Getting out of Crow Hut right now is one of the more awkward climbs from a valley I’ve personally had. We more or less slid down the hill-side yesterday morning, persistent rain apparently making the topsoil absolutely sodden. A year ago I bought the cheapest Scarpas I could find, part of an experiment with getting cheap boots, but the soles are the best I’ve had on any boots to date and I’ve learned to trust them. Yesterday they often failed. Placing them flat on the soil (usually safe) was enough to trigger random acts of slipping and sliding, or sometimes not. So, now on the way up, and faced with one of yesterday’s 80 centimetre skid-marks on a 40 degree slope and no clear way around the edges, I have some uncertainty about exactly where to put my foot.

Still, in my case with hands poised in front ready to spread myself flat on the ground and slow the slide next time something slips out of place, we eventually get through the worst of it.

There’s snow up here now, which must be from last night.

Dates: 25th – 27th June, 2010
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Kawhatau Base Road-end.
People: Amanda, Alistair, Richard and me.
Huts visited: Crow Hut (1 night), McKinnon Hut (0 nights)
Planned route: Up and around the Mokai Patea Ridge, down to Crow Hut for Saturday night. Then up and along the Hikurangi Range over Mangaweka, and out past Purity Hut.
Actual route: Straight to Crow Hut for Saturday night, up along and down to McKinnon Hut, back to the Kawhatau River via the main track, then bashing up to a farm.
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Yesterday was a short day. Camping at Kawhatau Base overnight, we’d hoped to get up over Mokai Patea — an alpine ridge which you know you’re on because it’s a kilometre wide (as Alistair put it) — drop down to Crow Hut and stay a night, then up to the tops and along the Hikurangi Range. Another trampey club group sharing our transport, with a shorter plan in mind (walking into McKinnon Hut and back), was set to drive the van further south later today to collect us. We abandoned our whole plan before it began, looking at the weather and everything. Just rain and rain and rain, not entirely claggy tops but enough to limit visibility to about 5o metres or so. We decided to ditch the idea of the Hikurangis, go straight to Crow Hut, and maybe get up early and around the Mokai Patea Range on the next day, ending up back where we began.

The cable-way was fun. It’s the first time I’ve been in one of them. I don’t think I’d ever want to have to winch myself over, but in a group of 4 we were able to arrange things to (usually) have people winching from both ends. It’s good that it’s there, too, because it makes this a wet weather trip for which we don’t need to worry about the Kawhatau River probably being flooded for the next few days. From there it was a very steep climb of 900 metres to the bush-line, with bits of flax to grasp in the steepest parts and token efforts at steps which seem half-buried, but maybe help to keep the slippery track together. We had a brief cruise over the tops in calm but claggy raining weather — the route is poled. Then we skidded into the bush-line down the slope where every foot placement is an entry in a lottery, as I described earlier.

Alistair and Amanda.

Richard and Amanda at Crow Hut.

And yeah, a big sleep-in. We sat down at lunch time, having just arrived at Crow Hut, needing to decide if we were going to cross the bridge outside the hut and continue to Wakelings Hut on the far side of the Mokai Patea Range. Doing so would mean a marginally shorter climb this morning if the weather cooperated enough for us to go that way, but it’d suck if we had to back-track. There didn’t seem much point, especially with a dodgy forecast and with the knowledge that we were already comfortably sitting in a nice, tidy hut. Amanda started tinkering with the wood burner, and we commenced a lazy afternoon. The mud-toned Kawhatau River that we’d crossed earlier via the cable-way continued its rampage below as the rain came and went. We all slept well yesterday afternoon, and last night.

The Kawhatau River outside Crow.

The bridge outside the hut is interesting. It’s a typical New Zealand swing bridge, but without the mesh down the sides. This seems to be an area that gets less people — we’re the first people who’ve written in the book for a month. The tracks to the hut on either side are bordered by side creeks, which apparently can come up. One person wrote in the book that they’d been trapped behind the creek coming down from the Mokai Patea Range, and had to camp out on the far side.

We awoke at 6.30 this morning, in anticipation that we might just be able to walk out around the Mokai Patea. Alas it was not to be so. Glancing outside, things didn’t seem to different from yesterday. Perhaps worse. We went back to sleep, and for brief moments in between we discussed what we thought the others would be most likely to do based on what we thought they thought we might be doing. Eventually, we got away about 2 hours later, on the assumption that they’d hedge their bets and try to get back around mid-afternoon. We figured we’ll head up the top, and try to meet up with the others as they come from McKinnon. If we see footprints we’ll know, and otherwise we’ll turn the other way to catch them there. And thus we’re now climbing back up out of this slippery hole.

Alistair reaching the snow.

It’s snowy though, as I mentioned. This is the first time in a while I’ve been able to get into nice snow on the tops. It feels almost criminal to tread in the frosty covering to create a muddy foot-print. We stop at the bush-line to put on extra layers. It’s becoming colder with elevation, and I’d rather be fully covered before we start getting buffeted by the wind that’s likely above the bush-line. Further up I’m appreciating it. There’s a light but icy breeze coming from the south, although the temperature’s probably not freezing yet because we’re still getting rain.

We’re at the junction just east of spot-height 1471 at around 10am, and it’s good to have the day’s only significant climb out of the way. The tussock’s covered in ice, the poles of the poled route up here are wind-swept with ice, the ground’s covered in snow, and there are no footprints. They must be sleeping in, which isn’t a surprise since for all they know we might not be out until 4.30pm if we were to get all the way around the loop. There’s no point heading down just yet because we don’t have a key to the van, so we set off towards McKinnon Hut, expecting to see them coming towards us soon.

Drizzle drizzle. It’s still foggy but we can see far enough to pick out one or two poles ahead in the route, so nobody’s too bent on navigating. The route climbs up to a large tarn, or maybe a lake, which is frozen over and might have looked very photogenic if there were some more sunshine. It’s not to be. Then we climb further up a gentle gradient towards spot-height 1625. We’re becoming concerned now, because we certainly should have seen them unless they were backing themselves to get out really fast. Still no footprints, until we arrive at the iced-over signpost 20 minutes above McKinnon Hut. There have clearly been a group of people here this morning. They stood around and regrouped, and then went… towards the Hikurangi Range and Mangaweka!

Eh?

Alistair dropping to McKinnon.

Maybe they’ve just headed out to bag Hikurangi Peak, or something like that, and will be back any moment. Amanda suggests that a couple of us should drop down to the hut to check things out, for which Alistair and I volunteer. Amanda and Richard stay up the top, in case the others return. And it’s down again, into the slush. Every few steps I slip and slide sending a big splash of snowy mud ahead of me. My raincoat’s about to have a date with the washing machine, and so are my mittens. They’re sopping and they’re muddy, but they’re keeping off the wind-chill despite my numb fingers underneath. Glancing behind it looks as if Alistair’s having similar issues. We’re getting snowed on now, it’s getting colder. We get to McKinnon in about 15 minutes, a wonderful little hut on the edge of the bush-line, now surrounded by snow.

McKinnon Hut.

It’s empty.

Checking the book. Yes, they’ve been here. Yes, the person who wrote it forgot to write their own name. Yes they were here last night. Yes they’ve left for the morning. Yes, the cable-way pulley is broken. Yes, the cable-way pulley is broken. Yes, the cable-way pulley is broken. Yes, the cable-way pulley is broken. Yes, the cable-way pull… Um, Alistair?

Yeah? Says Alistair. He’s busy putting on another thermal layer.

The cable-way pulley is broken.

What? Oww crap, we’ve got a long day ahead of us now. Alistair says something like this at about the same time that I’m thinking it. Maybe he’s using more colourful language. It’s one of those times when things spin around in my head for moment.

What the hell are we going to do now? They’ve written in the book, and I quote verbatim as best as I can read it: “Pully on cableway broken, take alternate route. Gryzoned End? Try nav to pt 1625, pt 1471, then northern spur to farmland. May if Wx bad take main track, poss try to cross river sth of pt 854.” Er, slight problem. I quickly find a map and try to figure out what they’re doing. It makes no sense. 1625 is the signpost where Amanda and Richard are presently waiting, 1471 is the junction leading down to Crow Hut, and the northern spur would take them direct to Crow Hut by the way we came up. This is not what their footprints indicated, and we certainly didn’t see them on our way here. Enough of this, we’ll figure it out later. Meanwhile we have to get back up to Amanda and Richard and figure out what to do next. The cable-way pulley is broken. Maybe we can get there and discover they’re wrong, but in the back of my mind it seems very doubtful the river’s going down any time soon, within the next few days, given the saturation in the soil. Maybe we’ll be camping out.

With some speedy thinking between the two of us there’s no way we want to try and navigate off the tops in the Ruahines without advance knowledge of where we’re going or a lot of time and good weather on our hands, of which today is not. The range is surrounded by a giant ring of leatherwood, which can slow you to a 100 metre and hour crawl, or worse, if you get stuck in an un-cut section. I note in the book that we’ve passed through, and state for the record that we’re going back to the cable-way, and if necessary we’ll camp out and wait for the river to drop. On the off chance that the others get out some other way, we’ll at least be able to wave to them since the cable-way is practically next to the road. This is probably what we’ll do. Maybe we’ll discover a crossing point.

