Last weekend Sam, Craig and myself were able to get through a Tararua Moonlight Southern Crossing. I wrote about an aborted attempt to do this jut over a year ago Craig and I were ready to go, but pulled out because it looked certain that the Tararuas would still be shrouded in cloud. A big storm was also coming 24 hours later that could have caused problems if we’d been held up for too long, and it proved to be really bad for a couple of people on the night following the one we planned. That was my first boycotted Moonlight Southern Crossing, and Craig’s third. There’s a tricky set of circumstances that have to come together, and at that point it’s necessary to be able to pick up and go on short notice.

This year, a departing southerly had dumped snow on the tops a day or so earlier, the stormy weather had since passed by, the sky was suspiciously clear (as opposed to clouds that so often dominate the Tararuas), and there was a Full Moon. All of these requirements for a Moonlight Southern Crossing came together at the same time, which is a rare event, and to top it off it was a weekend! And waiting on the road upstairs to be collected at 1pm on the Saturday, I had a phone call where Craig told me his car wouldn’t start. Flat battery.

Dates: 24th – 25th July, 2010
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Otaki Forks to Kaitoke.
People: Sam, Craig and me.
Huts visited: Field Hut (0 nights), Kime Hut (0 nights), Alpha Hut (0 nights)
Route: Otaki Forks up to Field Hut, past Table Top and Dennan to Kime Hut, over Field Peak, Hector, the Beehives, Atkinson, Aston, and Alpha to Alpha Hut, then through Hells Gate to Omega and allllllll the way along Marchant Ridge past Marchant and Dobson, then out at Kaitoke. (Actually out at Kiwi Ranch for our own convenience, which is next-door.)
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I find this type of thing notoriously difficult to pack for, because it’s not something i do very often. The Tararaua Southern Crossing is typically a 3 day tramp, but with some effort and fitness it’s feasible to walk it in a long summer’s day, or (in this case) a long winter’s night, albeit using some basic alpine skills. It helps a lot to reduce weight but I don’t like leaving behind safety equipment in the Tararuas, ever, or generally in back-country places. In the end we all took sleeping bags and bivy bags in case of emergency (but didn’t bother with a tent or any other kind of shelter), and I left behind a few luxuries like extra hut clothes and a ground sheet, and the food was much more biased towards lunch-type stuff. I threw in a few Moro bars purely for caffeine content. I think maybe I saved a few kilograms, even if it was hard to tell after a while. Adding the ice axe after all of this didn’t help with the weight thing, though.

Craig leaves Otaki Forks.

Fortunately Craig managed to get his car running with the help of a friendly neighbour, and having left town an hour later than planned, we were writing in the intentions’ book at Otaki Forks at about 4pm, all ready to leave. This meant a late afternoon start up to Field Hut. We were joking about how Craig was going to get his car back to town later — I’d informally agreed to drive him back to Otaki Forks the next day… maybe fairly late in the day, or on Monday evening after work. As we joked across the field near the junction leading off to Waitewaewae, a lone figure approached us on the way down from Field Hut. Sam and I were busy joking about how we should ask this person to drive Craig’s car back… would Craig trust a random person? Well, it turned out Craig did trust this random person, because as he got closer it turned out to be Spencer — a friend through the trampey club — and we not only trusted him but he was more than happy to drive Craig’s car home for him. Spencer had been up past Kime Hut during the day, but turned around after encountering some slippery conditions earlier in the day, not having wanted to keep going through that on his own. He’d not been able to get the door of Kime Hut open, which was frozen shut. Things may have changed through the afternoon, though, and although we’d not packed crampons we did have ice axes. We’d just have to go up and see what things were like — the opportunity was far too great to not try at all.

We waved goodbye to Spencer and continued on. With the crisp clear skies, and actually being a day before the real Full Moon, we saw the nearly full disc of the Moon above the eastern horizon as we climbed Judd Ridge. During our ascent as the Moon climbed higher, the Sun set in a brief wash of bright yellow and orange light through the leaves.

We made it most of the way to Field Hut by about 6.25pm, almost without torches but succumbing to their use in the last few minutes as the shadows under the trees became too dark to walk safely. Nobody was staying at the hut, which seemed surprising on the first weekend of really nice weather for a while. I wrote a brief note about our plans in the hut book, we re-filled water bottles, and immediately (but too late) discovered the water was contaminated with yucky toxins. Thanks a lot all you annoying people who burn your toxic rubbish in the fire places instead of carrying it out. What happens, of course, is the residue settles on the hut’s roof and runs into the water supply, so we basically had yucky barbecue water.

Looking down on the cloud
from near Table Top.

Anyway, it was too late to worry. Our water bottles remained full in case it was difficult to find later on. There would probably be tarns here and there, but chances are the tap at Kime would be frozen over by now. A short walk further up, and suddenly we were above the bush-line approaching Table Top, looking down on the clouds trapped in the valleys below us. There was still not much snow, the tussock was well frosted over. Things gradually changed as we climbed further past Bridge Peak, and by the time things flattened out the snow was more wide-spread. We mostly avoided the established ground trail at this point, which tended to be covered in ice and not as easy to walk on. Walking beside it through the tussock was fine, though. At 8.45pm we reached the sign-post on Hut Mound that claims Kime Hut is 15 minutes away. As Sam expressed, it’s about the fastest 15 minutes ever because by this time Kime Hut is an easy 5 minutes below, and that’s how long it took us.

Sam operates on the door latch.

The door was frozen shut, which is exactly what Spencer had warned us about earlier. With a closer look it turned out to be the bolt on the door that was the main problem, and the ice around the bolt was no match for Sam with an ice axe and a few minutes of careful sculpting. It was about lunch time by this point, and we pulled out some lunch-time snacks.

Kime actually felt warm inside at first, very unusual. Its reputation as a refrigerator is deserved. Thinking backwards I think the warmth was an illusion, with me having warmed up from the movement in getting here. With ten minutes of sitting down eating my solidified caffeine, I was definitely feeling the cold. As expected, the tap was frozen at Kime so I kept my toxic barbecue water. As Craig and I left, Sam kicked a hole through the ice in a small tarn (maybe a puddle) outside Kime Hut, and re-filled his bottle, but I was already wanting to get moving and warm up far too much to stop and unpack again. Sam caught up after a few minutes.

A very bright planet Venus hung in the western sky behind us as we left Kime to ascent Field Peak, and the Southern Cross sat roughly ahead of us. By now the Moon was fairly high in the sky and lighting our way, with no need whatsoever for torches. There was less snow that we expected, but the ground and was completely iced over. As we moved through the landscape, hundreds to thousands of glittery silver reflections of the Moon shimmered all over the ground around us.

Craig on Mt Hector.

