socks to the clothes line out the front.

Ruth and Paul outside
the hut.

Nobody else was home at the hut when we arrived, but a couple of hunters had left their things in one of the bunk rooms. The hut has a bunk room on either end with six bunks in each, so the six of us picked the un-used room and filled it. Not long after we’d arrived, the two guys from Tauranga caught up, and duly added their soggy socks to the line. The wind was starting to pick up in the valley by now. Paul even reported seeing a small waterspout forming over the river, so it appeared that our timing had been good. John settled into arranging some hot water for a brew, but grumbled about how times were changing for the worse when Mike and I both told him we didn‘t need any hot water.

The next two people to arrive were a couple of British doctors, based in a hospital in Hawkes’ Bay. They‘d followed the same route as ourselves, but had only driven to the road-end earlier in the morning. The two of them were absolutely exhausted, which may have had something to do with all the extra effort they‘d gone to to avoid having to step into the river any further than ankle deep. Good for them, I guess. They got stuck into eating their cold dinner outside the hut within a few minutes of turning up.

On our own side of things, John had nearly completed the task of accurately slicing two very large kumura into 1 centimetre cubes. Craig meanwhile, who’d been making subtle comments about the weight of his pack all day, produced what must have been the world’s biggest cucumber from his pack. Only a third of it (at best) went towards a dinner for six people. Much of the evening was spent with the other inhabitants of the hut, collectively working on crossword puzzles which Paul had brought. The hunters still hadn’t returned by the time we’d all gone to bed at around 10pm’ish, although we heard them in the other room not long after.

We woke on Sunday morning at a little before 7, and first impressions of the day were much better than what several of the contradicting forecasts would have had us believe. There was a little wind outside, but the high clouds weren‘t moving fast and it looked very feasible to be walking over the tops. John boiled some water on the hut stove for a brew, although he grumbled about the state of tramping and younger people as Mike and I didn’t want any.

The two hunters were up and about very shortly after we’d begun to make significant amounts of noise, and they were quite helpful with information regarding what we were keen to do during the day. They’d both been up to point 1475 the previous evening and half way down one of the spurs near it, where they said it’d been extremely windy and a waste of their time as far as any hunting was concerned. Despite their claimed lack of success, there were still a lot of flies buzzing around one particular corner of the outside of the hut that morning, which made us suspicious as to whether anything had been left nearby.

Paul departs Waipakihi Hut.

The British tourists were first away, with a plan of walking back to the road by that evening, via the Umakarikari Range on the north-western side of the river. Our own group left shortly behind them at 8am. Watching them from a distance, they did a very adequate job of getting through the river without having any water seeping over the top of their boots prior to ascending up the track on the far side.

The book at Waipakihi Hut had had a big warning scribbled in the front, apparently courtesy of Air Charter Taupo, reminding everyone that the nearby private land was being monitored and that people should stay away from it unless they had a permit. This reduced our options because the private land in question had a nicely drawn corner of a triangle jutting over about 3 kms of ridgeline that we would have liked to walk. Not everyone in our group was in possession of a suitable balaclava to hide our identities, and none of us had packed any giant motorised pogo sticks that might have assisted us to leap over many kilometres of private forest in a single bound. The prospect of the looming Air Charter Taupo attack choppers buzzing us along the ridge wasn’t inviting, so following the main signposted track from the hut and dashing across 3 kms of ridgeline wasn’t an option. We therefore decided to head up an alternative spur to point 1475, south of the hut, and bypass the pointy corner of private land as much as possible.

There’s a well-walked route up the spur to 1475, which shouldn‘t be much of a surprise since I bet a lot of people had done the same thing before we did it. It’s not obvious from the bottom, though, and it was fortunate that Paul had been here once a year before. We also got some directions from one of the two hunters. The only obstacle in getting to this spur, which is probably more of an issue for people who try to walk directly from the hut, is an annoying gully which needs to be either crossed or circumvented. It‘s perhaps on the order of about 15 metres deep and quite steep on either side, heading north-south, almost 600 metres west of the hut (from the south side of the river). My TerraMap marks it as a stream, but at the time we visited there were trees growing along the bottom, and no obvious water above ground. Having walked straight from the hut, we had begun from the eastern side of the gully accidentally, before Ruth managed to find a way down into the thing and up the other side.

Ruth walking up to
point 1475.

25 minutes after leaving the hut, we were at the base of the route through the trees on the western side of this gully. The spur and the route itself becomes more obvious after a little roaming around at the lower end and then following a bearing to the south for a few minutes. In our case, Paul went up front and scrambled through the bush to help find it, since he was vaguely familiar with it having been there before. After this, getting up was fairly straightforward with the exception of a little bush lawyer. Several unofficial markers are tied to trees near the top end of the track, although they’d probably be more useful for finding the top of the spur on the way down.

We cleared the trees shortly before 9am, and immediately some great views opened up towards Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe. We also had a better view towards Middle Range, where we’d been hoping to go. Unfortunately it looked very clagged in, and was probably sheltering us from some bad weather. By 9.30am we’d reached point 1475, and assessed our options. The first of these options was to try Thunderbolt, along Middle Range, but that no longer seemed as inviting considering what we could see. There were also a couple of other nearby ridges, however. One of them was an un-named ridge (actually more of a spur) that heads almost directly west, but slightly south, of 1475, and would have been a good option if we’d wanted to get down to the river quickly without heading straight back to where we’d come from. The other ridge, named Te Hiwiokaituri Ridge, heads south-west on the inside of Middle Range, and this one seemed much more interesting.

Clag over Middle Range.

Ruth does some surveying.

So we continued a little further south towards point 1506, taking absolute care to circumvent the outside of the imaginary boundary of private land, which shaved the wide-ish ridge that we needed to cross. Point 1506 was reached at about 10.10am, and from there it was a walk roughly south-west over the tops for several kilometres towards point 1600. The wind even died down along this section, which I think might have been related to the sheltering positioning of Middle Range in the distance, although I’m no expert on such things.

Mike and Craig at brunch.

All the way along Te Hiwiokaituri Ridge, we had fantastic views of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe, walking generally towards them for the entire time. We sheltered on the north-western side of the ridge 40 minutes after leaving point 1506, somewhere below quite a long saddle, roughly at grid reference 636232 and stopped for brunch. The pace was still quite relaxed given that the weather felt reasonable. Brunch lasted about 20 minutes, during which time I played with taking bearings on things and identified parts of the river below.