So what else can we do? Alistair and I struggle up another slippery slope towards where Amanda and Richard wait for us. Maybe we can drop back to Crow for another night and hope the weather’s good enough to get out over Mokai Patea tomorrow. That wouldn’t be ideal because it’ll need a lot of food for the extra energy, and we’re only really stocked with the intent of a short weekend trip. Amanda’s at the top — she and Richard have been walking back and forth to try and keep warm for the last 40 minutes, and experimented with following their tracks to try and get a better idea of where they went.

THE CABLE-WAY’S BROKEN!

What?? She can’t hear me, so I give up and just keep walking towards her.

We take a guess that the others might have been trying to go out over the Hikurangi Range, despite what was written in the book, which would put them at the wrong road (Putaru, below Purity Hut) if they got out, but at least they’d be out if they got there. Or perhaps they meant to write 1468 instead of 1471, which is a spot-height on a neighbouring ridge, and would actually put them on a farm. We’re confused. For us it’s getting near mid-day, and being the middle of winter we only have about 5 hours of light left. What to do. Well, we start by back-tracking. We’ll probably do exactly what we wrote in the book. I pull out a phone to see if there’s reception, but there isn’t. We’ll need to try and get a message out if we can, to tell our contact what’s going on. We’ll try again at the point above Crow Hut.

I took this to figure out what was wrong
with my balaclava, but it didn’t help.
Not a bad portrait, though.

This day is quickly becoming more depressing, and the weather’s changing to match. It’s not a gale, but there’s an icy blast coming from the south-west. The southerly’s coming in. My balaclava’s full up, but it’s not sitting quite right and every so often I suck it into my mouth accidentally and suddenly can’t get any air until I tear it off with my hand. We can still see, and we can mostly follow our earlier tracks, but we’re trudging through the mud. It’s about 12.20pm when we reach the junction above Crow Hut, and fluttering in the wind is a plastic back tied to the sign. It’s a note.

The day is becoming even more confusing. Have they passed by here? That doesn’t seem possible, because we still only see our own footprints and they couldn’t have gotten over here from where they’d gone without some mammoth and ridiculous navigation effort down to a creek and up again. In the end we decide that the note must have always been here, but somehow this morning we looked through it in our enthusiasm to catch up with the others. The note confirms things. They’re aiming to navigate down the spur that heads north-west above the true left of Rocky Creek. This would drop them into a farm which they must be hoping to walk through to get to a road bridge off Smith’s Road much further down.

Amanda, defiantly removing a glove to be able to use her phone, manages to get a text message out to Jackie back in Wellington, or Sydney where she was once before, or wherever in the world she might be. It doesn’t really matter as long as she’s contactable. In the message, we tell Jackie the cable-way’s broken and we might be camping to wait for the river to go down. We continue back-tracking. I’d dropped my pack for a minute as we stood around, but picked it up again quickly because the wind-chill was coming right through the back of my soaking raincoat. That’s Gore-Tex for you. I like being on the tops and I like being in the snow, but right now I’m just looking forward to getting back into the tress. The snow’s horizontal and it’s biting the side of my face. Shelter will be nice.

Further along the ridge Amanda’s phone beeps. We’ve heard back from Jackie to say she’s received the message, and if she doesn’t hear otherwise she’ll assume we’re camping, and let various people know we’ll be late out. Some time after 1pm we finally reach trees, and can drop lower and out of the wind. Amanda has a go at contacting Dirk, in the other group, and eventually gets through with a text message. Dirk sends back a message saying something like “others are at 1200 metres and it sounds a bit hard”.

Amanda and Richard on
the way down.

Another confusing message, not so much hearing that they were having problems at 1200 metres… about where there could be a leatherwood and dracophyllum jungle… but the fact that he said the “others” were at 1200 metres. With some further exchanges and the application of logic, we deduce that Dirk isn’t with them at all, but is actually roaming up and down the road because he never got across the cable-way. We continue further down, and receive news that he’s talked to the farmers below the spur the other group are coming down, and also called the Police and spoken to a Search & Rescue coordinator, presumably not because of any immediate danger, but because it sounded as if there might be a chance the other group could end up stuck somewhere awkward. Fair enough. Search and Rescue should be brought in early so that they can make decisions on whether anything needs to be done or precautions taken. We later hear from Dirk that he was asked the standard 500 questions about the group’s experience and capabilities and gear so they’d be able to tick all the template boxes for their risk assessment, hopefully determining that there’s no imminent risk. It’s amazing there’s cellphone reception up here at all! You can never rely on cellphones.

By now I’m resigned to camping out and missing work tomorrow, quite possibly Tuesday. I wonder if we’ll get a chance to try and build a camp-fire in the rain. That’d be interesting, but only if it actually works. If it didn’t work it’d be depressing. As we continue downwards, we get views of the muddy brown squiggles of the flooded Kawhatau River to our right and begin trying to pick out places where it might be crossable. It doesn’t look any better. On the other hand, we get a view of the farm-land to our left, on the far side of Rocky Creek. Alistair’s behind me, and he’s inspired. If we could get off the main track, and somehow to the base of Rocky Creek (another muddy brown gutter that’s flowing into the main river), then maybe we could cross the creek and figure out a way up to the farm-land, much of which overhangs a bluff above the main river. It sounds like a possible option, and we still have a few hours of daylight left.

Busted! (Look closely at
where the cable goes.)

Finally reaching the bottom of the spur at half-two, after a controlled slippery slide through the flax, we can see the extent of the damage on the cable-way. It’s still there, which is a relief. It didn’t collapse with anyone in it, and if that’d happened you’d assume the others would have set off an emergency beacon rather than continue on their weekend tramp. On the other hand, it certainly wasn’t anything we could fix, either. The drive cable, which fits over the large pulley wheel, has sliced right into the groove of the wheel so that it now hung around the spokes. They’ve left a plastic bag on the end with a note warning people not to use it, in case it wasn’t obvious, and wrapped a bunch of chains around the end to fully cripple it. The cart that hangs underneath is at the far end, and we later find out that although in its crippled state and with Dirk on the other side, they’d had to write a note and force it over to Dirk so he knew what was going on. The distance is too far to shout clearly over the flooded river below.

Well that sucks. My unlikely back-of-the-mind fantasy that they’d been grossly incompetent when they assessed the damage, and had only thought the cable-way was broken, was not to be. We’re still stuck.

Amanda, Alistair and Richard.

Plan B is to drop down to the river, and survey it for any possible crossing points. This doesn’t seem likely either, but we have to look. A hundred metres down-river, there’s an island in the middle that we think we could get to, but there’s little point because the far side of the island just has a much more forceful flow, plus a steep bank that we’d have to be clambering out of, and a possibly un-climbable bluff to climb up to get back to the road afterwards. Plan C is more inviting, though less instant. We follow the main river around looking for Rocky Creek, eventually having to clamber up an old land-slip to get over a hump, push through lots of stubborn scrub and drop into the creek. The creek is running muddy, but turns out to be completely crossable. We cross in pairs, now finding ourselves at the base of a short 100 metre climb to a flattening plateau, which would be the farm-land. This could take some time.

And it does take time, because the spur’s very overgrown. Amanda’s leading up the front, basically forging a path through all kinds of yucky stuff. There also the occasional sprinkling of Onga-Onga (aka Stinging Nettle) hidden amongst it all. We stop for a few minutes some way up grabbing a bite to eat, Amanda remembering we haven’t had any proper lunch and by now it’s mid-afternoon. As time goes on and we force our way higher, the bush gives way to some more exposed bluff-like clay faces, which we’re lucky enough to be able to find a way to clamber up after Richard figures it out. Finally we spot some possum carcasses, which look suspiciously as if they’ve been thrown overboard. Sure enough, there’s just one more some-what awkward clamber up an over-hanging tree root, and we’re on the outside of a fence made of number 8 wire!

Not a proud moment, but one I’m resigned
to accept in the circumstances.

This is such a great feeling. Hopefully the scatterings of what we’ve heard of Dirk talking to the farmers gives us some kind of informal permission to walk over their land. I don’t care if it gets dark now, I could walk over farm-land for ages, because being here means that getting out is under our control once again. Amanda checks her phone and actually has reception, so she sends a message to Dirk to let him know we’re coming through here. We have no idea if he’s received it, though. And we walk. And looking to the road on the far side of the gorge, we see the van sail back towards the Kawhatau Base road-end. Dirk can’t have received our message, and he must be going back to check if we’ve shown up at the end of the cable-way. And we keep walking.

An hour, about five kilometres, a flock of cows, several sheep, a curious horse, a pig, and a herd of excitable farm dogs later, we arrive at the farm-house and knock on the door. The sun’s low and we’re just reaching the hours of darkness, and these guys have had mis-placed trampers coming out of their ears all day. Well, Dirk and 6 other people at least. They’re very well tempered and accepting about it. The others were doing better than we thought they were, having made it down about half an hour earlier. Dirk had even managed to convince the guy to drive to the back of the farm and give them a lift. It was very nice of them. The guy’s wife pokes him and says he should give us a ride too, and very soon Richard and Amanda are crunched in the front of the ute. Four packs, Alistair, and I sit on the back with the dog, and we’re screaming down the road back to the camp-site. You can tell when you’re being driven around the back-roads by a local. The guy leans out the window as we’re passing through one of the gates, shouting to someone that they found the lost trampers.