The first slight awkwardness was really getting down the South Face of Field Peak, probably because the southerly would have left more snow on the southern sides of everything. As before we could still stick to the tussock for the most part, which provided much more stable support than the iced-over ground trail for shuffling down-wards. By 10.30pm, an hour after leaving Kime Hut, we stood at the memorial cross on top of Mt Hector that was placed by tramping clubs of Wellington to commemorate trampers and mountaineers who died during the Second World War. Icily-lit outlines of the nearby lower peaks and ridges surrounded us. Light claggy cloud wafted around and above, but still allowed through enough moonlight to let us see ghosts of the surrounding landscapes. Apart from the noise we made shuffling through the tussock, the air was

We sat for a while on Mt Hector.

Getting down the south face of Hector was similar to the south face of Field Peak, generally okay. I think the trickiest section was making our way over both sides of the Beehives, through which there were a couple of short zones where it was necessary to balance on rock covered in black ice. On one occasion I just went down a couple of metres in a controlled slide, which seemed the easiest way to go. The ice axes helped a lot here and I’m glad we brought them with us.

From there on we were at a lower elevation, the air around us was once again clear of any kind of clag, and the ridge-line was more flattened out. With less slow and less steep regions, slipping became less of a concern. For much of the rest of the night, however, I still had my ice axe out simply to use the spike for support, not wanting to completely trust the rocky parts of the track ahead. The snow, on the other hand, was fairly gritty and easy to walk on.

Craig waits on Aston Peak.

At 1.30am we sat on Aston, signposted as 2 hours from Alpha Hut and still surrounded by iced-over tussock. Venus was long gone over the western horizon by now, and to our left (later to be in front of us), another bright object which I presumed to be Jupiter was rising. The southern cross was now nearly standing on its head, having rotated nearly a third of the way around its celestial pole during the past 6 or 7 hours. We sat here for a while, not feeling especially motivated to get up and move quickly. Within about 15 minutes or so, however, we were up and on our way. Alpha Peak was clearly visible in the distance, chaperoned by a long Quoin Ridge leading down to the Hutt River. Behind it was a set of lights from somewhere out in the plains of the Wairarapa. Probably somewhere like Martinborough, but we didn’t check to be sure.

It still took us an hour to cover that distance, and by now the Moon was clearly beginning to fall from its high point in the sky. To the north-east I could see the constellation of Orion beginning to skim the northern horizon. I usually associate Orion with the summer night sky, and it’s unusual (for me at least) to see it in the winter like this. With it rising another 4 minutes earlier ever night, however, I guess it will be high in the sky during mid-evening by the time summer comes around. Sitting on Alpha Peak in the moonlight, I kicked a hole through the ice in a puddle, briefly considering replacing my toxic barbecue water that I’d been sipping since we left Field Hut, but decided not to when the murky mud surfaced amongst my access point through what had previously been a settled and shiny iced-over water point. Alpha Hut wasn’t too far away. Still, we briefly considered simply pulling out the bivy bags and sleeping bags and spending the night up on Alpha Peak. The conditions were perfect for it.

Fifteen minutes down from Alpha Peak, at 3.15am, we reconvened at the bush-line, a relatively short distance from Alpha Hut, which we reached about 10 minutes later. Craig quietly opened the door for a peek inside, as we didn’t want to disturb any inhabitants, but he soon declared that nobody was home and so we took some liberty in entering and relaxing for a while. I have to admit I was surprised that on a Saturday night during a weekend with the first near-perfect weather in some time for both a Saturday and Sunday in succession, we didn’t meet anyone in any of these three huts. I’d have thought there might be a few people getting up to the tops for the weekend. Perhaps they were all outside walking around in the moonlight as we were. From here we’d be leaving the tops, and heading down-hill on our way out. Feeling the need for some caffeine, I ate another Moro bar.

It was 4am by the time we left, needing to either stop properly or get moving, because it was increasingly cold just sitting around. The eastern direction from Alpha Hut leads through a dip called Hells’ Gate. I’ve been through it before on a Saturday afternoon in nice weather, having come up from Cone Hut and Bull Mound. At that time I didn’t really notice it as much more than a dip into a saddle followed by a climb, and I guess I was expecting something similar this time. Unfortunately this expectation was not quite so realistic when approaching the same section on the back of 12 hours of walking, and having had no sleep for 19 hours and counting. It just dropped and dropped, there was tree-fall, slippery areas, and it kept dropping steeply, and then we finally began to climb again. This took well over an hour, and at 5.25am we finally sat next to the DoC signpost at the top of the eastern side of the saddle, ready to head down Marchant Ridge.

I’ve never been along Marchant Ridge before, but it has a strong reputation that precedes it. The first time I visited Alpha Hut, page after page of the hut book was full of people declaring they’d experienced their worst tramp ever, or wasted a day of their life. John Pascoe, a well known mountaineer (and critic of the Tararuas) declared in his 1952 book “Land Uplifted High” that Marchant Ridge is up-hill in both directions. He may well have lifted this quote from the talk of the day — as Craig noted at the time we visited, the ridge has no less than 8 officially recognised spot-heights along it. I think the most potentially demoralising part of Marchant Ridge may be that it carries on for such a long distance just below the tree-line, ensuring that views of the surrounding landscape are limited, and ensuring that little progress is made in actually getting down.

Marchant Ridge is heavily walked because it’s the primary way into or out of the Tararua Southern Crossing — an honour that would likely have gone to the much nicer Quoin Ridge next-door if the Wellington Regional Council hadn’t usurped Quoin Ridge as part of an official water catchment zone, and limited access accordingly, completely preventing it for many decades and even now only allowing people to pass through without stopping.

I don’t want to sound too critical of Marchant Ridge. This visit beginning at 5am having had no sleep for almost a day was my first visit, and I was beginning to feel really tired, especially after Hells’ Gate. Thinking objectively though, it wasn’t really that bad. It’s a nice bush walk, and I think if some time I visited Marchant Ridge for some kind of Marchant Ridge Appreciation Tramp, I might find a lot of things to like about it. For one thing, given how the ridge spends so much time just below the bush-line, there’s a lot of walking through mossy goblin forest. Somehow Marchant Ridge reminded me of the times I’ve visited Nelson Lakes, in the sense that you can walk for a really long time and very little actually changes. If you’re the kind of person with a short attention span, then perhaps it’s not for you.

Signs of sunrise, 7.02am.

Anyway, Craig stepped in a hole somewhere near the beginning, aggravating a knee injury, and so we had a lot of time to take it in for what it was. Under the circumstance, feeling so tired, I was personally starting to wish Marchant Ridge would hurry up let us head down-hill so I could at least feel as if we were getting somewhere. Somehow this changed from about 7am onwards. The Sun began to rise, and suddenly it was daytime. We didn’t need head-torches any more, and I guess a switch flipped over in my brain telling me I didn’t need to feel tired any more. It was a new day, after all, and I’d usually be awake by this time. The objective part of my mind told me that this effect would likely wear off about mid-afternoon, at which point I might just collapse. We should be out by then.