Approaching point 1600.

Point 1600 was quite a climb from the lower part of the ridge, and as we approached it, it almost looked feasible to try sidling it. John felt quite strongly about such things, however, and insisted that because the name of the club was the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club, we should definitely go to the top. And he was correct about the name. If anyone had even proposed changing the name to the Wellington Tramping and Sidling Club, let alone voted in the change at a recent AGM, then one of us would probably have known about it. As it turned out, the discussion was redundant. Having walked another hundred metres or so it became clear that the side completely dropped off and sidling would have been very difficult if even possible.

Point 1600 was reached at about 11.45am, and standing on top of it allowed us to have a very nice view of the entire surrounding area, including where we’d come from and where we were going. We sat around and surveyed things for about 25 minutes before beginning our drop down the spur on the north-western side, towards the river.

The initial parts of this descent are quite steep, and although the presence of quite a lot of scree makes things easier, Mike and I got into a discussion towards the back of the group about how neither of us really like some of the situations in tramping where there’s not much room for making mistakes. The discussion stopped abrubtly a minute later, when we realised that the track sidled around a wide pinnacle-like structure (point 1490 on the map), with a steep drop-off to the rocks below on either side. This was definitely one of those awkward situations in which a small mistake could result in a serious injury. Everyone else had already gone around to the other side by the time we reached it, and after some surveying we decided that the right-hand side (to the north) would be preferable for sidling, despite the most obvious track heading around the other side. This had something to do with the sharper and further drop-off to the south. In hindsight, I think I would have preferred the southern side, because the northern route required a small amount of climbing without good hand-holds, and for which I wasn’t very prepared. We got there, though, and Craig was waiting for us on the other side.

Stopping for lunch.

By now it was about 12.20pm and John, Paul and Ruth had already raced ahead along the spur. We could see them heading over the top of the ridge in the distance, even though it looked as of the most heavily used track was heading along the southern side of the spur and quite a long way down the side from the ridge-line. After following this track for some distance, we eventually decided we‘d be better off getting up to the top, just in case the paths diverged or we walked past them. It was just as well because shortly before 1pm, we found the three of them having stopped in a rather steep (but very stable and scenic) area along the top for lunch. John boiled some water in his billy for a brew, grumbling about the current state of tramping when Mike and I didn’t want any. We sat down for lunch and a rest at about 12.45pm, while Craig and John embarked on a conversation all about bicycle shops, and the problems they’d experienced with getting bikes repaired.

An hour or so later, we continued directly down the spur after lunch, but very quickly found that any hint of a track dropped away suddenly, quite literally. After John’s efforts to climb further down the spur amounted to nothing, we eventually noticed a much more worn track about 50 metres down the southern side of the spur. This was possibly the same track that Craig, Mike and I had left before lunch, although we didn’t know for sure. A little back-tracking allowed us to find a variety of ways down, and travel became much easier until the edge of the bush-line at roughly 2.10pm, where the track ended abruptly with the signal of somebody’s grotty old sock tied to a tree.

Craig and Mike wait for a
route to be discovered.

Looking ahead, it appeared as if people had tried to push through the bush in several directions, but no clear passages lasted for longer than a few metres at best. Presumably the sock was there for a reason, however. Ruth, John and Paul in particular spent some time looking around while the rest of us waited at the entrance, not really wanting to exacerbate the problem by all wandering off in different directions. Eventually we found a clearing after pushing almost straight ahead through the dense growth for about 30 metres (at a guess), slightly uphill from the entrance point.

Descending through Bush Lawyer.

From here on, travel down-hill was fairly straightforward considering the circumstances, with Ruth and I staying towards the back to make sure that those ahead remained on the correct bearing. We were able to follow a bearing of 172 degrees to head straight down the spur, with the main hindrance being recurring patches of bush lawyer to scramble through. From the way things looked, it appeared that this path had been walked many times before. It diverged from the bearing on occasion to get around big trees and the like, but always returned again.

Ruth points out the spur
we accidentally followed.

The trap that we fell into was to end up on another spur which headed south-west off the side of the main spur, starting from about the 1250 metre mark. At about that point, the track did appear to split into two, as Ruth noticed from the back after most of our group was well past it. We followed the track on the left because it still had the correct bearing, and those at the front had already invested significant amounts of effort getting through more bush lawyer. A few minutes later however, Ruth pointed out that the higher trees on our right made it look as if there was a higher spur over in that direction, which ultimately shouldn’t have been there. She was right, of course, and at 2.45pm we ended up sidling around the hillside to climb back up to it. We’d been following a 172 degree bearing on the incorrect spur, but the fact that it was quite wide at the top had probably meant that we’d been shifted too far to the left, and were walking across the top of it rather than directly down it for some distance.

Descending to the confluence of
Thunderbolt Creek (left) and the
Waipakihi River (right).

It probably wouldn’t have been a disaster regardless of which spur we’d come down, since they both appeared to be a shallow gradient on the map although the incorrect spur would have put us about 500 metres up Thunderbolt Creek, rather than on the confluence. The only complication we had towards the end was a bit of a drop off shortly before the river. After some hunting around we got down by sidling around to the left, where we picked up another well-worn track. Standing on the flats at the confluence of Thunderbolt Creek and the Waipakihi River, we were now back at yesterday’s lunch spot. The time was almost 3.30pm.

The initial campsite.

We continued back along the river to the south-west, now retracing our steps from yesterday morning and keeping an eye out for Geoff and Yibai, whom we expected to be camping along here somewhere. They were no longer at their previous camp-site when we arrived, however, so eventually at 5pm, we decided to simply set up camp for the night in approximately the same spot. The location seemed a little exposed to the wind, but we had two-person Huntech flies which tend to be quite good in the wind if they’re pitched well. Interestingly enough, pitching them well was a task that we had a few issues with. Paul discovered that the pole of the fly he was setting up wouldn’t fit properly through the sleeve for some reason. Meanwhile when I was struggling with my own, which was more tight than usual (possibly due to expansion from the heat), I heard a big snap from inside the sleeve, which caused me a lot of concern until I was able to pull it out again and discover that the pole had only snapped at the join, and could simply be slotted back together.