Awesome. We hadn’t realised we’d walked this far in the last hour. The van’s at the end of the road, and they’re very happy to see us. (It means they can go home!) A couple of them have wandered down to the cable-way trying to see if we’re there, and they’ve been concerned that we’ve not yet arrived, but they come back within a couple of minutes. Now it’s just a mess getting out of all this saturated gear — we’re all still in the full storm gear that we’ve not removed since the snow on the tops.

As time goes on we find that Dirk stayed the night in Mangaweka with some students at the outdoor education centre, and it was very nice of them to put him up. Apparently they’re strategy board game and role-playing enthusiasts, and overnight they taught Dirk to play Dungeons & Dragons, or something like that. Very cool. Looking at what we did in the weekend, we didn’t seem to go that far — about 25 kilometres in all, but with an awful lot of steep climbing and descending. Apart from the farm-land, I figure we were on an average of about a 1/4 gradient for nearly the entire weekend. On the map it was like a giant three point turn with a wonky end. It was great weekend for decision making.

It was very nice for Dirk to stick around and keep track of everything, and make sure we could get out over a farm with some kind of notification. A few other people might be rather turned off if they’d organised a weekend tramp for seven people, then lost them all after the first twenty minutes. He was still helping out though, just from the other end.

It’s late, and we stop at Bulls to discover that the re-opened fish & chip shop there is actually really good. The sky’s fairly clear outside during the drive home. Which reminds me — I completely forgot to stick my head outside Crow Hut at 11pm last night and look for the partial lunar eclipse. I guess the southerly’s passed through, and tomorrow could be a nice day on the tops. Perhaps even a good day to walk along the Mokai Patea range. Next time, though. These things happen. The van’s noisy. One way or another everyone had a rewarding time, and everyone has their story to tell tonight. This was mine.

Rain and rain and rain.

Even if the appeal is turned down, the Minister of Conservation (Kate Wilkinson) still has to finally approve Meridian’s plans to dam the river because it happens to be on conservation land, and she would have to do so in the face of her main advising department giving strong advice about how bad-an-idea they think it is. On the other hand, Kate Wilkinson ordered a review into the advocacy role of her department a couple of months ago.

Anyway, enough of this, politics is boring. I’m going tramping this weekend, or possibly swimming depending on how things go.

The decision was majority rather than unanimous, with two of the three commissioners (John Lumsden and Terry Archer) finding in favour of the consents, but the other commissioner (Greg Ryder) considering “that the effects of the proposal on the ecology of the Mokihinui catchment were not only adverse but could not be satisfactorily mitigated”. Their full decisions can be read from page 296 of part one of the document linked from above.

It is very likely that this decision will be appealed before anything happens. The New Zealand Wild Rivers campaign more or less echoes my thoughts on this.

A media report from The Press is here.

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.
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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.

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.

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.
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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.

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.

Crossing the Waingawa under Cow Creek.

It seems weird going back to somewhere where I’ve been as recently as a week earlier, but that’s what I did last weekend. This time it was with the trampey club, and it wasn’t quite the same place. Instead of just walking from Holdsworth to Mitre Flats and back, we began further north at Kiriwhakapapa, then walked back to Mitre Flats before coming out at Holdsworth.

Dates: 8th – 10th May, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Kiriwhakapapa to Holdsworth Road-ends.
People: Steve, Daniel, Andrew, Justin and me.
Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night), Cow Creek Hut (0 nights), Mitre Flats Hut (1 night), Atiwhakatu Hut (0 nights), Holdsworth Lodge (0 nights).
Route: Kiriwhakapapa to Blue Range Hut (Friday night), down to Cow Creek Hut via an old track to Cow Saddle, then to Mitre Flats Hut for Saturday night. Out to Holdsworth road-end on Sunday.
[Photos]

We’d planned to camp at Kiriwhakapapa on Friday night (though it turns out there’s a shelter), but with the rain we decided instead to walk straight up to Blue Range Hut, which took between about 90 and 120 minutes (I forget), and being under trees meant the rain wasn’t too much of a problem. Usefully enough, that Friday night walk got most of what would have been Saturday’s climbing out of the way. Blue Range Hut is one of those fun huts with interesting signs and lots of character, thanks to the humour of people in the Masterton Tramping Club, but you really have to be there to appreciate it.

Cattle Ridge in the morning,
from Blue Range Hut.

Steve crawled out of his sleeping bag at 7.30am on the dot, and as I stared at the multitude of maps on the ceiling I could hear him stuffing things into stuff-sacks and assembling his cooker. He had a billy boiling before long, and it was time for brekkie. It took me about 20 minutes to finally roll off the top bunk, stepping outside to a chilly and crisp morning. The trees part next to the clearing outside Blue Range Hut behind a picnic table which seems to have been placed there since I last visited, offering a direct view to snow on the nearby range. It would have been cold up there overnight!

Blue Range to Cow Creek.

We were packed and leaving between about 8.20 and 8.30am, set to meet back at the track junction 10 metres above the hut. A brief gap in the trees allowed a glance towards Mitre Peak, hiding behind a clump of light gray clouds. Then we were under trees again, heading towards Cow Creek Hut. A friend (Craig) had told me earlier that there’s a very nice route directly from Mitre Flats, down from Te Mara (1104) leading west, then south-west above Donald Stream. I kept an eye out for this but I started looking too late, and missed it, but next time I’m in the area it could be an interesting route to find. Rather than walk directly to Cow Creek Hut on the marked track, we thought we might follow an old track which leads down to Cow Saddle, and then turn back towards the hut from there. This old track is shown on some older maps, and begins behind the sign at grid reference S25 213437. It then follows the ridge over spot heights 970, 890 and 810 before dropping down a spur to Cow Saddle.

The on Cow Saddle that marks
one end of the old track.

We thought we may potentially need to do some navigation along this route. It’s actually a very clear track, though, and according to a couple of people I spoke to, in better condition than the official track to Cow Creek Hut. We didn’t actually walk along the official track, however, so I can’t say so from experience. There are no official markers along the old track (DOC, Forestry Service or otherwise), but a helpful person has marked it occasionally with fluorescent pink ribbons. Even so, they weren’t necessary at the time we visited because the track itself was so obvious. At 10.50am we emerged from behind a tree on Cow Saddle with a sign nailed to the trunk that incorporated a symbol of a cow. I’ve arrived at Cow Saddle previously having come down from Cattle Ridge on the opposite side, but on that occasion I think we must have entered it slightly further along, because at our current location there was no sign-post pointing to Cow Creek Hut. We turned left to follow the track down Cow Creek, however, and within 20 minutes and one Bus Stop Sign (nailed to another tree) later, we were on the shores of the Waingawa River — not at all flooded, which was consistent with the complete lack of rain and increasing amount of sunshine so far.

There used to be a cable-way with a winch next to Cow Creek Hut until very recently, so I hear. This is now gone, and replaced by one of those mammoth new suspension bridges with wooden planks that the Department of Conservation now seems to favour. There’s a sidling track from Cow Creek around to the end of the bridge, which we duly ignored, and instead we walked around the edge of the Waingawa River and ultimately waded through the river almost directly underneath the bridge. And thus we arrived at Cow Creek Hut, too early for lunch at 11.30am.

Cow Creek Hut.

Cow Creek Hut is an old Forestry Service 6-bunker, and looks well placed in the trees. I’d like to visit it overnight some time in the future, but its location in the shade meant it wasn’t an optimal place for lunch on a day such as this. Steve wrote something in the book, which to this day I don’t know what it was, I bounded over the bridge and back — just so I could say I’d done it — we all messed around and did nothing in particular for about 20 or 30 minutes, and then we wandered south along the bank of the Waingawa River in the direction of Mitre Flats, looking for a sunny patch.

The exit pool.

We found it at about 12.30pm, a nice peninsula of rocks on the edge of the river. If we’d had wet tent flies from the previous night, this would have been a wonderful place to dry them out. For half an hour we sat around and ate lunch in the sunshine, and with a weekend forecast of continuous heavy rain, the five of us elected for a time to wade down the Waingawa River. We left our lunch spot at about 12.30pm, and potentially could have followed the river for the rest of the day, all the way to Mitre Flats. Due to some cold feet it was not to be, and 30 minutes later we decided to exit the river and instead follow the track which runs alongside. The first exit point was on the far side of a small pool in which Steve quickly found himself up to his waist before being able to climb out, and then spent a minute or two figuring out how to lever his pack and himself above an over-hanging tree root. The sight of it encouraged Andrew, Daniel and Justin to find an alternative route to the track through the trees, but it looked quite fun and I felt left out seeing Steve do something like that. As soon as it was clear there was a way up the other side, I jumped in. It was fun.