Marchant Ridge has a few officially maintained side tracks that lead down to the Tauherenikau River. We passed the first of these off the first spot-height, called Omega (1118), and it’s a direct way down to Tutuwai Hut. The second, which we passed at about 7.15am, is known as the Block XVI (ie. Block 16) track, which retains its name from the days when tracks were named after the numbered segments into which the range was divided. I’m not sure what the reasoning is for the Block XVI track — on the map, it’s like a track designed to go from nowhere in particular (an anonymous point in a ridge with exit points on either side) to nowhere else really special. I may walk it some time to see where I end up, but at this time there’s not much motivation to walk 2/3 of the way along Marchant Ridge simply to go down again. I’m sure there’s a good reason why it’s still officially there, rather than having devolved into an interesting off-track navigation or hunting route as has happened with so many other old tracks.

Sam in one of the fire-affected
parts of Marchant Ridge.

Maybe one of the nicer things about Marchant Ridge, at least as I write this, is how the trees open up for a while, notably around Marchant Peak. The cleared section of the ridge is covered in regrowth but it’s not high enough to block the sunlight or obscure views. Apparently this is at least in part due to a major fire along the ridge some time ago. Maybe some frustrated exhausted person decided they’d try to burn the ridge down? I wouldn’t be too surprised. As we continued along the relatively open section of ridge during the clear and crisp mid-morning (now about 9.30am), we could easily see the basin of the Hutt Valley ahead of us, completely shrouded in very low and reflective fog. Behind it in the far distance, the towering snow-covered shape of Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku stood up from its location in the Inland Kaikoura Range of the South Island. It’s often visible from Wellington, but I don’t remember having seen it as dominant as this from the North Island. I guess it’s the altitude we were at that helped.

The Hutt Valley, Tapuae-o-Uenuku behind on the left.

Eventually the track leaves the main part of Marchant Ridge, veering south (from south-west heading downwards) as the structure of the spurs becomes more messy. It’s here that the elevation actually begins to drop, finally. At about 11.30am, we arrived at the track junction at the top of Dobson’s Loop, where an alternative track leads down to Smith Creek Shelter, and finally I was in a place where I’d been before. By now it was about 11.30am, and we were starting to think about how to get away from the dead end of Kaitoke. A taxi was the best bet for us, so we called ahead from here, intending to be down at the road within about an hour. (Hutt and City Taxis would get us from Kaitoke to the Upper Hutt Railway Station for about $50, which isn’t bad when split between three people.) Rather than go the full distance to the dead-end of Marchant Road, where teenagers burn out their cars on Friday nights, we decided to drop off to Kiwi Ranch. Kiwi Ranch is a Youth Camp, which incidentally will let people park their cars in a more secure area for a small fee. Even better, there’s an un-signposted (but very obvious) track that leaves the main track, about 10 minutes from the main road-end, and drops straight into Kiwi Ranch. Very handy.

Sam waits.

It turned out that in the state we were in, an hour wasn’t nearly enough time to get down to the road from the top of the Dobson Loop. Fortunately there’s still very good Vodafone reception from near Puffer Saddle, and we were able to call back and postpone the collection time for another hour. Finally, at around 1.15pm, we stepped out into the sunshine on the main driveway of Kiwi Ranch, with about another half hour to spare before our ride showed up.

And that was it. Tararua Moonlight Southern Crossing completed. Overall it took us 21 hours from start to finish, of which my GPS thinks we spent about 13 hours actually moving. This was about 4 or 5 hours longer than we’d anticipated, having expected to be walking out at around 8am or so, but that was fine. It was a nice day, and to be honest I just felt like sleeping. If and when I do it again, I think I’ll bring crampons. They’d not have been any use on this occasion, so we were lucky, but it was clear once we were there that had there been more snow than there was, there would have been several slopes that could have been tricky to cross, especially in the vicinity of Hector and on either side.

I guess I still haven’t grasped the main driving motivation behind walking a Moonlight Southern Crossing. I’m really glad I’ve done it, nevertheless. There are recurring stories of people doing this in the past, and it’s something for which the opportunity is quite rare with the combination of recent snow, calm clear weather, and a Full Moon. If the opportunity comes up and there’s an interest and ability, it’s best to grab it while it’s available as long as it can be done safely. Getting over the tops through the glittering snow in moonlight was a novel experience for me. On the other hand, it’s not as if it’s necessary to walk a Southern Crossing overnight to see snow glittering in moonlight. We could have simply gone up to Kime, walked around in circles in some kind of awe at 2am, and walked down again the following morning. The transport would have been easier, too. Maybe one of the rewards for me is also that I managed to get some new red line, never having walked a full Southern Crossing in the Tararuas before now. I guess if someone asks me from now on, I could say “yes, but not during the day”.

I’ll have to walk a Southern Crossing during the day some time and see what I’ve missed out on. Maybe I’ll also go back and take a better look at Marchant Ridge, without the lingering problem of it just being a frustratingly long conclusion to something else.

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.

A few times now, I’ve wondered just how many degrees of separation there are between people who visit New Zealand’s back-country. Maybe a few people know nearly everyone, and the whole network is very closely connected. Maybe there are geographically localised networks.

Dates: 12th – 13th June, 2010
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Walls Whare Road-end.
People: Steve, Megan B, Hans, Christine, Kevin and me.
Huts visited: Totara Flats Hut (1 night)
Planned route: Up past Cone Saddle, over Cone and down to Neill Forks for Saturday night. Then back up and around Totara Flats, back towards the road.
Actual route: Straight to Totara Flats for Saturday night, up over Cone and back to start.
[Photos]
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We chased rainbows through the roads of the Wairarapa, and rain finally began to come down on us as we arrived in the parking area at the road-end of Walls Whare. There’s a nice camping area here, but it’d be somehow silly to use it this time given we were arriving at around 9.30am on a Saturday morning. Being a trip organised on behalf of our trampey club, our group consisted of Steve, myself, Megan, Hans, Christine and Kevin — a chap who mostly goes out with the Alpine Club whom Christine had managed to rope in on short notice. Apart from Christine, none of us had met Kevin before, but going tramping with people is a great way to meet people.

Our intent was to get in to Neill Forks Hut for the evening, which I was looking forward to because I haven’t been there before. We shared our van with another trampey club group of people coordinated by Megan S, and their idea was just to walk to Totara Flats alongside the river, stay for the night and walk back. As we drove up a couple of TTC members were about to leave, taking a retired Search and Rescue dog for a walk in to Tutuwai and back to Cone. This was good weather for tramping, despite the rain setting in.