By the time we had two and a half flies set up, Ruth wandered up having been for a walk further down the river, and announced that there was a much better camp-site about five minutes’ walk away. Despite the effort we’d already expended, Ruth did a good enough sale job to convince us to pull down the flies and start walking again. Sure enough, about another five minutes along the river on the true right, there was a very nice and sheltered camp site, which was definitely preferable given the forecasts we’d seen before leaving.

John and Ruth at dinner.

The three of us who carried flies once again began the task of putting them up, and it was all done by about 5.30pm. John, meanwhile, built a small camp fire and heated some water for a brew. He grumbled about the state of tramping as it became clear once again that Mike and I weren’t big tea drinkers. The genetically engineered cucumber that Craig had brought with him still had about two thirds remaining, and that came out again for dinner, as well as a gratuitous 2 cups of parsley that John had brought. Cooking dinner was an interesting exercise due to reasons that included the unstable see-saw log, on either end of which Craig and Mike were sitting. Both of them were playing with gas cookers and very hot water. We sat around working on yet more crosswords as the evening continued, and tried to take macro photos of an unusual looking spider. Paul kindly volunteered to do the dishes on Sunday night, and we named the location Dishwashing Flats in his honour.

Ruth builds a cairn.

We had still been a bit uncertain about Geoff and Yibai, who were respectively needed for driving the bus home, and for opening and shutting the door. Being in the trees, our campsite wasn‘t particularly visible to anybody who might wander past along the river, and if we weren‘t able to find them, the only arrangement we had was to meet at the road at about 3pm on Monday. With this in mind, Ruth came up with the idea of building a cairn next to the river to draw attention to where we were camped. The final result had a big stick poking out of it with a bag of Tararua Biscuit crumbs hanging from it, and it would have gotten the attention of anyone who saw it.

Geoff did find our camp site as he was walking past at about 9pm, although he found it thanks to the smoke from the camp fire. He and Yibai had moved their camp further down the river, which was why we hadn‘t found them earlier. From his description it sounded as if the two of them had had a huge day zig-zagging all over the place. We invited him for a cup of tea, but he looked exhausted and was more keen to just get back to his camp. After John had interrogated Geoff for several minutes about how impressive his rifle was, we left it at arranging to leave quite a bit earlier the following day, possibly even walking out with them.

It rained very early on Monday morning, which was the first rain we’d actually seen on the entire trip. Only my own fly even got wet on the outside, which was the consequence of a gap in the trees. Everyone was up a bit after 7am, at which time there was a very light misty moisture hanging in the air. John heated some water for a brew, but grumbled about the state of things as Mike and I declined his offer.

The base of the Urchin
Track had a lot of pumice
lying around.

The six of us had packed up and left by 8.15am, at which time we headed for the base of the Urchin Track. Personally I didn‘t get my feet wet at all since there was a track in the trees on the true right of the river for that entire distance, although Paul led a contingent on the other side of the river, and they actually reached the Urchin Track slightly before us. It was only a 10 minute walk in any case. We thought we might have found Geoff and Yibai waiting for us here, but if they had been they‘d already left. They might have been up early hunting again, and we assumed we’d probably find them at either the road, or on the way there.

Ruth and Mike on the tops
of the Urchin Track.

Craig and Paul ran up the Urchin while the rest of us followed at a slower place. We’d reached the bush line by 9am, with John now having mentally collapsed into an endless circle of muttering under his breath about young people who no longer drink tea and eat muesli bars for breakfast and have hoses coming out of their packs. It sounded as if he was about to break into a violent tirade of shouting “GET OFF MY LAWN”, but he became distracted when we finally caught up to the place where Craig and Paul had stopped to wait for us, 40 minutes after we’d reached the bushline and roughly near point 1391. Craig and Paul accused us of having stopped for a brew, although I think this was probably one of the few times that John hadn‘t. We sat near 1391 for 10 minutes, during which time we thought we could see at least one person in the far distance, veeeeery slooooowly walking along the ridge up towards Urchin. It crossed our minds that it might be either or both of the two people we were looking for, but it also didn’t seem as if either of them would be the type to be walking so slowly. We did catch up after we got going again though, and to our pleasant surprise it turned out to be both of them.

Paul becomes a
home-owner.

From Urchin, which we reached at 10.10am, the trip was a fairly routine and relaxing walk down the hill on the soft track towards the bus. We reached it an hour later, at which point John pulled out his cooker and his billy and heated some water for a brew, grumbling about the state of tramping in New Zealand as Mike and I declined his offer.

At Geoff’s recommendation, we stopped at both the Waikato Falls and Tree Trunk Gorge on the way back, both of which are within easy reach of the area and which I’d thoroughly recommend. We also had to stop at Bulls on the way back to fill the bus with more diesel, and to check a broken indicator. It was a nice opportunity for stretching legs and eating ice cream on a hot day, except for Paul and John who went to the cafe down the road for a cup of tea. John was probably complaining to some poor waitress about the state of tramping in New Zealand.

Our return trip to Wellington provided one of the best panoramic views of the Tararuas I’ve had the opportunity to see so far. It was probably a combination of the still weather and high cloud which meant the view from Foxton showed a high contrast silhouette of the entire range.

Craig and Ruapehu, walking
towards point 1600.

Maybe it’s because I added an altimeter tag, even though none of the posts give much more than a passing mention. I guess I’ve just promoted their website by linking to it, now. Hmmmm.

Now I just want to see if this post turns up on their feed of articles about altimeters. That would be suitably amusing.

Sam collecting water
on Bull Mound

This weekend we went for a trip into one of Wellington’s two main water catchment areas. For some confusing reason, the Tararuas were in the middle of experiencing several very fine days in a row, which perhaps makes the trip quite rare.

Dates: 16th-18th November, 2007
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Walls Whare Road-End.
People: Sam, Marie, Eddie, Lee (a friend of Sam’s visiting from the Otago Uni Tramping Club), and me.
Huts visited: Cone Hut (0 nights), Alpha Hut (1 night), Eastern Hutt Hut (0 nights).
Intended route: Begin at Walls Whare, walk via Cone Hut up to Alpha, continue along Quoin Ridge down the spur, and out via Pakuratahi Forks.
Actual route: Similar until Quoin Ridge, at which point we split up. Marie and Lee continued down the ridge and ended up drowning (accidentally) in the Western Hutt River. The rest of us followed a spur to the Eastern Hutt River.
[Photos]

We used the club bus for the first time in a while, now back having had some rust removed (I think). I think the only down-side of going to the end of the Tararuas closer to Wellington is that you don’t get to stop at somewhere like Carterton for dinner, which has some very nice food places. Instead, we settled for Featherston, where we ambushed the local fish and chip shop. By now I was at the state of trying to empty some of the left-over shrapnel from my wallet so I wouldn’t have to carry it around all weekend, and I almost managed to do so except for an annoying $2 coin. It’s actually not a bad cafe and sells some other things too, but I was too pre-occupied with my weight saving that I didn’t notice some of the other things on the menu before I ended up with some very salty fish and chips. I wasn’t really sure if this was what I should be eating before embarking on a trip, so half of my chips survived being obliterated by my digestion, and ended up in a nearby rubbish bin.