Walking alongside the Waingawa.

It’s quite a good track between Cow Creek and Mitre Flats, which sidles along the true right of the Waingawa River for the entire distance, albeit climbing up the hillside from time to time. For a couple of stretches we ventured back into the river, and at one point a deer and (apparently earlier than I arrived) a stag came down to the river’s edge on the far side.

A couple of side-creeks could flood for a while in heavy rain. One is North Mitre Stream where we arrived at about 2pm, and the other is Peggy Stream, about 15 to 20 metres south of it. After this we continued along the track which sidles up and down and through old board-walks buried 30 cm under mud, until we reached Mitre Flats at about 3.30pm.

Nearly at Mitre Flats.

Mitre Flats was similar to how I’d left it a week before, which wasn’t too surprising. We arrived shortly after a couple of other chaps who’d walked in from The Pines, one of whom was a volunteer DOC warden, also from the Tararua Tramping Club and a great source of information about nearby routes. I asked him about the second track up to Jumbo that I’d had trouble finding a week before, and he confirmed that it certainly did still exist. I’d probably missed it because it’s easy to coast along next to the river (where there’s a nice campsite) and completely miss the main track’s excursion slightly uphill. I guess I did this in both directions, and it’s something to keep in mind for the future.

He also confirmed that the morning’s forecast for the weekend had involved the words “rain”, “hail” and “severe”, each several times and in a variety of orders. What wasn’t completely clear was exactly how the rain, hail and impending severity would manifest itself on the south-eastern end of the Tararuas, given that it was coming from the other side. Hopefully it’d be clearer by tomorrow morning, when he was scheduled to make a 7am radio call for rugby results and an updated forecast. We manufactured our Moroccan Couscous and had a nice dinner. A fly wouldn’t stop buzzing near the window, even after the candles were out, but I eventually got to sleep on the top bunk at the late hour of about 8pm. It didn’t rain much overnight.

We woke to the overnight rugby results booming through Mitre Flats Hut at 7am on the dot thanks to the radio call that the helpful warden guy was making for a forecast, followed by further repetition of the words “rain”, “hail” and “severe”. The weather was quite unusual. Looking outside there was actually some blue sky, although I somehow managed to get hailed on under the blue sky. The rain and occasional hail was coming in waves, every so often being blown horizontally over the range from the west and ceremoniously landing on us. In time it began to rain more properly, and by 8am we’d all left Mitre Flats on our way out to Holdsworth Lodge. Just chugging along.

For me at least, I now walked along this section exactly a week after I’d walked along it previously. This time, however, I was trying to keep an eye out for more of the side routes. The first couple were in the vicinity of the Barton Track, which leads up an east-west spur in the direction of Baldy. My LINZ map shows a loopy bit here where one option heads about half way up the spur before going down and sidling around, and this is where the marked track leads. The second option (also shown as a track on the map) simply sidles around the lower section. A week before I’d never actually seen the division, but the warden guy had told me that the lower track split off in an obvious place. Sure enough, we did spot what was probably it heading off into the trees some way up the hill. The second route I wanted to find was the one that keeps going straight east to west up the spur to Baldy when the marked track curves around. Older maps that I’ve seen show this track explicitly and the warden guy referred to it as an escape route. I didn’t see any clear diversions from the main track for this one, but I did note a couple of places where I think it would have been reasonable to keep walking upwards on a bearing when the track curved around.

Sidling over a small side-creek somewhere
between the two Baldy spurs.

The rain was now hammering the tree canopy above, but it wasn’t too much of a problem with us walking under trees. Still, the weather was curious. At one point we gazed through a gap in the forest to see the great plains of the Wairarapa bathing in glorious sunshine… while we were still being rained on. There was little doubt that the mountains of the Tararuas themselves were sheltering us from a greater deluge coming from the far side, but it didn’t feel like it. We reached the washed out side creek north of the south-east Baldy spur at about 9.20am or so, at a guess. It was very straightforward, unlike when I was on my own a week before and had driven myself to unnecessary concern. We left Baldy Saddle shortly before 10am, and after a 15 minute slippery slide down the southern side, we crossed the bridge over the Atiwhakatu Stream.

Doubtlessly my moment of triumph.
Now that I’ve found this sign,
I know I can navigate!

The next route I needed to tick off my list from missing a week before was embarassing, because the northern track leading up to Jumbo Hut is a well maintained track that many believe to be in better condition and more interesting than the more popular Rainguage Spur. At 10.20am I caught up with the group at the front who were aware I was looking for it, and were milling around the giant bright yellow and green Department of Conservation sign in the middle of the track, wondering just how I could have missed it. I’m now fairly sure what happened was that in both directions, I’d followed the edge of the Atiwhakatu Stream too closely instead of the track markers. This is a generally safe thing to do, but at that exact point the track leads up the hill slightly to the junction with the track up to Jumbo, whereas I’d continued to walk through a nice camp-site below it. Steve took a photo of me standing behind the sign, so I can now prove that I’ve found it.

Atiwhakatu Hut now has walls.

The next stop, now at 11am, was Atiwhakatu Hut. Its building had progressed even further than the wooden framing of the previous Sunday, to the point that it actually had walls embossed with Placemakers logos. The DOC-warden guy back at Mitre Flats had mentioned it supposed to be the same design as Roaring Stag Lodge, and it’s now finally beginning to look like it.

Of course, with all the rain, the builders were hiding inside the old Atiwhakatu hut with smoke pouring out and having slapped a giant piece of “DANGER KEEP OUT” tape over the door. At one moment Steve attempted to get a closer look at the construction site, until one of them shouted out the window that he should keep out. Fair enough, I guess. It’s still a building site, after all.

Looking back somewhere towards
Mt Holdsworth.

With the constant rain things were going rather quickly, and they only went faster from this point on because the track between Atiwhakatu Hut and Holdsworth Lodge is practically a State Highway. At 11.45am we walked past the junction heading up to East Holdsworth, at 12.20pm we cruised through Donnelly Flats, and at 12.35pm we exited past Holdsworth Lodge, having seen only a single person heading the other way for a short walk. Perhaps the forecast frightened people away.

I tried to write in the book at Holdsworth Lodge but gave up after a minute because my fingers, which had been rather exposed to the wetness, were rather numb and unable to accurately control a pen. Having attempted several methods of using one hand to push the other, I decided that there was little chance we’d be abducted by aliens between now and our collection, and so it’d be unlikely that anyone might consult the book to confirm we’d gotten out, anyway.

We probably could have stayed in the lodge for the 80-90 minutes until our collection, but it wasn’t very handy to the road. Thus, we ate our lunch and left-over chocolate in the shelter above the Holdsworth parking area, watching as several waves of rain came through. Quite a sombre way to end the weekend, but it was a good weekend. Considering just how much rain was expected, we were fortunate that everything went perfectly such that we didn’t need to resort to any of several backup plans. Saturday, especially, was a gem of a day. It was almost disappointing that we weren’t really equipped to go up onto the tops in the Tararua snow, but I know there will be future times.

Waiting for collection.

Last weekend we visited the Ruahines, and I was finally able to see Sunrise Hut, which I’ve heard so much about. It was only a brief part of a much larger weekend, though.

Dates: 20th – 22nd March, 2009
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Triplex road-end.
People: Glynne, Paul, Tim, Mike P, Bernie, Harry and me.
Huts visited: Triplex Hut (1 night), Waterfall Hut (1 night), Waikamaka Hut (0 nights), Sunrise Hut (0 nights).
Route: From Triplex Hut to Waipawa Forks, up to Waipawa Saddle then climb the south-eastern side up to Three Johns (1569). South-west to Rangioteatua (1704), south to 1715 then south-west to Paemutu (1682). Down scree to Tussock Creek, and to Waterfall Hut for the night. Then up Rangi Creek, over Rangi Saddle to Waikamaka Hut, back to Waipawa Saddle, up the northern side to 1625, north to Te Atuaoparapara (1687), north-east to Armstrong Saddle, then back to Triplex road-end via Sunrise Hut.
[Photos and movies]

We begin at the TripleX road-end, in the rain and standing in the muddy road preparing to leave. Sometimes I have concerns that I won’t look as if I’ve actually been somewhere by the end of a weekend, but these concerns are now unwarranted as I realise that half of my pack is already covered in mud. Better yet, it’s splashy mud which has a fantastic transitive quality, and it quickly asserts itself on my trampey clothes. Now I look as if I’ve been somewhere!

With the weekend’s primary goal accomplished, we make our way to the night’s destination. It involves a 10 minute skate in the dark over the farm to TripleX Hut. Only one small party is there, which surprises us because the end of the road had been bustling with activity. Until now we’d assumed we’d be camping outside. We quickly claim spaces in the empty room, except for Harry who manages to snatch the prime deck spot out front. Within minutes, the crowds begin to roll in. Unlike a certain other group of people, we didn’t stop for ice cream on the way here, and in exchange for that we did win the hut. Bwa ha ha ha ha! Eyes shut at 11pm, for a 6am wake-up.

Sunrise on the track towards
Sunrise Hut.