As often happens, I took a little while to get my things sorted, and eventually found myself running over the swing bridge that crosses the Waiohine Gorge, flapping around as I sorted out my pack, camera now firmly attached. The others were waiting on the far side, having been away from the van two or three minutes before myself. We all left the far side as soon as I arrived, heading along the relatively obvious track and hoping to soon be at Cone Saddle. I had a strange moment there glancing at the end of the bridge, wondering if maybe everything wasn’t quite right. It was just a little rain . . . great tramping weather. As the minutes wore on, we discovered that Kevin wasn’t so unknown to us after all. Soon after we left, Hans had an enlightened moment where he exclaimed something like “ah, you’re that Kevin”. It turns out they’d anonymously come across each other a few weeks ago.

Within twenty or thirty minutes we’d spread out somewhat. It wasn’t a bad track, actually, gentle sidle above the Waiohine moving in and out of the trees and with the occasional view out over the Waiohine below. That was the problem, actually, and maybe why something hadn’t seem quite right. We weren’t going up, and surely we shouldn’t be anywhere near the Waiohine at all.

Kevin, Christine and I found and consulted each other near the back of the group, wondering if there was something wrong. Pulling out and checking a map, it became apparent that yeah, we certainly shouldn’t be where we were. Oops. A minute or two of continuing and we soon caught up with the others, who were having similar thoughts. This was certainly a problem, and it was about now I had one of those enlightening “ah yeah” moments, during which memories flooded back of the three previous times I’ve been to Cone Saddle. On every one of those occasions, the track went straight up a spur leading directly off the end of the bridge. The most recent time hadn’t even been that long ago. Some quickly performed in-the-head logic suggested that the track junction we were after would probably have been exactly where it was a year previously, which was more or less where we’d started from. Somehow we’d wandered off the end of the massive Waiohine Gorge swing bridge and missed a major junction.

As an aside, I’d like to note that some people would call this a “navigation” error, and possibly even an idiotic and embarrassing one. I wouldn’t. If you never tried to navigate, it can’t possibly be a navigation error, after all. If anything it was just a small mis-judgement of vectors that mis-placed us a little. Consequently instead of directing ourselves towards Cone Saddle and eventually Cone Peak (which should have been more vertically inclined), we were gracefully sidling towards Totara Flats.

Our first order of business was to decide how to avoid embarra creating disorientation and confusion for other groups of people enjoying the range. Obviously back-tracking to walk straight into Megan S’s group behind us was out of the question — they would have been very confused, possibly even dying of confoundedness on seeing us re-appear. Assessing our situation, we could probably divert up an alternative route to Cone Saddle, the base of which we’d yet to reach, but it’d be a big diversion that would take longer. In the end we decided to press on to Totara Flats, and possibly continue up and around the long way to Neill Forks Hut if we had time. Even if we stayed at Totara Flats, we’d have a while to get our story figured out before Megan and co showed up.

Kevin and Megan at Makaka Creek.

Pleasant Tararua rain continued to fall, but not so much as to flood the side creeks and prevent us from getting to our newly chosen destination. We wore raincoats, but were also under trees in general. Exposure to wetness was only average for the Tararuas. Good tramping precipitation. The route this way towards Totara Flats has at least a couple of significantly sized side-creeks that may flood dangerously — Clem Creek and Makaka Creek (aka Long Flat Creek), although neither was very full at this point. The main Waiohine River was high enough, however, for us to decide on the high water route around the slip two thirds of the way along. Having a hill to climb was rather a nice change, even if it was only for a short distance. The far side of the slip leads into a third creek on the southern end of Totara Flats, unnamed as far as I know, which is also prone to flooding and I’ve seen it in the past in a state which I wouldn’t enter it, but today, as we found on reaching it at about 12.30pm (three hours after starting), it was still perfectly crossable.

Totara Flats, and the site of the (newer)
old hut towards the back left.

We eventually drifted along the approximately 2.5 kilometre length of pretty river flats, sparkling with lively grasses and generally photogenic as places often are in the rain. The site of the old Totara Flats Hut lies part way along here, towards the back of the flats in a raised section. It was moved a few years back due to a determined flooding risk, I think, and is now reduced to a few sheets of corrugated iron left in the trees. The area now seems to make a popular campsite, being raised above the rest of the flat. The naming and positioning of Totara Flats Hut can be confusing when comparing different maps. Some maps label the now-missing hut as the “new Totara Flats” hut, as it was new when it was built as recently as the 1970s. The really new (and current) Totara Flats hut is back where the very old Totara Flats hut used to be, a few hundred metres further north, opposite the confluence between the Waiohine and Totara Creek, and very close to the bridge over the Waiohine. Some maps still label the location as the “old” Totara Flats hut, including the map on my GPS which is based on late-1990s data from LINZ.

Hans and Megan arriving.

Within a minute or two of us walking into Totara Flats Hut, the rain started persisting down with real cats and dogs force. Perhaps it was just the verandah amplifying the rain. Still, overall, a good Tararua day and great tramping weather. We’d walked in at about the same time as a trio of people from the Hutt Valley Tramping Club, who’d come from the Holdsworth Road end, and had a chatter with them. It turned out Kevin knew a couple of them really well through the alpine club.

By now it was lunch time, but we still needed to decide what to do from here, and if necessary get our story figured out before the others showed up. Being situated in a large cosy hut like Totara Flats with rain hammering on the corrugated plastic roof does strange things to people’s judgement which are sometimes difficult to understand. Weighing the prospects of staying against the prospects of continuing towards Neill Forks, possibly walking the final hour in the dark (being a week or so before the shortest day and everything), we elected to sacrifice travel in the good tramping rain and remain here for the night. Kevin’s declaration that he’d been to Neill Forks a few weeks before, and that it was a dank and soppy hole in the ground, or something to that effect, sealed the deal. His description reminded me of an entry I’d seen in the book at Powell Hut on the late Saturday morning of a few weeks before, of a group that’d left to go up Holdsworth in yucky weather before heading down to Neill Forks. Okay, so he was that Kevin, as I confirmed with him. I guess you quite often run into the same people in the hills.

With the decision now made, I quickly snatched my favourite Totara Flats bunk, which is the top level bunk next to the window overlooking the Waiohine River. Last time I was here I’d spent some time gazing out the window waiting to see a large tree or two floating past. That had been great Tararua tramping weather, too. This time we’d not had as much rain as last time.

Kevin and Christine fighting
with a crossword.

Steve also hovered towards the bunk room, but in his case it was to hide himself away in his sleeping bag for a snooze. We waited and waited for Megan S’s group to show up, and as time went on Christine eventually roped us all into helping with her crossword puzzles, which took a while. I read a few more pages in my book, and as we waited we were joined by another single person from the direction of Walls Whare. It turned out she was someone Steve knew through his work, and I guess the degrees of separation are rather small in the tramping world.