Having arrived at the Walls Whare, we still hadn’t fully decided whether we wanted to walk anywhere on Friday night. It would have been completely feasible to walk in to Cone Hut, but doing so would have complicated things by dramatically shortening what we could really do on Saturday. Shortly after Alpha, we’d be turning into the water catchment area, where it’s illegal to stay the night. In other words, we’d either have a relatively short walk and then have to stop, or we’d have an uncomfortably long day and arrive at the collection point a day early. So in the end, we camped at the road-end.

Cooking breakfast in bed

Naturally, being a trip organised by Sam, we began with a tent fly that had nothing to prop it up, and nothing to tie it down except the single tent peg which Sam had packed (doubling as a billy-hook, I think). This was all intentional, and we (referring to Sam in particular) improvised by running around and finding a few sticks and logs to hold up the fly and also to tie it to. He then set up his cooker and boiled some water, which made for a nice brew. I don’t usually bother with tea or coffee on trips, but I’d actually brought a mug this time so I could be social. Unfortunately I’d left it buried in the bottom of my pack somewhere under the fly, and I missed out on this occasion.

Lee spent much of the evening trying to convince us to play checkers or backgammon on his fancy fold-able plate and cup set, which had the board designs for these games printed on the plastic, as well as including the appropriate pieces. Nobody was really interested sitting in the wet grass in the dark to play checkers, and nobody really knew how to play backgammon, although we eventually learned when a couple of the girls from one of the other groups wandered over to our camp-site and explained it to us.

It was a very calm night in the end, and went really well, although Eddie reported some trouble getting to sleep having had some mattress or sleeping bag issues. We awoke with the sunlight and some very noisy birds, some time before 6am. After some brief wandering around having a quick breakfast for myself, I made a feeble attempt to dry out the tent fly, since it was me who was carrying it. It was covered in dew on both sides, and really didn’t want to dry in the cool morning shade. In the end we folded it up and settled for it being somewhat heavier than it should have been.

If New Zealand’s great walks are like tramping motorways, then the track to Cone Hut is at least a State Highway. To be fair, it’s perhaps a little more like a South Island State Highway, because it dips into the occasional muddy bog. Other than that, it was a very flat and easy track. We passed one person who walked in the other direction during this phase of the trip. He was a hunter on his way out, dangling a gun from his waist and with what looked like it was probably a deer over his shoulders. It was hard to tell because he’d wrapped the corpse in a pair of polypropylene long-johns, which I wouldn’t personally have wanted to wear afterwards, but which probably made some sense.

We were making very good time, effectively too-good time, when we reached Cone Hut at 9.20am, especially considering that we couldn’t really go past Alpha until the next day. We used that excuse to sit down at the historic hut, for a while. The sunshine was just beginning to make its way through the trees and onto a small patch of ground near the hut, so I pulled out the large fly in an attempt to dry it out again. Meanwhile, Sam, who was thoroughly enjoying inspecting the hut, got a fire going inside to heat some water for a mid-morning brew. We were a bit short of cooking gas at the time, and when Sam’s around, I think he’s always keen on an excuse to light a fire. This time my social-ism mug was readily accessible, and I pulled it out so I could enjoy the brew with everyone else.

It was probably about now that Marie started commenting that she needed a fork, having left hers behind. Nobody had a spare one, of course, but Marie still rested in the confidence that she would find a fork deserted by someone else at Alpha Hut. Important things usually tend to work out, after all.

The large tent fly, by now draped over the picnic table, hadn’t noticeably dried at all as far as I could tell, although Lee officially declared about 5 square centimetres to be completely free of moisture. This wasn’t really enough to bother with, however, and we packed up to resume our walk shortly after 10am. Marie was first to bound across the Tauherenikau River, and we resumed our walk up the Bull Mound Track, towards Bull Mound. By now the state highway had degraded in quality to something more representative of a Provincial State Highway, with a rather steep gradient and the occasional tree growing in the middle of the road. On the few occasions where we stopped, Sam pulled out a small plant identification pocket book, and was experimenting with identifying some of the species. My only dilemma at this time was that I couldn’t get a stupidly annoying Shania Twain song out of my head. This had begun back at Cone Hut, when Lee had made remarks about high property values in Queenstown. Yet another case of Pierce’s Unlimited Semiosis in action.

Marie, leaving Bull Mound,
shortly after lunch

Although not quite at Bull Mound, we reached a small out-cropping above the tree-line at about 11.45. Lee decided it was a good time to pull out his lunch, and given there wasn’t much further to go, we ended up sitting around in the sunshine at this point for about 40 minutes. In fact, the main motivation to get up and keep moving was that we had previously decided we wanted to be at Bull Mound for lunch. 10 minutes later, we were there, and we loitered around the area for an hour, at least, lying down and lazing around for a proper lunch. There were plenty of tarns all over the place, and people who needed to filled their drink bottles. Apparently, as I discovered later, Paul and his medium-rated club group were looking over at Bull Mound from Cone at about this time.

It was during the final leg of the day, towards Alpha Hut, when we met a lone runner with a daypack. He had made his way over from Otaki Forks that morning, and (I think) was on his way out via the standard Southern Crossing route down Marchant Ridge. We reached Alpha Hut at 2.50pm. As I approached, a group of about five or six guys were crowded around the hut discussing their progress so far. They were also making a day-trip of the Southern Crossing, and by the looks of them they were more a group of friends than a group of running enthusiasts. They were doing quite well, and made a point of how much they were looking forward to massive servings of pizza and KFC once they made it out the other end. They were doing it as a brisk walk rather than a run, and probably had about another five or six hours to go.