It really doesn’t feel like 7 hours of sleep, but we’re all roused and ready to go at 7. Two minutes late, we wave goodbye to a couple of weary-eyed people wandering about, and set off up the track towards Sunrise Hut. Rather than slog all the way up the hill, however, we turn off to the west on the track to the Waipawa River, eventually going all the way down again. Harry may have a point when he suggests it was silly to come up here just to go down again if we could have simply walked to the van and driven another kilometre straight to the river, and walked up that instead.

About 10 minutes before we reach the river, I feel something in my hair and a simple brush with my fingers can’t get it out. It’s not until my leg suddenly starts hurting that I look down and realise that 2 wasps are on one of my legs, doing their best to sting me. I try to brush them off, and looking around I notice that Mike P (ahead of me) is also getting stung. After calling for some attention to what’s happening, I discover that doing so was a bad idea, because all it does is to cause people up ahead to stop and block any timely escape route. Nevertheless we do slow down, and during this time I discover another wasp somehow inside one of my gaiters. Meanwhile Mike is trying to cope with being stung through his sock around the ankle. Being traditionally prepared as we are, nobody has any accessible antihistamines, but Mike produced some Voltaren to help numb the pain and we keep going.

Most of the wasps end up dead one way or another, but as we leave I notice there’s still a wasp tangled up in my hair. With enough fighting it finally escapes and wafts itself up into the trees to fly away home. Just as the Danish Vikings always left a survivor to spread stories of the terror when they raided Alfred’s England in the 9th Century AD, thus encouraging immediate submission during future raids, I expect that this wasp’s release will ensure a fitting respect for us amongst the wasps we’ve yet to encounter. It works, too, because the wasps avoid us for the rest of the weekend.

Waipawa Saddle.

We reach the Waipawa River not long after 8am, continuing west up the river over the next hour with the Sun rising warmly behind us. We finally reach a track that leads us up to Waipawa Saddle, and stop for a few minutes to gather water before climbing the further 200 vertical metres out of the river to the top of the saddle. At 10am we’re away again, walking further up the eastern shoulder of the saddle to Three Johns (1569). Typical of any trip I’ve been on that the club’s metrics rate as a Fit trip, none of us can be bothered to actually climb to the top. Instead, we sidle around before continuing south-west to the un-named point 1635. An hour later at 11am, we all stand on Rangioteatua (1704).

Views walking towards spot-height 1715.

The cloud rolls over the ridge behind us from the east, giving us a scenic backdrop during lunch on the next peak to the south, spot-height 1711. As we eat, we ponder the ridge that leads south-wards to Paemutu (1682). Glynne’s research prior to the trip had implied that this could be one of the most awkward ridges on our route. The first challenge seems to be just to get to the ridge because there seems to be something of a drop leading off Paemutu in that direction. Paul manages to climb down by the most obviously direct route and reports that it looks as if there’s an occasionally-used route going down. Meanwhile, though, the rest of us have already headed down the western side, to sidle around via some scree and make our way onto the ridge. Ultimately though, this ridge is a fairly easy route considering the rumours we’d heard beforehand.

Climbing to Paemutu.

The beginnings of Waterfall Creek are clearly visible down to our right, and knowing that it passes straight past tonight’s destination of Waterfall Hut, it’s tempting to wander down to it. Glynne notes, however, that there’s a rumour of a substantial waterfall hazard further down Waterfall Creek (funny that), and so on this trip we’ll avoid it. The only other complication on the ridge comes from a massive wide pinnacle-like towering rock thing in the middle of the ridge near the southern end, which blocks our way. After some investigation we decide to avoid going around the western side. Paul finds a way to climb over the top, but the rest of us head slightly down the eastern side of the ridge and find a way to sidle around it, before climbing back up to the ridge. At 2pm we all stand on Paemutu (1682), and we take our time to appreciate the scenery because this will be our last visit to the tops today before heading down to Tussock Creek.

Screeeeee.

Exactly how to get down to Tussock Creek is another problem. At first we think we might have to continue a few hundred metres along to find a suitable route down, but it seems there are two obvious scree-guts just south of Paemutu, which appear to join up further down. Either will probably be fine, and we eventually reach a consensus on the second of the two. The next 20 minutes is a continuous screeeeee slide down the hill to the beginnings of Tussock Creek below, and in that time we slide and ski down about 300 vertical metres, and we reach the top of the creek at 2.30.

Shortly before reaching
Waterfall Hut.

Tussuck Creek would be better named something like Speargrass Creek or Spaniard Creek, except there are probably already many other creeks with such a name. The nice big scree-gut took us into what is realistically a side-creek within a catchment that eventually joins a wider river, although the LINZ maps that we have still refer to the side creek as Tussock Creek and the larger creek as being nameless. Perhaps Tussock Creek simply has a name due to being a popular route down, or something of that nature. We reach the larger creek a little after 3, though, and keep following it for another hour at which point we finally arrive at the bright orange, recently painted Waterfall Hut.

Waterfall Hut has recently
been re-painted.

Even though we reached it in about 9 hours, Waterfall Hut is comparatively remote for the Ruahines. I’ve been intending to reach Waterfall Hut on two separate occasions, but both times have been affected by the weather and caused a change in plans. I’m also aware of a person who reportedly spent a week trapped here during heavy rain, and I’m reminded of it a few hours later when I stare at the ceiling above the bunk, and someone has ticked off 6 of the 7 days of the week. Looking around the region, I could think of worse places to be trapped for many days in heavy rain (Triangle Hut comes to mind). Even though it’s surrounded by rivers, Waterfall Hut isn’t quite at the bottom of a hole — there is actually some space to wander around outside and see up and down a valley without having to walk through a river.

If there’s one particularly notable thing about Waterfall Hut at the time we arrive, it’s that there’s absolutely no shortage of toilet paper. The dunny has 3 rolls left behind, and inside the hut are about 6 more. Apparently the DOC workers left it behind when they visited for maintenance work a few months earlier. It seems that one luxury of helicopters is the cheap transport of vast amounts of toilet paper.

Harry, Mike, Paul and Tim playing 500.

Glynne is the only person to not immediately settle in once we arrive, and after about 30 minutes and some re-packing, he ventures off to look for a waterfall. I feel quite bad not following having come all this way, but by now I just can’t be bothered to put my boots on, plus I’m feeling marginally sick and need to lie down for a while, so I console myself by trying to take a couple of photos of the valley we’re in. Glynne happily returns about an hour later, however, and after a lot of mental maths between us to confirm we brought an appropriate amount of pasta, he plays the main part in preparing dinner. I’m feeling somewhat better after dinner but lying down is nice, so Paul has to rope some newcomers into a game of 500. By candlelight, he and Harry teach Mike and Tim how to play. I don’t notice myself getting much sleep that night, but I get a very good rest simply by lying with my eyes closed. Spurts of heavy rain overnight occasionally cause me to wonder if we might have river problems in the morning, but it’s not continuous enough to cause any problems.

On Sunday morning we can sleep in longer, and don’t get away until ten to 8. We begin by walking around to the start of Rangi Creek about 10 minutes away, which begins with a very wide mouth that’s perhaps related to a massive slip on one side. The walk up the creek lasts for about 25 minutes before a big orange triangle marks the beginning of the route up to Rangi Saddle. It’s quite steep at first, but no more than what’s generally encountered in many other parts of the Tararuas and Ruahines. Once above the tree-line, we enter a waist-high tussock-laden landscape that’s still sodden from overnight rain, and yet to see the morning’s sunshine. It’s also slippery and full of sharp things, making it mildly unpleasant to walk through. As we near the top, a light wafty mist is back-lit by the rising sun over the silhouette of the saddle, and refracting light accents the colours of the surrounding hills. It looks quite nice.

Bernie climbs to Rangi Saddle.

When we reach the top just short of 9am, we sit down, eat scroggen, gaze at the views for a while, and try to pick out our route down. The route down the north-eastern side of Rangi Saddle is actually marked by poles that ultimately lead to the top of a creek which passes Waikamaka Hut. As far as we can tell, though, there’s very little obvious track between the poles. It’s essentially a speargrass jungle, the drop is steep’ish at first, and a lot of care is necessary to avoid falling or slipping in a bad place. Even having reached the creek, getting down it un-scratched is a very difficult proposition. For the most part there is a goat track alongside the true left of the creek, although in places it’s easier to just try and walk in the thin creek. It’s very do-able but with the amount of dense scrub, it’s still difficult to imagine that this is any kind of officially sanctioned and current route. We do spot at least one shiny Department of Conservation orange triangle nailed to a tree some way down, however.

At 9.30am the route very suddenly opens up into quite a wide track and there’s no clear explanation for why until a minute later, when the side-creek from Rangi Saddle joins another side creek in the catchment, and they combine to form a new waterway that’s much easier to walk through. We briefly think we’ve reached the position of Waikamaka Hut and that it must be hidden in the trees, but quickly realise that it’s further down, and in fact it takes another 20 minutes to reach.

Paul and Mike outside
Waikamaka Hut.