The Waiohine went up and down with the showers, rising and falling, speeding up and slowing down very noticeably during the several hours as we waited. One of the Hutt Valley club guys was paying close attention to it, and kept us updated as to the state of the marker rocks he was watching over in Totara Creek as it poured into the far side of the Waiohine. In the space of a few hours, Totara Creek rose by perhaps 30 centimetres, and then dropped by the same amount. The main river was certainly full enough to be a dangerous crossing for the whole time we were there, but not as flooded as it could be. Earlier as we’d coasted along the flats, I think I’d been able to see the stones below the water within a metre or so of the river’s edge. I suppose there probably hadn’t been enough rain in the past few days to fully saturate the soil, and the river levels were much more reactionary to heavy showers passing over the catchment than they would have been after a few days of persistent rain.

As for getting our story straight, we didn’t really. I think it was some kind of justification about having decided to come this way around our loop in case the creeks were flooded by the following day. Whatever it was, it was enough to satisfy Megan S and her associates. They showed up about three or four hours after we had, having coped with some higher side creeks, I suspect. They weren’t too late to help with some of the harder parts of the crosswords. Before long we were chopping veggies, figuring out how to open tins of tuna without a can opener, and eventually Steve slunk out of bed and cooked a nice Green Curry meal, which was topped off by some kind of cream and apricot on ginger cake dessert whipped up by Hans. Good food by all accounts.

I took a look outside and counted three stars in various directions, generally through cloud, and the rain continued to clatter on the corrugated plastic verandah. On announcing the stars when I returned indoors, Kevin raced outside appearing quite enthused, soon returning with a muted look of disgust on his face. Maybe I hadn’t been descriptive enough. I slunk into bed at around 8pm, I think. It was dark out side and the rain continued to clatter on the roof. Classic tramping rain.

Me, Hans, Steve, Megan, Kevin and Christine.

We’d discussed our options for Sunday, which amounted to either walking out the quick way (side-creeks allowing), or following around the loopy way up to and along Code Ridge. The second option had won convincingly, with nobody really wanting to go back the way we came, and we estimated it’d probably take about 7 hours looking at the topology and using standard group timing metrics. It was about 9am by the time we left, after a relatively casual pulling together of things. I’m fairly sure Steve would have won any competition of the most sleep at Totara Flats that weekend, having clocked up around 16 hours as we figured out. He must have been very tired, but didn’t hold anyone up. I killed some time as people got ready by going out to find some firewood, having felt somewhat guilty about not having contributed much to the HVTC people’s effort to keep the fire going the previous evening.

Christine clambering around the track.

During our climb up to Cone Ridge, which starts steeply, the rain continued. It looked as though it could be rather cold higher up, but I was one of the few to take a gamble and stick with only wearing my shorts, and no thermal long-johns just yet — I sometimes find I can get very uncomfortably hot otherwise, I guess. Cone Ridge becomes a more shallow climb at around 600 vertical metres, and in several places we found ourselves clambering around small ponds and bogs that had collected on what might normally have represented a track.

Two hours after we left, we passed the turn-off that would have led down to Neill Forks Hut, but nobody felt like running down the hill to take a photo proving we’d been there. An hour later we found a smidgen of snow, indicative of the relatively cold temperatures at this higher elevation.

We were sleeted on through the trees as we approached Cone, and I finally caved in and got my overtrousers and balaclava on. It wasn’t windy, though. Just great Tararua weather. As we approached the wacky antenna thingee on Cone some time after midday, which the most obvious route avoids by about 100 metres, the sleet even let up and allowed us to see some of the surrounding range in relative comfort as it hovered in the midst of the glinting cloud that settled in the valleys. Still quite cold, and kind of murky, but also very cool. It was nicer than last time I was here, when the wind chill made things less comfortable. We celebrated, each having a toffee pop. Cone Peak (1080m) lies just above the bush-line, and the three-way route junction is marked by a standard 3-way DoC signpost. I was the last to head back down into the trees, and took a minute just for myself.

Looking towards Alpha, Aston and Hector.

The track from Cone Peak down to Cone Saddle is a fairly normal walk down a spur in the Tararuas, offering the occasional vantage point to gaze out towards much higher peaks such as Alpha and Aston and Hector to the west. That part of the range, up to 500 metres higher than Cone, was well covered in a white blanket of snow, and made a good sight despite also being blanketed by cloud. As we descended, Kevin explained how he was now up to his seventeenth day in the Tararuas, and had been rained on every time. This contradicts my own experience. Still, I think we’d timed our visit to Cone Peak nearly perfectly despite the amount of rain. The cloud had parted, albeit briefly, during the short time we’d spent above the bush-line and had made for a relatively pleasant visit. Awesome Tararua Weather. With the rain holding off, I even managed to remove my raincoat for a while.

There are a couple of notes about this particular spur that come to mind, from Cone Peak down to Cone Saddle. The first is that I was in a group where we saw a kaka screeching and flapping in the trees around here a couple of years back. By itself this would not be significant because I’m sure kakas get to many random places, and they’re known to live in the Tararuas. I think someone up the front of our group on this occasion also mentioned seeing a kaka, though, so perhaps there’s a kaka or two that especially likes this region. The second note that comes to mind is that although my relatively modern map only shows the two “official” maintained tracks down to Cone Hut… the first directly off Cone Saddle and the second from slightly further down… Kevin’s map showed a third track labelled as the Block XIX track, heading down the spur from spot-height 812 directly towards Cone Hut. I forgot to look out for the likely starting point of this route, but it could make a fun navigation exercise some day.

Cone Saddle is easily recognisable.

We re-grouped at Cone Saddle at 1.30pm or so, an hour after our visit to Cone Peak and probably about 4 horizontal kilometres of travel back to the Waiohine Gorge bridge. Cone Saddle is within reasonable reach of a Friday night walk, which was nice to know for me at least. As we dropped further, nearing the road, the weather situation changed quite suddenly. Within minutes, the ambience of light below the tree canopy dramatically diminished, and soon more rain set in. This was a fresh southerly front finally on its way through, but fortunately not one we’d need to spend a lot of time enduring. Overall we spent about 2 hours getting down to the road from Cone Saddle, a journey that becomes fairly steep and slippery near the bottom. We emerged at the bridge from the opposite direction to where we’d headed the previous day’s morning, somehow amused to re-discover the track junction we’d walked straight past, and quickly made our way back to the van where Megan S and three others had been waiting for about 90 minutes. It took us about 6.5 hours in the end, so thankfully our estimate hadn’t been too far off.

The Waiohine from above.

There are many things I think I enjoyed about this trip. I was able to see the Waiohine River, one of my favourite Tararua rivers, in relative flood once again. I still haven’t seen it much close-up out of flood, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I like it so much. I also got to climb up a hill, which was fun and rewarding as usual. Oh, and I’ve now met Kevin, which seems to put me less degrees of separation away from knowing many more people who visit the back-country.