Nobody was home when we entered the hut, and contrary to some people’s predictions, Marie did find that somebody had left a spare fork behind, so good for her. I helped with some token searching for firewood, but there wasn’t any loose dead wood anywhere near the hut. In the end, Sam and Marie resolved to empty their packs, and went out on a firewood-hunting mission for about 30 minutes. Marie then went for a walk up to Alpha Peak on her own, while the rest of us lazed around.

Another party of five people arrived at about 3.45pm or so. They were a family group from Levin including three men and a couple of teenagers, who had on this day walked over to Alpha from Field Hut, on the Otaki side. It turned out that they were quite ready to stop, and after about an hour or two of sorting things out and cooking their dinner, they were all in bed and more or less asleep. It wasn’t even dark by this point, or anywhere near it, but we did our best to be reasonably quiet for them. Meanwhile, we prepared and sat down to our planned meal of Macaroni Cheese, except with that twistee pasta instead of macaroni, which was almost all prepared by Sam and very tasty. Marie somehow managed to lose her fork again at this point, possibly between dinner and the custard dessert, and it was only now that Lee piped up and claimed he had a spare fork she could borrow.

Lee had dragged a mattress out under the verandah of the hut, with the intent of sleeping outside, but eventually decided he’d be more comfortable on one of the top bunks. Somehow Eddie managed to end up with a couple of mattresses on the floor in front of the fireplace, but I think I was mostly asleep at the point in which that happened.

Marie and I woke first on Sunday morning, up at about 5.50am thanks to the Sun having risen combined with some typically cheerful birds. Marie went back to bed for a while, but I couldn’t really sleep, so I sat at the main table in the hut and browsed more of the FMC bulletin which a thoughtful person had left behind, munching on my muesli bar breakfast to get it out of the way.

With the exception of Sam an myself, most of the people in the other group were up and about before the majority of ourselves. The previous evening, Sam had stated a guideline leaving time of about 8.30am, and we were still nowhere near it. I passed some of the time chatting with a couple of the older guys from Levin, who were both quite strongly involved in the Land Search and Rescue in the Tararuas. I found them very interesting to talk to, and they were quite concerned that there don’t seem to be many younger people getting involved in SAR these days, which is becoming a real problem.

Despite our attempts to stretch out our preparation for as long as possible, we were all ready and leaving by 7.50am. Marie bounded off in front, as happens so often, and everyone else followed at their own rate of packing themselves up. We still hadn’t decided exactly where we were going, but basically had resolved to either walk the complete length of Quoin Ridge, or to follow the early spur off the southern side of the ridge, down to Eastern Hutt Hut, which is marked as being for emergency use only.

Quoin Ridge seen from
near Alpha Peak

We re-grouped at Alpha Peak at 8.15am, which I think was the highest we would be on this trip, at 1316 metres above sea level. Being very clear, there was a terrific view around in all directions. I was quite impressed to see Kapiti Island from this perspective, from which it was much clearer how its shape fits geologically into the entire Tararua Range. Egmont was clearly visible in the distance. Sam and Lee thought they may have been able to see Ruapehu, although I wasn’t able to pick it out myself. It was about this time, as Sam was rubbing sunblock into one of the many tears in his pale yellow t-shirt, that he declared that his shirt might finally be past it, and he wouldn’t bring it on another trip. 15 minutes after our arrival, we began our descent along Quoin Ridge, into one of Wellington’s two major water collection areas.

We reached the first major spur heading south very quickly, and an answer was immediately required as to where we actually wanted to go. The discussion lasted for a couple of minutes, but we decided that nice days don’t come too often, and that we should make the most of the opportunity to spend as much time on the tops as possible. This, of course, meant walking along the length of Quoin Ridge. Marie did raise the question of how on earth we were actually going to be at Kaitoke at the scheduled pick-up time of 5.30 in the afternoon. The only answer we could honestly think of was to make as many unnecessary stops as possible along the way.

Lee climbing towards
Quoin Peak

After a short dip into the trees at about 9.45am, we finally reached Quoin (the peak) a little after 10am, slowed only by having had to climb around the occasional formation of rocks. One interesting find of Sam’s along the way, but quite near to Quoin itself, was an old sling from a helicopter, which was by now quite rusted and had probably been lying there for some time. We still had far too much time on our hands, and sat down again to enjoy the surroundings some more.

Being the keen hut-bagger that he is, Sam was still trying to find a method and an excuse to visit Eastern Hutt Hut — tempting both due to the illegality of staying the night there, and also due to its funny name. When studying his map again, Sam noticed that although we had bypassed the most obvious route down to the Eastern Hutt River, we might still be able to follow a less obvious spur down from peak 1133, which wasn’t far away from where we were sitting. This new spur headed east-south-east off the peak for about 400 metres, and then split into a couple of other spurs. If we kept following a bearing between the two splits, however, we’d still be on a slightly less obvious spur, and end up almost exactly at the hut. If we were careful about following the right bearings, the only uncertain factor would be how much vegetation we might have to bash through. Being on the eastern side of the range, though, which receives far less rain than the west, it was a reasonable bet that the vegetation would not be too difficult to push through.

Sam proposed his idea to the group, and it sounded quite interesting. Lee in particular was still keen to have a lazy day and enjoy the sunshine. In the end, we decided to split the group. Marie and Lee would continue down Quoin Ridge, whereas Sam, Eddie and I would attempt the alternative route down to Eastern Hutt Hut. Both routes would converge on the swing-bridge at Hutt Forks. We devised a plan for the first party to leave a rock on the end of the bridge as a signal to the others, so that either group would know whether the other had already passed the swing bridge when they arrived. Presumably there would be no other groups in the area using the same signal.

Sam and Eddie heading
down from 1133

So Sam, Eddie and I continued into trees, leaving Marie and Lee behind at Quoin Peak. We started from point 1133 at roughly 11am, and I calibrated my altimeter. Sam was correct in his prediction about the vegetation, and it was very easy to push through. The undergrowth from the beginning was extremely soft to walk on, and for something that went so steeply, it was quite easy on knees and ankles.