Waikamaka Hut is another hut managed by the Heretaunga Tramping Club. It’s a small hut with space for about 8 people on platform bunks. An old rusty gas lantern sits on the ground outside. Inside, a large sign announces “There is no hole! Please carry out”. Maybe it was left for nostalgic reasons, but this sign is a reference to the rather disgusting rubbish holes that many huts used to have outside, before the New Zealand government instituted rules to require that people carry out all the rubbish they bring in. Two packs have been left outside the door, but there’s no sign of any people nearby — they probably belong to a couple of people who’ve gone for a walk up the river. After a brief look around we get going at about 10am, walking east up the river towards Waipawa Saddle.

Clambering up to Waipawa Saddle.

It takes 20 minutes to reach the junction of the river and the track up to the saddle. Personally I find it momentarily confusing, because from the map I was expecting the route to begin on the true right, but it actually leaves from the true left. This will be our last opportunity to gather water for some time, so we stop for a refill. All is quickly explained very shortly after we start to climb, and the track almost immediately crosses the creek near the edge of a small bluff some distance up the hill. If we’d missed the junction it wouldn’t have mattered, because we would not have been able to follow the river much further anyway. Over to the right, gushing water continues to gnaw away at part of the hillside, and meanwhile our poled route directs us over the thin back of an eroding spur. Clouds have come in by now, and as the short, thin ridge quickly opens into an easy, wide plateau just short of Waipawa Saddle, those ahead of me become hazy shadows in the mist. We arrive back on the saddle at 10.30am, not long after we arrived here yesterday from the other side.

It’s now decision time, because from here we have a choice of either going straight out the same way we came in, or of climbing the north-west shoulder of the saddle up and over Te Atuaoparapara and then onto Armstrong Saddle. I’ve never been up to Te Atuaoparapara before and although the climb doesn’t worry me it looks daunting on the map, full of bluffs in all directions. I’m assured that it’s fine, though, and after some debate we decide that it’s far too early in the day to go straight out.

Flattening out near 1625.

The climb to Te Atuaoparapara from Waipawa Saddle begins very steeply, although maybe the up-side of this is that it’s getting the vertical part out of the way quickly. It’s only hindered by the fact that a large part of the climb is on scree, and I hate climbing scree because you can often go half a step back for every step forward. We start climbing at about 10.45, and are climbing on slightly more tussocky and more stable ground by about 11. The top flattens out for a while before reaching the spot-height of 1625, and at about 11.15am we wait there to re-group with some haze wafting over the ridges, but also with a fascinating view of the inner range of the Ruahines.

Climbing scree and looking
backwards makes me dizzy.

The ridge between 1625 and Te Atuaoparapara, which looks so bluffy on the LINZ map, isn’t too awkward to get along, although there are a few points where the best route isn’t clear and we have to figure out where to sidle around. The latter peak is only 62 metres higher, but It drops into a saddle before the climb, and once again the route is also largely scree, as if we’re somehow shoveling our way up a very large pile of small rocks. For as much as I enjoy it, I come out of this walk feeling as if people who cover it in the other direction and slide down the scree instead of having to grind up will getting a much nicer deal.

Te Atuaoparapara is the home of a crooked trig station that looks as if it’s half fallen over, and has certainly seen better days. It’s 11.45am and we stop for lunch. Glynne announces that it’s all down-hill from here. Well, down-hill and undulation. I glance around and try to see all these bluffs that are marked on the map in all directions from where we sit, but it’s difficult to pick them out. In particular, the wide smooth ridge leading out to the west looks easy to get to, but the map shows several bluffs in the way. Perhaps I’m not leaning over far enough as I can’t quite see what’s closest, but it also crosses my mind that the LINZ U22 map may have a small error or two. It’s probably me, though.

Leaving Te Atuaoparapara.

The route from Te Atuaoparapara to Armstrong Saddle is very strightforward for walking, but with the clouds hanging around the vicinity we need to confirm things with some navigation skills, as there are a few false ridges which we could follow accidentally. Ultimately after leaving the peak at 12.15pm, we coast along the tops for about 30 minutes before reaching the top of an un-named saddle about half way to Armstrong Saddle. It’s at this point that we have to search for a route through a wide patch of leatherwood, and it takes a few attempts. Once we reach the bottom, we can look over a few metres and see a nice track coming out, so we’ve probably missed the most obvious route.

At 1.15pm we undulate out of that saddle, and 5 minutes later pass a big sign indicating the turn-off to Top Maropea Hut. From here, we are on a much more heavily walked route, now between Sunrise Hut and Top Maropea Hut. Suddenly it’s all poled, and at 1.30pm we arrive at a tarn marking the track down to Sunrise Hut, not far below. Light rain sprinkles on the tarn, and I stop and watch for a moment. The route coasts along the tops for a short while, but eventually begins to drop and we reach Sunrise Hut at 1.40pm. Sunrise Hut is a big hut, and my understanding is that many people walk up to visit for the night, then go home again.

I think that after we leave Sunrise Hut, everyone is finally ready to go home, and in comparison with the rest of the weekend, we’re effectively racing down the hill. The track is well graded, quite hard and bad for knees, too, and the switching back and forth to make a shallow gradient means it’s probably about 3 or 4 times further in distance terms than it needs to be. On the other hand, it’s nice to be amongst trees again. It takes 40 minutes before we reach the track junction leading towards the Waipawa River, which we followed yesterday morning, and another 30 minutes before we finally walk out to the road. The sky is overcast and it’s time to go home.

Steve, Amanda and Paul
north-west of Mangahuia.

Dates: 24th – 26th October, 2008 (one day shorter than intended)
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia to Heritage Road-end.
People: Steve, Amanda, Paul and me.
Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (1 night), Triangle Hut (0 nights), Iron Gates Hut (1 night), Heritage Hut (0 nights).
Intended Route: Walk to Rangiwahia, then around Maungamahue and the back of Te Hekenga , over to Taumataomekura, Teraha and to Howletts Hut for Saturday night. Then via Daphne Ridge, Otumore and down to Iron Gates Hut (or possibly Triangle Hut) for Sunday night, before heading back up to Rangiwahia Hut and out again on Monday.
Actual Route: Due to weather issues we went straight down to Triangle Hut and Iron Gates Hut on Saturday, before continuing to the Heritage road-end on Sunday and getting out a day early.
[Photos and movies]

After dinner from that Kebab shop at Bulls, we reached the Rangiwahia road-end at around 9.30′ish, I guess. At the very least, after the walk up the hill (which from past experience seems to take about 90 minutes), we were settling down at around 11pm on Friday night. The weather forecast was already dismal, without much suggestion that things would clear up until about Monday. Although we’d made plans to sleep in, Steve was still up and about at 6.30, and everyone followed.

There was some teasing clarity in the horizon to the west, with Ruapehu clearly visible, but we were slightly more concerned about an incoming southerly. The rest of the range to the east of Rangiwahia was already clagged in — getting around the back of Te Hekenga and down to Howletts on the far side wasn’t an enticing thing, especially since it was likely to just be cold and clouded-in all day. Instead, we thought we might try starting the plan in reverse, in the hope that the rivers wouldn’t be up too much to interfere. So, after a casual breakfast, we packed up and left at 8am.

It took about an hour to reach the ridge just north of Mangahuia, which seems consistent with the previous three times I’d been there. Looking over the edge, broken slabs of icy snow were still settled below us on the eastern side, making for an eerie walk through a fairly cold wind. Within about 30 minutes we were walking down the spur towards Triangle Hut, budgeting on being there for lunch. With the route down the spur quite slippery and covered in tussock, we were still on the tops until a little after 10am. From there we reached the relatively good track through the trees, arriving at Triangle before 11.

Paul crossing part of the
Oroua River outside Triangle Hut.

Despite the rain, the northern branch of the Oroua River outside Triangle Hut wasn’t flooded, although it was more full than it would often be. The first half of the walk to Iron Gates Hut (sometimes called Iron Gate Hut) is in this river, and the last few minutes requires getting over the main part of the Oroua River. Consequently, what we saw outside Triangle Hut did cause us to carefully consider whether we should be going any further. By the end of it, I think I was the last person being annoyingly indecisive, but we came to the consensus that the fact that it wasn’t flooded would mean that the main part of the Oroua River down-stream wouldn’t be flooded either. If we really got stuck somewhere, we at could at least fly-camp in the rain along the way until the river became safer. Besides, I’ve been at Triangle Hut when it’s raining a lot before, and if you really feel like going somewhere, the idea of potentially being trapped behind flooded rivers on all sides the next day really didn’t appeal. At around midday, we set off south along the river towards Iron Gates Hut (often referred to as Iron Gate Hut, although the signs in the area seem to call it Iron Gates).

The river along here can be slightly gorgey, but in these conditions we always found reasonable crossing points that were rarely higher than knee-deep. There were a couple of minor areas where the current was uncomfortably strong, and it definitely helped to have someone nearby on firmer ground to use as support. At ten past one, we reached the end of the track leading over point 1037, to the other side where Iron Gates Hut is located. The first few minutes of this track follows a small stream up a gully, but it soon turns into a track of its own which is steep in some places, and without a lot of good hand-holds. It didn’t feel particularly un-safe, though, within reason at least.