Things began with an idea of a weekend expedition over the Tararua tops to Tarn Ridge Hut. Somehow, even with the weather cooperating for such an idea, things didn’t quite work out that way. It was the opposite, and we spent the majority of our time navigating off-track below the bush line.

Dates: 7th – 9th May, 2010
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Kiriwhakapapa Road-end.
People: Illona, Richard and me.
Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night), Mitre Flats Hut (0 nights), Mid King Biv (1 night)
Planned route: Up to Blue Range Hut for Friday night, over to Cow Creek, navigate up to Table Ridge, along around Mitre and Girdlestone, and to Tarn Ridge Hut for Saturday night. Down over Mitre, then up Donald Spur and past Blue Range Hut back down to the road.
Actual route: Up to Blue Range Hut for Friday night, over Te Mara and down Donald Spur to Mitre Flats, then up to Mid King Biv for Saturday night. Back to Mitre Flats, up onto Blue Range near Stoney Creek, along to Bruce Hill and down a spur to the south-east to the old bush tram track that leads back to the road.
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Originally there were going to be four of us, but Paul unfortunately had to drop out with a foot problem, which left Richard, Illona and Myself. We stopped for a Friday night dinner at Carterton, which has a fabulous kebab shop, then continued to the Kiriwhakapapa road-end. Along the way we discussed the original plan, which would have been to walk from Kiriwhakapapa to Cow Creek, up to Table Ridge, along to Girdlestone, and then on to Tarn Ridge Hut… then come down over Mitre and up Donald Spur (a more direct way back to Blue Range Hut) on Sunday. The more we thought about it, the more that this idea seemed to be skimming the edges of available daylight at this time of year. Consequently, we thought we might try doing it in reverse instead, which would make Saturday the longer day.

The Tararua Main Range
under a blanket of cloud.

By about a quarter past eight, we’d begun our walk up to Blue Range Hut, eventually to arrive at about 10pm. The solar powered lights are back, which is nice, given they’d vanished last time I visited — perhaps they were just out for maintenance.

With a long day in mind for Saturday, we were up about 6.30am, and out the door at a quarter past seven to walk past morning views of a sliver of cloud sitting on top of the Tararua Main Range. Our 7.15am departure might have allowed enough time for our day’s plan, except that we had more trouble than anticipated in finding the top of Donald Spur — the spur to the north of Donald Stream that heads west of Te Mara (1104), and a known short-cut down to the Waingawa River and Mitre Flats. The informal route up to Te Mara is marked off the main track up from Blue Range Hut with a ribbon tied to a tree branch, but after this we muddled around for some time, and possibly wasted about an hour in confirming we were actually walking down the right thing.

Illona near the top of Donald Spur.

The delay wasn’t too bad in essence. All three of us have done reasonable amounts of off-track navigation, but none had been in a proper position of responsibility. I think the experience helped to boost everyone’s confidence because we all knew that decisions we made would actually have consequences. We did eventually find the top of Donald Spur, having back-tracked to Te Mara peak, which we’d originally sidled around (trying to be smart). Then we just trusted the bearing to let us sidle up the side, making sure the terrain around us matched what was expected, and eventually confirming with the GPS just to be sure we were correct about our assumptions. Once on Donald Spur things were fairly easy going, although there was more tree-fall than I would have expected given how often I’ve heard it’s used. The tree-fall might be left-over from a storm a year or three back, and maybe not completely cleared out.

Tree-fall on Donald Spur.

Richard crossing the Waingawa.

Donald Spur drops into Donald Stream, a couple of hundred metres in from the Waingawa River. We reached the Waingawa at about 11.20am, which is probably about an hour and forty minutes after we’d become confident we were near the top of the right spur. After a five minute stop for a snack, we crossed the Waingawa (which was running very low) and carried on for a little over an hour along the main track towards Mitre Flats from the direction of Cow Creek. By now we were really starting to realise that we’d need to hoof it if we were going to get up Mitre, around Girdlestone and on to Tarn Ridge Hut before dark. It isn’t a terribly nice track. incidentally. Very muddy in a few places, and also just one of those tracks that weaves around the inside of little gullies, involves clambering over logs, and other annoying little things that make it slightly slower than might otherwise appear. The LINZ map data also doesn’t clearly indicate that much of this track also sidles fairly high above the Waingawa. (To be fair, however, it possibly does show the track on the appropriate side of the contour lines if you look closely enough.)

Arriving at Mitre Flats.

It was lunch time, about half twelve, as we walked into Mitre Flats. Very coincidentally, within a minute of us walking up, two guys arrived from the direction of the Pines — it turned out to be Adrian and Robert, both of whom we knew. It’s a small country, I guess. They’d camped at Kiriwhakapapa last night (apparently turning up after we left, and they’d seen our car), then driven back to The Pines entrance, and were now on their way to walk to Cow Creek Hut and eventually meet up with the car they’d left at Kiriwhakapapa. As for ourselves, we were beginning to have doubts about whether we still wanted to go all the way up to Tarn Ridge. With a little over four hours of reasonable daylight remaining after we’d finished lunch, standard metrics suggested it could take us about 3.5 hours just for the 1100 metre climb up to Mitre, before carrying on around Girdlestone. The area wasn’t familiar to any of us, and if we were lucky we’d be walking up to Tarn Ridge Hut with torches on the edge of darkness. To add to this, we were having some doubts about the length of time it might take to navigate down to Cow Creek Hut on Sunday, especially if we ran into similar problems as that morning, and once we finally did get down we’d have at least another four hour walk ahead of us.

Illona had a rather good idea, though, of going up for a look at Mid King Biv. It hadn’t been obvious at first, because Mitre Flats is one of those areas that’s on the edge of all the maps. Once we were looking at the correct maps, however, and had some time to absorb the idea, it looked feasible and interesting. Mid King Biv is named after Middle King Peak (1521) underneath which it sits. It’s sheltered just below the bush-line and accessible from the tops, but (it turns out) is also very accessible from a spur that leads up from the confluence between Baldy Creek and South Mitre Stream — just south of Mitre Flats Hut. With this in mind, we wrote some notes in the Mitre Flats hut book about our adjusted plans, convinced Adrian and Robert to leave a note on the car after they walked out, and (eventually) Illona would send out a text message to inform our emergency contact. With the new plan, we wouldn’t be able to walk out the original route, either, so we made alternative plans to come back to Mitre Flats the following day, and find another off-track route over Blue Range.

Studying maps around
South Mitre Stream.