The topo maps suggest there are some very steep bits there, but we didn’t find them. Sam basically took the front position and followed the roughly south-east bearing (130 degrees give or take to begin with) on his compass. In fact, he took a couple of guesses about our altitude compared with my altimeter. The first time he was correct within 4 metres, and the second time he had it exactly right. This was very impressive. I think the only obstacle we actually encountered was a big fallen tree to climb over at the 670 metre mark, and I’d be tempted to suggest this tree as a landmark in future traverses down this route. We reached Quoin Stream at almost exactly 12.30pm, 90 minutes after leaving the high point, even having found a couple of unofficial track markers that somebody had tied to trees near the lower end. From there, we quickly reached Eastern Hutt River by pushing through the trees.

We didn’t find Eastern Hutt Hut immediately, but an entrance to a small clearing on the far side of the Eastern Hut River became more apparent after we’d wandered back and fourth along the river for 20 minutes. I must say that the Regional Council went to great efforts to make it clear to people that they were not allowed to stay the night. There were several signs that were very obvious.

The hut book itself was an old book that went back to 1986, and which has so far survived the reigns of the New Zealand Forestry Service, the Wellington Regional Council, DOC, and now the Greater Wellington Regional Council. Some smart cookie has scribbled “What next?” on the front of the book. Indeed, from 1986, only half the pages have been filled, so there may be a few more management bodies to come if this hut survives. We flipped though the entries, which included quite a few groups of people who had wandered up the river for daywalks. I did note that the Victoria University Tramping Club seems to be represented in the book quite a lot — maybe every couple of pages or so.

Eastern Hutt Hut

Eastern Hutt Hut was very well kept, with neatly cut firewood piled outside and along the path leading to it. Its design is very similar to other Forestry Service 6 bunk huts that I’ve seen, but instead of the glaring fluorescent orange colour, it’s now painted dark green, perhaps to help it blend into the surrounding vegetation.

Eddie was getting very hungry, and the first to suggest going back to the river to get some lunch. He eventually managed to drag Sam and I away, and at 1.15pm we sat down in a little bend in the river, shaded by an overhanging cliff. Lunch was a 45 minute sit-down, and we then realised that with the pick-up 3.5 hours away at 5.30pm, we should probably get started walking down the river.

Eastern Hutt River,
shortly after lunch

It looks very possible to walk directly down the Eastern Hutt River without too many problems, but for most of it we did actually find unofficial tracks along either side of the river, sometimes climbing 100 metres or so up the hillside before descending back down again. At 3.30pm, we finally reached the big, official sign announcing the beginning of the marked track back to the road-end.

Unlike DOC, which these days uses orange triangles to mark its tracks, the Greater Wellington Regional Council seems to use orange discs. I’ve seen these discs in several other places outside of Forest Parks, such as over farm-land all over Belmont Regional Park. It caught me a bit by surprise to see them on an overnight trip in the Tararuas, but I guess it makes complete sense if it’s the Regional Council which administers that particular catchment.

The marked track climbed a couple of hundred metres up a hill before descending about the same amount down the other side, apparently to step around some rather gorgey bits of river. The only drama in this short section was when Eddie and I started following an unmarked track off the main one. Sam followed the markers up the hill and then shouted down to us, and during the sprint up the hillside towards him, I managed to grab an old tree that didn’t hold very well, and rode it for a couple of metres down the hill. (It probably could have been a little worse, but turned out okay.) It was a shame I didn’t have a cowboy hat at the time.

Crossing the swing bridge

We reached the swing bridge over the last part of the Eastern Hutt River, and were quite relieved to find a rock, indicating that Marie and Lee had already passed through. This simplified things, because it meant we didn’t have to get concerned about where they were. The trip was now over as far as I was concerned, but this was only because I hadn’t been properly paying attention.

From the swing bridge was a 4-wheel-drive track, which went for about 200 metres before hitting the fold of my map. If I’d bothered to turn the map over, it might have occurred to me that it was an incredibly boring 4.5 kilometres, and in that time it climbed 300 metres and descended another 300 metres. The sign on the other side of the bridge basically points along the road, and states that it’s a 2 hour walk to the road-end. By now it was 4.20pm, and we didn’t have 2 hours. In addition, not being mentally prepared, I basically resolved to get this out of the way by cramming it into as little time as possible, so that maybe later on I could convince myself that it was only 200 metres that I’d originally seen on my map.

The three of us all reached the pick-up point at Pakuratahi Forks just barely after 5.30pm. In fact, I walked around the final corner at 5.30 and 39 seconds, and could hear the beeping of the door opening on the club bus as I approached.

During the walk, Sam had received a text message from Marie to indicate that they had actually been about an hour ahead of us, and they were in fact there to say hello when we arrived. It turned out they’d had their own little adventure, having accidentally come off Quoin Ridge a little too early and ended up in the Western Hutt River, which has a bit of a reputation for things like waterfalls and other gunky stuff that makes it awkward to walk along. They managed though, despite Marie having had to dive into the water to chase her pack at one point. (I’d love to hear more about that story later.)

It was was very enjoyable trip in the end. The only down-side, I think was the weather, which I know a lot of people wouldn’t agree with at all. This is only a personal thing where I tend to find perfectly fine weather (without a blemish) a little bit boring, but I’m happy to put up with it from time to time, and it does help to put the entire mountain range into perspective.

Well, a few weeks ago, Amelia went past Powell Hut and took a photo for me that proves that I’m not a complete nut-case, or at the very least is consistent with that theory. Eight months later, it looks as if someone’s crossed out the number and written the correct one, but that doesn’t really bother me. (Thanks Amelia.)

In other news, I joined an informal WTMC group this evening, walking up the Tip Track to the Radar Dome in Te Kopahou Reserve. Bronwyn, Marie and I all compared our identical $40 altimeters. They did quite well staying consistent with each other, whatever that means.

Today’s walk was around the Rimutakas, once again centred on Catchpool Valley.

Date: 11th November, 2007
Location: Rimutaka Forest Park
People: Annemarie, Stijn, David, Andrew, and me.
[Photos]

This is a fairly standard circuit from the Catchpool Valley road-end. It’s a matter of walking along the Orongorongo Track, almost to the Orongorongo River, but then turning off to the left up the McKerrow Track. The intersection with the Clay Ridge track is a couple of minutes before the peak of Mount McKerrow, and from there it’s a walk down the Clay Ridge track back to the parking area.

We began at about 9am, after an 8am meeting at Wellington Railway Station. The weather was really good, and I calibrated my altimeter toy to 50 metres. (The exact altitude is unclear from the topo map, except that it’s somewhere between about 40 and 60 metres.) There were several groups out this weekend, many of whom looked as if they were from tramping clubs. One van pulled up at about the same time as ourselves, and they were doing what looked to be the same trip in reverse. I’m guessing they were from the Tararuas’ club for reasons which I won’t go into.