Steve and Paul at the southern
end of the track to Iron Gates.

On the southern end, this track crosses one side-creek before sidling along a hillside above some nice waterfalls (down which I was glad we didn’t need to climb), before landing at the main part of the Oroau River. As we expected, this river also wasn’t flooded, but seeing it was enough to prompt me to put my camera away for a while. In hindsight I’m really glad that I did.

The current was quite strong, but after some surveying and brief experimentation up and down the river, we eventually found a place we could cross reasonably comfortably. This was relief for me, because I’d had in the back of my mind that we might become stuck somewhere between the two huts and have to camp out… which is why both Amanda and I were both slightly surprised when Steve, who’d been here recently, hopped straight back in the river a little further down and led us back to the side we’d started from. Iron Gates Hut was still a few minutes along the river, and it seemed that there wasn’t a clear route to it without a couple of extra crossings.

Amanda watching Steve testing
part of the river near Iron Gates.

We were able to continue along the river-side for a few more minutes, but finally reached a point where some fast-moving rapids combined with an apparently gorgey rock-face on our side. It looked do-able to get around, but we just might get a bit more wet than we were already. In the distance on the far side of the river, we could see smoke wafting from the trees, indicating that there was someone home.

Steve was the first to lower himself down into the pool, which had a convenient ledge below it, and work his way around the edge of the rock-face. I followed, and soon found I couldn’t see Steve ahead of me. Leaning backwards turned out to be a bad idea because I started floating on my pack and drifting away from the rock-face. It worked out fine, though, because Steve was grounded just around the corner and held out a hand to pull me in. Amanda and Paul followed, and the four of us now found ourselves standing in a small in-set into the rock on the far side of the river. Getting over to the far side from here was a challenge, but we managed it with the help of Steve (again) who anchored himself somewhere in the middle so as to help pull everyone past him and out the other side. That was an experience.

As we approached Iron Gates Hut at about 3pm, maybe in some kind of jovial mood, we met the three current occupants as we searched for dry clothing. The two Oringi Raincoats hanging outside suggested some kind of strong outdoor affiliation before we’d even met them (that’s my current theory, anyway), and it turned out they’d come down from Auckland for the long weekend as an expedition on behalf of the Toi Toi Trekkers Tramping Club. Earlier on Saturday the three of them had walked in from Heritage Lodge. I think their original plan had been to walk up further to Triangle, then up to Rangiwahia and out that way, but by the time we’d arrived it sounded as if they were now intending to return the way they came — probably due to weather. They had a nice fire going and were busy drying some of their things… presumably things that hadn’t been well stashed underneath their impressive raincoats. Steve, who had been starting to feel sick-ish, hopped up to one of the top bunks for a snooze. Amanda, Paul and I settled into the accommodation for the rest of the afternoon, with myself catching up on some reading before Amanda became the central figure in preparing a nice pasta and vegetable dinner.

It rained in patches overnight, sometimes intensively, although the river had actually gone down when I went out to check it on Sunday morning. Specifically, it’d gone down by about 3 centimetres in the wide, wave-prone section that I’d been using to wash the dishes the night before. Looking up to the tops, however, they still didn’t look at all inviting. They’d received more snow overnight, which boded for a potentially long and quite hard next couple of days. According to the plan, we’d still need to be getting up to Howletts, which would probably take at least 6-7 hours in the conditions and wouldn’t be very scenic. That would be followed by a long day of walking on Monday, probably at least 10 hours, and then a long, late and tiring drive back to Wellington on Monday night. Steve’s condition, which seemed to have become more doubtful overnight, was also a convenient excuse for us to not bother trying.

There were a couple of other options we thought about. One was to go back the way we’d come, past Triangle and then either head straight back to Rangiwahia for Sunday night, or down to Pourangaki or Kelly Knight (perhaps more interesting). Neither seemed that inviting, and with the Oroua River still flowing quite strongly it would have been more difficult to walk up against the current. We’d definitely need to be looking for different crossing points from what we’d used the day before. The LINZ map also indicates another track heading up a spur towards Rangiwahia from about the half way point between Iron Gates and Heritage, but Steve’s attempt to come down this on another occasion several months before had suggested that it actually wasn’t much of a track at all, and may actually have been densely overgrown. So in the end, we reached another consensus decision to simply walk to Heritage Lodge (near a road-end), and to figure out some way to get back to the van once we arrived.

Nearing Heritage Lodge.

We left Iron Gates Hut at 8.45am, saying goodbye to the Toi Toi Trekkers who’d been waiting in bed while we packed up. It was a nice bush-walk through the rain, with a few undulations and a couple of crossings of side-creeks, but ultimately easily do-able. During one of our brief stops at 11.15am, we could see Heritage Lodge in the distance. 20 minutes later, having followed the sidling track around the hillside, we were there, and immediately greeted by two very friendly chaps from the Manawatu Branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers’ Association. It was still raining, and although the sun almost emerged from time to time, it continued to tease us.

The luxurious section of Heritage
Lodge, reserved for NZDA.

Heritage Hut (sometimes called Heritage Lodge) is an NZDA-built facility. An old lodge on the site burned down in 2005, apparently after some visitors let the fireplace get too hot and then packed up and left. [Edit 9-July-2010: There's another side to this story described in the comments section below.] It’s since been re-built by predominantly NZDA volunteers, with the help of many sponsors. The new facility is a fantastic lodge. The NZDA guys had a warm fire going and offered us hot water for a cuppa as we walked up, which was a great way to say hello. They were also keen to show off the features of the lodge, which we continued to take in as we settled down for an early lunch. For the record, anyone who thinks that kiwi hunters always like it rough needs to take a look in the private NZDA section of the lodge (NZDA permission would be required), which comes complete with a mini-kitchenette and a shiny shower cubicle. So much for the whole lowering-your-standards philosophy of the outdoors.

The other people we met at Heritage were a couple from the Forest and Bird society, who’d walked up the track from the road to survey the area for a potential club trip they were planning in the near future. They were very friendly and helpful, and ultimately we were able to arrange for Amanda to walk back to their car with them, and then for them to drop her off at the Rangiwahia road-end to collect our van. The three of them left at about 12.15, with a loose arrangement that Paul, Steve and I would follow about an hour later. With nothing much else to do, Steve found a bunk to lie on for another daytime nap, while Paul and I chatted with the NZDA people and browsed the hut literature.

Steve at the Heritage road-end.

The remaining walk back to the Heritage road-end almost feels as if it’s a vehicle track in some places, and having left at 1.30pm and moving at a very relaxed pace, we were at the fence bordering Ruahine Forest Park about 20 minutes later. The timing was good and Amanda drove up at about 2.15pm, just as we’d begun to walk down the road. As Steve pointed out, leaving on Sunday instead of Monday (Labour Day) had the added advantage of us not having to pay a surcharge at the cafe in Kimbolton, where we stopped for a decent second lunch.

With breaks in the weather emerging, we could now clearly see the freshly snow-capped mountain range over which we might have been walking if the weather had played more nicely earlier in the day, but I guess on this occasion it wasn’t to be. We really needed two days of good weather to have carried out the original plan and for it to be worthwhile. Attempting it in reverse also complicated things further by putting the longest day of walking on the same day we wanted to drive home, and the uncertainty of exactly how this would pan out was a significant factor in us deciding to get out early. I still got to visit several places I haven’t been, however, and we’ll probably get another chance to try it again in the future.

What the storms left behind.

It was a Silva Field 7, which is a very basic baseplate compass and it does the job perfectly. They retail for about $30 so it’s no great financial loss. It’s still a bit of a downer, though, since I make an effort not to leave junk lying around in the wilderness.

Other than that, it was a worth-while experience. I’ll write something and post photographs of the trip in coming days. Meanwhile you could read Robb’s account of his solo trip in the same area a few days beforehand.

Update, 27-10-2008: It seems I wrote the account of the whole trip faster than I thought.

In the past few days there’s been another river crossing tragedy in New Zealand, this time at Eggie. Once again, as often seems to be the case, it sounds as if it was someone quite experienced who may have simply made a bad judgement call about whether or not to try and cross, possibly distracted by the bad weather, as well as the thought of being so close to home compared with possibly having to spend another night out.

Drowning accidents are one of the most common ways for people to be killed in New Zealand’s back-country, especially after cases of hypothermia have fallen with the advent of better gear for keeping warm. This is why, I guess, it seems a good idea for anyone who goes tramping a lot to get properly educated in river safety, and to get as much experience as possible. I’ve been working on trying to learn about river safety for a while now, partly through experience and I also signed up to a river safety course about 18 months ago. I’m still nowhere near being an expert, but I’ve noticed a few things I find interesting.

Note that in this post I’m writing about river crossings, and it’s entirely my own opinion. I’m not a qualified instructor (or even notably experienced) and what follows is definitely not authoritative. If you’re interested in learning about river safety, you should consider taking a course taught by an expert. If you’re in New Zealand then a good place to start is New Zealand’s Mountain Safety Council, or a club in your area.