At 1.30pm we began walking straight up the South Mitre Stream, beginning from the small bridge that leads towards Atiwhakatu Hut, but we soon found an easier ground-trail on the true right. After a small (but obvious) creek shown on the map, there’s an informal marker tied to a tree about 5 metres up Baldy Creek from the confluence. Inside the trees, it’s a short hop up a slope, then a cairn. After this, although we continued to have maps and compasses out for most of the climb, things are relatively easy heading up the spur on what is often a well-defined ground trail. We decided it was probably safer to stick with the ground trail when we could, as long as it didn’t suddenly veer away, since it looked as if the contour lines get rather close in a couple of places. At a high enough point, Illona was able to get out a text message to indicate our adjusted plans.

Things gets tangly nearer the height of Mid King Biv, above about 1000 metres. Apparently Mid King Biv was quite difficult to find until very recently, but it’s now quite well marked off the main route along the spur since a couple of years ago. At first we reached a point where we could stick our heads out on the Baldy Creek side of the spur, and noticed a couple of cairns, but they might have indicated an older track or a less common route around that side. After pushing around a lot, Illona spotted one of those giant orange Department of Conservation triangles up ahead, and we found it much easier to reach by going back under the trees and continuing to bash our way through. The triangle primarily indicates where a short, DOC-marked track leads off to the Biv, which is obscured just below the bush line and not very visible from far away. It’s also necessary (or at least sane) to follow this route a short distance to continue going up, since otherwise there’s no obvious way straight ahead.

Turning off the spur to Mid King Biv.

Mid King Biv.

We reached Mid King Biv at about 4.30pm, and it’s cute. We filled a handy bucket from the stream behind the biv. There’s a good space for camping out front, and a nice fire pit in an area that would be sheltered from the wind coming over the ridge. The biv itself is basically just a box, with 2 mattresses — one of which sits on a platform about 20 cm above the floor. I lifted the lid of the platform to find a scummy old billy, and a few sheets of broken glass that looked as if they might once have been in the small solitary window on the end opposite the door. The hut book’s very cool. It dates back to 1999, and is probably only about 20% full. It looked as if someone might visit every month or two, although some people certainly don’t write in the book. The person who’d come down from here and written in the Mitre Flats book the day before certainly hadn’t.

It also makes some of the bureaucracy that surrounds back-country recreation fairly obvious. When a hut is so small and remote, the three required signs that cover DoC’s perceived legal liabilities really stand out. On opening the one and only door of the biv, we were greeted with a proportionally large FIRE EXIT sign, which mostly overlapped the standard DoC “environmental care code” sign to make it look as if the environmental care code ends where the FIRE EXIT is. Below the two of them was the giant sign stating “DANGER — Only use your gas stove in ventilated parts of the hut!”, never minding that there aren’t any unless you have your stove running in the middle of the fire exit. Completing the lower section of the door was the regular sign to say “WARNING — the water we provide here is probably okay!”. Incidentally, the water is provided by the Department of Conservation’s well-engineered and very natural looking stream behind the biv that’s a tributary to Baldy Creek down below. All of these signs are spaced on the door of a box in which it’s not possible to stand up straight.

The base temperature on Saturday night wasn’t too bad, but there was a lot of wind chill coming over the ridge and down to meet us, which made things uncomfortable when sitting outside to prepare dinner. We spent most of the time wrapped up well to keep off the light but icy breeze. Illona did most of the preparation of Paul’s green curry recipe, which worked nicely, and then produced an interesting dessert based around berries, chocolate, and some weird kind of spongy italian biscuit. Very nice.

Nobody felt like camping. Once the dishes were out of the way, we squeezed into the biv, abandoning the second mattress to lean it against the wall. Richard and I head-to-tailed on thermarests on what remained of the floor. We also briefly made more specific plans for getting out on Sunday. Plan 1 would be to cross the Waingawa opposite Mitre Flats, then attempt to get straight onto Blue Range. Plan 2 would be to find a route up to Lookout Point (on Blue Range) which Richard had come down about a week before. Plan 3, if the first 2 failed, would be to go back up Donald Spur to Te Mara, and down past Blue Range Hut. If we were really in trouble, plan 4 would result in a long and tedious day following the main track out to Cow Creek, then up past Blue Range Hut.

As we extinguished our torches and darkness enveloped the interior of the tiny box, I noticed for the first time that those Department of Conservation FIRE EXIT signs glow in the dark! For the entire night, every time I opened my eyes to what might otherwise be total blackness, I could bathe in the warm glow of the FIRE EXIT merely 2 metres from my face. It continued to glow just as clearly at 6am.

Departing under the
Main Range.

On Sunday morning, we were once again up at 6.30am, but this time things took a little longer to arrange and we weren’t away until an hour later. Following the initial part of the track that sidles around the main range ridge from the biv and back to the spur, we initially began to follow it upwards by accident towards the main range, but soon noticed our mistake and headed back into the trees to where we’d come. We mostly followed the ground trail to get down, although we probably relied on maps and compasses more frequently than on the way up. The spur broadens in a couple of places which resulted in a few minutes here and there of searching around to find the optimal way down without going too far from our bearing.

Baldy Creek as it meets
South Mitre Stream.

It was 9.20am when we reached the confluence of South Mitre Stream and Baldy Creek, and 30 minutes later, after some shuffling around on the edge of the stream trying to figure out just how far the ground trail on the true right went, we were back at Mitre Flats Hut to note in the book that we’d passed through again. After this we backtracked to the main bridge over the Waingawa, and quickly found our route up to Blue Range.

The proper spur that we’d had in mind starts at Stoney Creek and heads a little north of east, but we didn’t follow that far because there’s an informal track that begins from behind a big obvious sign. In one direction the sign points towards Mitre Flats, in the other direction it points towards the road (The Pines). At first glance it seems fairly pointless having this sign at all, given that it only offers a backwards and forwards option, and most people probably want to go to wherever they didn’t come from. On closer inspection, it probably exists because directly behind the sign, a third informal ground trail climbs the hill and it stands out very well. I think this is what remains of the track to the old Mitre Flats bridge, which was further along the river, and we even saw an old orange marker some way along it. Apparently there’s also an unmaintained and rougher track along the river, so there may be some connection.

In any case, we followed this ground trail for a few minutes looking for an obvious route up the hill, based on vague memories I had of doing something similar about three years ago. The trail mostly runs parallel above the river, but we spotted a few options for heading up-wards and soon decided on one roughly opposite the hut, just north of the top of a slip, at least as we discerned later once we’d figured out what spur we were on. This took us up a small bubble of a spur heading south-east, almost at right angles to the main spur, and briefly well defined at about the 500 metre contour. There was even an occasional axe-blaze chunk taken out of the odd tree, and we figured that as we couldn’t possibly go past the initially planned spur (one would think) we may as well follow it, and they eventually met nearer the top. After a brief sit-down followed by a little extra climbing, we found ourselves on the southern-most of the two nearby spot-heights at 865 metres. It was nice to be on Blue Range.