There was about an hour of easy walking along the almost flat Orongorongo Track, before we reached the pole that marked the McKerrow Track turn-off. At this point we stopped briefly for some snacks, and began the climb. It’s a fairly straightforward climb up the McKerrow Track through the trees. I think the last time I walked on it was during a trip in March, when a group of us bashed our way up a spur from Turere Stream, and ended somewhere near the top. At that time we thought we were going to get to the top of McKerrow, but we’d mis-judged the place where we’d hit the McKerrow Track, and turned the wrong way. On this trip however, we did reach the top of McKerrow, so I can finally say I’ve been there.

We met a few people along the way before we reached the top. The first was a nice chap from the Hutt Valley Tramping Club. He was out to walk a trip that he was planning to lead for his club in a couple of weeks time, which sounded interesting as a daywalk for some other day. He’d begun his walk from a street in Wainuiomata (I forget the name), and walked up the McKerrow Track from the other side. He’d now been over the top, and intended to walk along the Turere Ridge to the Whakanui Track, and then head back north to Wainui where he’d started from.

The second group of people we met were almost at the summit, and it was the same group we’d seen at the carpark. They had left slightly after us, but had already reached McKerrow’s summit by coming up Clay Ridge, and were now on their way down. There wasn’t much of a rush, and Stijn was capitalising on the opportunity to take some photos, after he was reminded about the upcoming club photo competition, and had resolved to win it.

Everyone but me at the
McKerrow Drainpipe.

We reached the summit of McKerrow at about 11.45am, and sat down for some lunch. Well, everyone else did. I’d been a bit lazy in expending effort towards preparing lunch, so I tucked into the Meal Mates I’d thrown in at the last minute. This was the first time I’d been to McKerrow, and I was quite surprised that it’s almost not marked at all. Rather than having a clearly obvious pole in the ground, as DOC uses on popular tracks in many other parts of the Rimutakas, McKerrow is marked by some kind of drainpipe sticking out of the ground by about 30 centimetres. There’s also a destroyed sign lying there, which looks as if it’s been there for a while.

Interestingly my altimeter toy was displaying an altitude of about 580 metres, which was about 130 metres lower than it should have been at that point, and in the space of about 3 hours. I still haven’t figured out how well it’s working, but there might also have been a significant improvement in the weather during that time, which would be consistent with the Sun having come out much more obviously.

After about 25 minutes for lunch, we followed the track back the way we’d come for a few minutes, and at the intersection we turned right and began to follow the Clay Ridge Track. Some guy was just getting started jogging down the track as we reached it, and he probably got well ahead of us. From then on, we didn’t see anyone else until we’d returned to the parking area.

Nearing the parking area
on Clay Ridge Track.

The Clay Ridge Track traverses several small out-croppings outside the bush line, which gave us the opportunity to see the surrounding ridges a few times, as well as the sprawling metropolis of Wainuiomata, for that matter. We continued down the track for the next couple of hours, which although beginning reasonably steep, eventually levelled out into a gentle slope under the trees. This resulted in a fairly easy stroll.

We were back at the car by 2.30pm, and finished off the afternoon by stopping for some ice cream at Petone. I had a hokey pokey sundae. The end.

This weekend, Stacey and I joined a short (easy-rated) WTMC weekend walk to Paua Hut and back. Many people on the trip had a higher than average interest in juggling, which meant that this trip doubled as a juggling trip, whatever that amounts to.

Dates: 3rd – 4th November, 2007
Location: Rimutaka Forest Park
Huts visited: Paua Hut (1 night).
People: Bronwyn, Stacey, Sally, Danielle, Danniel, Chris, Andy, Harry, Geraldine, Gail, Deborah, and me.
[Photos]

I think the basic plan was to walk for a few hours towards Paua Hut, learn to juggle, and walk back again.

We began from Catchpool Valley, with an idea of making the walk slightly more interesting by going over Cattle Ridge via Browns’ Track (from the Orongorongo Track side). None of us had actually been up the north-western side of Browns’ Track before. In addition, DOC no longer promotes it as an officially maintained route, so we weren’t quite sure what to watch out for. On the Wellington topo map, it appears as if Browns’ Track leaves the Orongorongo Track just prior to crossing a bridge. We kept a careful eye open, and I even tried watching my altimeter toy to improve the chances of getting the right place, but unfortunately we didn’t actually find it on that morning.

Instead, we ended up following around the marginally longer way, almost reaching the Orongorongo River before coming across the end of another track that was signposted as leading to Cattle Ridge. Nobody in the group had actually been to the Rimutakas for a while, and at the time we thought it might have been the Browns’ Track we were looking for, even though we weren’t expecting it to stand out anywhere near this much. At the very least, it was going in the right direction. After a short distance though, I began thinking that it looked very familiar from the last time I had visited the area, and before long we figured out we’d actually walked further than earlier thought, and had ended up on the Cattle Ridge Track.

Basically, we were doubling back up the ridge from one end, above where we’d just walked, and heading back towards the cross-over intersection of Cattle Ridge Track and Browns’ Track. Once we realised this, it made it very easy to decide to simply watch out for the intersection, marked by a thumpingly obvious DOC pole in the ground, and then head down the south-eastern side of Browns’ Track to the Orongorongo River.

Browns’ Track is steep, on both sides of the ridge, but the only place it really gets a little dodgy is a short space on the south-eastern side where it gets quite narrow. The drop off the side doesn’t really offer anything to land on if anyone makes a mistake. As far as I’m aware nobody’s actually fallen down and hurt (or killed) themselves, but I also haven’t asked around much. We all managed to get through it okay on this occasion.

The 4WD track, south
of Paua Hut.

We reached Paua Hut at about 1.15pm, which was a convenient time for lunch. It wasn’t too obvious exactly what was happening with the weather, although the forecast had suggested that once the rain started, it’d persist for at least a couple of days. Most of us decided to go for a short walk for a look along the four-wheel drive track, to the south, during which we were only almost bowled over by one vehicle.

Meanwhile, Bronwyn and Stacey stayed behind with the intent of making some juggling balls, using a combination of balloons and our emergency rice. It turned out that getting the rice to go into the balloons had been more complicated than first thought, and they didn’t quite have a set of three completed by the time we returned.