A while ago I was on a club trip and we needed to cross a river, which often happens. This time it had rained overnight and although it wasn’t completely flooded, the river was more aggressive than usual and I quickly made up my mind that there was no way that I was going to get into it by myself. Fortunately this sentiment was shared by others, and we decided to do a group river crossing.

We had to back out of the first attempt. On that occasion I’d linked up on the right-hand end of a line of three people, facing into the current. I was caught unaware because the guy to my left, who was from another group and didn’t know us well, had reached for where the clip was on my hip-belt and it immediately came undone. He seemed as surprised at me having such a clip as I was surprised that he’d tried to grab my hip-belt at all. We eventually figured out that instead of whatever he’d been trying to do, he’d slot his arm between my pack and my back, which had been what I was expecting anyway, and we continued. We managed to get about a metre into the river before having to return to the bank, partly because on the end of the line with an uneven surface, I was having a difficult time finding my footing around some rocks. We eventually made it over in a group of 6, continuing to debate the technique quite vigorously as we were crossing, even though it was probably far too late by that time. So far I have to admit that’s the freakiest experience I’ve had when crossing a river. Although it still turned out okay, I was very relieved when we made it to the other side. Perhaps the best kind of good luck is the kind that you learn something from.

As I mentioned earlier, I took a River Safety course in early 2007, which relayed the current techniques (at that time) being promoted by New Zealand’s Mountain Safety Council. Please don’t actually try to do this unless you know what you’re doing or you’re with people you trust, and if you think I have this incorrect then please post something below and I’ll do my best to correct it, but the basic technique is as follows:

A group of 3 to 5 people (an ideal group size), should stand in a line with one end of the line facing into the current, and with arms linked between backs and packs. Hip-belts are fastened because as long as everyone has a pack liner (which they should), the packs will float people if and when the river gets too deep. Sternum straps are undone because if and when pack-floating begins, people’s packs will lift up and a sternum strap could potentially choke you or cut into your throat. Ditching your pack is something that can be done quickly if absolutely necessary by unclipping the hip-belt — apparently some people even cut off part of their clip to make it even easier to unfasten quickly. Doing this is generally supposed to be an absolute last resort, though, because packs typically offer a lot of protection in a river.

The weakest (or lightest) person goes on the end facing directly into the current, with the strongest person next to them, and everyone else lines up behind them in the shadow of the oncoming current. If the weakest person isn’t confident with being on the end, it may be necessary to re-arrange things. One person, ideally near the centre, coordinates the group by telling everyone what to do, and ensures that everyone stays in a straight line and in the correct orientation during the move forwards. This can be complicated if the ground’s surface is uneven, so everyone has to be prepared, both mentally and physically, to take things as slowly as necessary and to make sure everyone in the group is happy to move every step. There are several techniques for backing up if it turns out the current is too strong, beginning with a simple walking backwards, or alternatively performing a special technique which I think is called “the zipper” (if I remember correctly), and entails a careful and coordinated turning of the line mid-river such that everyone ends up facing back to where they came from.

The unusual trick with this technique of crossing, which can seem counter-intuitive at first, is having the weakest person on the end facing into the current. This contrasts a common variation, which is to place the strongest person on the end into the current. In the technique described above, the weak person on the end is there entirely to break the force of the river, and to make it considerably easier for everyone in their shadow to stay on their feet. Meanwhile, the stronger people in the group have a much easier time in moving the group forwards. Effectively the light person on the end could have their feet completely off the ground, held up by the stronger person next to them, and get a free ride to the other side. They’re fine, as long as they’re not released (accidentally or otherwise)… which is why it’s important to have someone strong holding onto them.

Despite having been in lots of rivers since I took the course, including several group crossings, I haven’t yet experienced a textbook group crossing that matched the techniques we were taught. This might be because I tend to stick to the lower North Island. With a few exceptions, most rivers in the Tararuas and Ruahines stay relatively low unless they’re seriously flooded, in which case nobody should be going near them whether in a group crossing or not. I think another reason why I haven’t experienced a textbook group crossing is that despite the currently promoted techniques being “current”, it’s uncommon for everyone to be up-to-date. This can be seen just by looking at the wide variety of literature on the topic, both from home and abroad. People also vary a lot in skill, experience and intuition of rivers. I’ve been near the occasional river for which my first impression has been that it looks quite risky, yet someone else who I’m with will cross it easily with their trusty walking pole before I’ve finished considering my strategy, as if it’s no problem to them at all.

A few months ago I picked up a book in The Warehouse called The Outdoor Book for Adventurous Chaps (by Adrian Besley) that was reduced to $8 on a bargain shelf. The book’s aimed at a North American market and had sections on all kinds of things, with one section explaining how to cross a river. The technique described in this book is one that’s nothing like I’ve ever encountered before. It suggests that groups of 4 people should hug each other in a kind of circle for stability, with the strongest person facing into the current but being shielded by the others in front of them. In contradiction to what I’ve heard everywhere else, it also suggests undoing all pack straps to make it easier to remove one’s pack in case of an emergency.

Closer to home, Water Safety New Zealand provides a website dedicated to River Safety, complete with a page all about river crossing techniques, which once again contradict other advertised methods when it comes down to some of the details.

Hans Willems (author of such interesting works as North Island Back Country Huts and North Island Back Country Dunnies) describes several techniques in his Tramping Smarter book — which is a beginner’s guide to tramping in New Zealand. One technique involves linking arms in a line while holding a pole to keep the line straight. Another technique (if a suitable rope is available) sends one person over the river at a time, making sure the rope is always anchored in some way by at least two people. The author quite correctly also warns readers not to start using the techniques based simply on the description in a book. This is important because, for instance, using a rope incorrectly can also add other elements of danger such as creating a situation where someone might get tangled up and held underwater. In fact, Water Safety New Zealand goes as far to proclaim on this page that “while ropes may appear to be a good life saving device, unless you have had extensive training it is dangerous to have them in rivers”.

I have to admit that early on I was surprised that there wasn’t simply a clear message about “how to cross a river”. When I first began to learn what I could about river crossing techniques, I’d assumed that the whole thing would surely be very standardised by now. People must have been trying to cross rivers for millenia, and the fact that respected authorities are still debating and discovering techniques for doing so is an intriguing thing.

There are often contradictions between what is advised by organisations between different domains, between countries, and especially by independent people who simply have experience. Add to this that in the space of decades, recommendations groups have changed, sometimes quite dramatically. The idea of putting a light person on the end of a line simply to break the current is a relatively new idea, as is the “zipper” idea that I mentioned for more safely turning the group around mid-river. This means that even for people who have had some formal training, a person’s belief about the correct way to cross a river will often be a reflection on the time when they received that training, especially if they mostly go out on their own or in the same small group of friends.

Underlying the contradictions, however, there are many similarities which transcend specific techniques for getting across. For instance, virtually anyone I know who’s experienced around rivers would advise that it’s silly to even try crossing rivers in certain flooded states because it’s too dangerous. The occasional person, even some very experienced people, won’t follow their own advice for the usual reasons, but nearly everyone will say that attempting to cross flooded rivers is a bad idea under any circumstances.

It seems that much of the skill of crossing rivers when using any system is about identifying when you shouldn’t be crossing at all, and being assertive enough to not try. Other important factors that lie outside the specific techniques include things like choosing an ideal location to cross, and assessing what’s likely to happen if one or more people get swept off their feet, possibly taking the group down with them. (In other words, where will you end up down-stream, and is there anything to stop you?) Irrespective of the technique for crossing, these are the sorts of things that I think predominantly come with experience rather than any kind of instruction, even though instruction is likely to be an important guide. There’s no match for experience, and from a personal perspective I think the experience angle is what I really have to work on at the moment. These days when I’m out with people, I make a point to try and ask them questions about the decisions they’re making.

Changes to the creek outside
Triangle Hut after overnight rain.

Usually I think we’ve been perfectly fine and safe around rivers during trips that I’ve been involved in, and we’ve made good decisions. From time to time there’s a good experience that can be learned from, though. At these times, I think nearly all of the complications that have come up have been either directly or indirectly related to misunderstandings between the people involved. Common issues might be that people don’t necessarily understand what the overall plan is (which is exactly what happened when that guy grabbed the hip-belt of my pack causing it to come undone), when there’s no clear person leading the crossing, when not everyone clearly understands the intended role of themselves or others, when people are pressured into doing something they’re not confident of doing, and when it hasn’t even been made clear what the actual plan is. This assumes, of course, that there even is a plan. There’s more to it than just good leadership, too, since everyone has to take responsibility. In hindsight when I had concerns about the crossing conditions that I mentioned earlier, I probably should have taken aside the trip leader beforehand and discussed them.

I have often wondered if much of it is simply that there’s so much information out there which is inconsistent. Advised best practices change so frequently that it’s completely feasible to have four people in a party who all have different ideas about which way is “best”, and they’d all be correct in their own way. I’m not sure what can really be done about this because obviously it makes sense to keep examining whether current best practices can be improved upon. Furthermore with the evolution of available gear and technology that people have on-hand, it makes sense to expect that this may also have an effect on what are considered best practices in the future.