Craig also chose to stay behind, and spent most of his time trying to chop up extra firewood. He was still at it for some time after we arrived back at the hut, and eventually had a go at sharpening the axe. Apparently, during the time we were away, a couple of kids had snuck around the back of the hut without realising that Bronwyn and Stacey were inside, and pulled a large tarp out of one of the storage bins. They had set themselves up at the campsite next to the river down below, using the tarp as shelter from the wind and rain coming from the north. In the end we didn’t bother them about it, on the assumption that they would put it back once they were done.

Gail, John and Harry all turned up separately in the late afternoon, having come in separately with the intention of meeting us. There was some juggling time spent outside later in the evening, and Bronwyn even got up and showed us some of her circus tricks. Being the Saturday night before Guy Fawkes, which is the traditional New Zealand excuse to blow stuff up based on historical events that people no longer understand or care about, there were also some occasional fireworks going off near the river on Saturday night. Everyone returned to the hut (or tents) at their own rate, and I think we were all back by about 10.30pm or so. It rained all night.

I woke up about 7am, and I was the first out of bed and eating breakfast, although followed shortly after by Stacey. The rain had mostly stopped by this time. Wandering down to the river showed that it was flowing faster than it had been on Saturday, but that it hadn’t risen a lot. A couple of hours later it still hadn’t risen, but the water was clearly dirtier than it would usually have been. This made it a slightly more interesting walk out along the river, as we made our way back towards the intersection with the Orongorongo Track.

Bronwyn, Chris and myself, meanwhile, had decided that rather than walk back on flat route with the rest, we’d be quite keen to walk down the north-western side of Browns Track from the other end, at the top of Cattle Ridge, so we could discover where it came out. Having made arrangements to meet everyone back at the van, the three of us continued back up the same part of the Cattle Ridge track that we’d walked along the day before. Rather than turn left down the south-eastern side back to the hut, however, we instead took the narrower track on the right, leading down the other side. At first we weren’t 100% sure that we were in the right place, so I stood back with a compass to help verify that we were following the expected bearing, but we soon confirmed that we were on the right route.

Chris near the top of
Browns’ Track.

I’m really glad we did this, because it was an interesting little track to follow. It was slightly overgrown with gorse, but not by a lot. It was also a little slippery in places, but also not by a lot. Furthermore, there were several points along the way which opened up into some revealing views of the nearby ridges, albeit having them slightly faded by low cloud.

We arrived back at the Orongorongo track at about 11am, perhaps 45 minutes after we’d deviated from the main route that the others were following. Considering we had been moving quite quickly with just the three of us, we had no idea whether we were in front of or behind them. From here it was just a race to the end of the road, probably for another 45 minutes or so. When we arrived, we found that the others had been there for about 5 minutes, so it was very good timing.

This weekend turned out to be a nice relaxing walk, and I got quite a few ideas of other places I’d like to go to in the Rimutakas in the future. For one thing, I’m now keen to ask around about whether it’s feasible to to a loop up the ridge from the southern side of it, maybe starting from Paua Hut and following Paua Ridge up to Tapokopoko and then running around the ridges somehow back down to Mukamuka Stream, and up the southern side of Mount McKerrow. This looks possible on the map, at least.

Yesterday I went on my first ever daytrip with the trampey club, which was a nice little milestone. We went for a walk around the Kapakapanui loop track in the Tararuas. This track begins at the Ngatiawa road-end, east of Waikanae. It climbs (and then descends) about 1000 metres, and is probably about 10 kms in length.

Date: 28th October, 2007
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ngatiawa Road-End.
People: Bronwyn, Mike, Michelle, Éamon, Peter, Sarah, Becky, Sally, Claus, Jo, Annemarie.
Huts visited: Kapakapanui Hut (0 nights).
Intended route: Start at the road-end, follow the loop track clock-wise up to Kapakapanui Hut, continue to Kapakapanui Trig, then continue back down to the road-end.
[Photos]

Walking along
Ngatiawa River

We left the road-end at about 9.40am, after a few minutes of checking maps and so on. (I calibrated my altimeter at 160 metres, which seemed about right.) To get to the beginning of the loop, it’s necessary to walk along the Ngatiawa River for about ten minutes, all of which is marked with bright orange DOC track markers. The turn-off point from the river is marked with quite an obvious sign which points to both ends of the loop. The sign gives the option of climbing up a spur which divides the Ngatiawa River with another one that comes down from further east, or alternatively crossing the small river to the east, and walking up a different spur to Ngatiawa Peak, and then around through the rest of the loop.

So we took the left branch to go clockwise around the loop. This wasn’t quite as steep at first, but quickly changed to be quite a rapid climb. Bronwyn’s idea was that if anyone in the group felt too exhausted by the time we reached Kapakapanui Hut, it’d be easier (and faster) for them to turn around and come back the same way. With 11 people in the group we were going at quite a relaxed pace, and we reached the hut at about midday for a nice lunch stop.

There was some concern at the hut about how windy it was up on the tops, so most of us stopped to put on long johns or over-trousers before continuing. We finally got going a little before 1pm, and climbed above the tree-line about 15 minutes later. Although the winds were a little chilly on the ridge above the tree-line, it wasn’t too bad.

Icicle remains at
Kapakapanui

We reached the trig, travelling at quite a leisurely pace, at around 1.45pm, and then sat down for a while to get some snacks, take some photos of Kapiti Island in the distance, and stare at the snow-capped ridges over to the eastern side of the range. The overall temperature was still quite cold (down to about 2.5 degrees at one point according to my gadget watch), and there were still some thin scatterings of snow hidden under the trees behind the trig, as well as a few branches with small icicles hanging from them. Without much wind though, the temperature wasn’t too noticeable. I took off my over-trousers after deciding that I didn’t really want to risk getting too hot on the way down.

We left the trig shortly after 2pm, and from there it was all down-hill through some very nice forest. At this point people began spreading out a bit according to everyone’s preferred walking pace, but we re-grouped every so often and arrived back at the river, at the bottom of the spur, at about 4.20 or so. From there it was a short walk back through the river to the road-end.

Kapakapanui was an accessible trip and quite a manageable daywalk. It’s the first time I’d been there and I enjoyed it. Now I’d quite like to go back some time to see how quickly I can get around it. Maybe I’ll do this in a few months when I find a free weekend.