The main Blue Range ridge has a ground trail along much of it which, if you don’t mind sharp Totara branches regularly slapping you in the knees, and occasionally face, is superior in many ways to some of the more official tracks around the Tararuas. (The one I mentioned earlier near Mitre Flats comes to mind.) We pushed north along the range towards Bruce Hill (975), taking guesses every so often at where we were, and confirming with the GPS once we’d placed our bets. The range veers to the north-east as it nears Lookout Point (725), which we didn’t visit because it’s off to one side but which is reportedly not a very impressive lookout point, but is the top of another common route down to the Waingawa River. Very soon after Lookout Point, the going became much tougher and more overgrown. It was still very doable and there’s still a ground trail, but things were certainly slower. After a kilometre of bashing and climbing, we arrived at a small plateau just south of Bruce Hill to stop for a snack, maybe ten minutes before 1pm.

From here we’d had an approximate idea to navigate down a wonky spur to the east, then south-east, into Mikimiki Stream, and I hopped up to the top of Bruce Hill, about 100 metres north, to calibrate the altimeter. We debated for a little while about exactly where to go to find our east-ward spur. I managed to confuse myself because there’s a very well defined, and marked, ground trail that heads south-east off the plateau, which I thought might twist eastwards soon after it left. I think Illona had it most correct when she suggested we’d need to simply push eastwards off the plateau and follow a bearing, even though it wasn’t very well defined at a first impression. In the end, we looked at the time of day and considered there were only a few hours of daylight remaining, and followed the markers, leaving at about 1.10pm or thereabouts.

It quickly became obvious that the markers were leading us straight south-west down a spur towards spot-height 535 and onto the same old tram-line track we’d have been aiming for anyway, albeit a few kilometres further from our destination. We knew from past ventures, however, that the tram track was very fast, and figured we may as well just hit it further back, possibly adding half an hour or an hour to what we might have otherwise had to walk out. It’s actually a really well defined and easy to walk hunters’ trail down that spur. It’s marked frequently with blue milk bottle caps and white plastic covered in reflective tape, and even hops out onto rocky knolls between the dracophyllum for short stints, affording some nice views of the surroundings both out towards the Wairarapa, and in towards the Main Range. Overall it’s far superior in quality to many official tracks, and we hit the main track a little before 3pm. Not too long after, about 4.15pm or so, we stepped back out to Kiriwhakapapa Shelter where we’d left the car.

What a great weekend. As places go, the Blue Range in the Tararuas isn’t a bad place to get lost. There’s not a lot to fall off, there are plenty of spurs going to interesting places, and it’s on the side of the range more sheltered from the rain coming off the sea to the west, which among other things makes it just a little easier to push through the bush, and probably to find a reasonable campsite if necessary.

It’s strange that our initial plan had involved little if any navigation, because I think this is perhaps one of the most worthwhile navigation trips I’ve had so far. All three of us had done some off-track stuff in the past, but none of us was too confident beforehand. Realising that we were all about equal with navigation skills, I think, helped us all to take the responsibility more seriously and it was a good confidence booster. As Illona pointed out, we each tended to look at similar problems in different ways, and it helped to learn from each other without immediately having to feel as if one person was more of an expert and authoritative over anyone else. I’m hoping I have an opportunity to get out on a similar trip again some time.

Sitting in the claustrophobic corner of our van, also known as the back seat, I’m struggling to keep my dinner down. We stopped some time earlier at Levin, where I visited one of my favourite feeds for Friday nights, Thai Taste Express. Very unusually, I couldn’t even get through all my dinner. I have a theory that a lack of sleep over the past few days has played badly with my system, and it would also explain my headache. Most vans aren’t made for a nice back-seat experience, especially not on windy unsealed country roads. We’re aiming for possums every couple of minutes though, so hopefully something good is coming out of it for New Zealand. Eventually we’re at the end of Renfrew Road below Rangiwahia. Stepping outside, into the rain, I suddenly feel much more able. The fresh air certainly helps.

Dates: 30th April – 2nd May, 2010
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia Road-end.
People: Alistair, Hans, Mika, Pete, Bernie and me.
Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (2 nights)
Route: Walk up to Rangiwahia, go for a wander around the tops, then down Dead Man’s Track.
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It’s about a quarter past ten in the evening when we begin our walk up by torchlight, and will be a further hour and forty minutes before we reach Rangiwahia Hut, situated just over the bush-line at 1300 metres above sea level. Along the way, I notice that what was by far one of the Department of Conservation’s best ever signs (the “Worst Is Over” sign that used to decorate the top of the detour around the major slip) has disappeared, either removed or taken by someone who wanted a souvenir. Near our destination, I begin to feel queasy again which may not be a good sign. We arrive, however, and the only occupant on this Friday evening is the one person we were expecting to find, who’d driven down from Tauranga to join a trip that Sam was organising, and this helpfully means we don’t need to be as discrete when settling in.

Sam and two others plan to head over to Howletts tomorrow, which is more than the rest of us will probably be bothered with. Alistair had an idea that if Saturday was perfect, we might drop packs and coast around the tops on a daywalk over Te Hekenga, Sawtooth, down into the valley and then up to Pourangaki, then back to Rangiwahia. Alistair calls this idea a “womble over the tops”, which translates to meaning whatever we feel like doing at the time. It would be extraordinarily optimistic. As the rain continues to splatter on the roof, which (by the way) is consistent with the heavy rain warnings for the weekend, it seems extraordinarily unlikely. I packed a big fat hard-cover library book before I left home. It’s great to get out again, though. For me, this is the first time for a couple of months — the first time back to the Ruahines for over a year, and I’ve missed it.

Early, but not too early, on Saturday morning, Sam and his two chums awake and rattle around. From what I can see of the light shining through the windows, it’s still fairly yuck outside. Being able to just lie here for a change, without concern about getting up to leave, is actually quite nice. I find my book and browse a few pages, and meanwhile Sam figures out the exact plan so we’ll know where to collect them tomorrow afternoon. They’ll be coming somewhere off Toka and meeting us at a car-park down that way at 3pm, which should give us plenty of time. They leave, which is motivation to finally rub my eyes and slink off the mattress under the window, then search for my breakfast which has been hanging up (away from rats) since last night. I’m feeling much better now. The sleep seems to have helped a lot.

Bernie, Mika, Hans, Alistair
and Pete ready to go.

It’s still raining outside, but other than that things aren’t too bad. We’re not prepared to be anywhere except here tonight, but everyone’s keen to get out and do something. After all, as Bernie put it, we could think of it as just a little liquid sunshine. It’s around a quarter to nine in the morning when we eventually leave, walking the only obvious direction from Rangiwahia Hut that isn’t back down the way we came. This means a walk of roughly an hour along the slowly elevating ridge. The chin-deep ditch, as it starts out, reduces to a knee-deep ditch after a while. Just in case there’s any doubt about which direction most people will want to go, someone’s even built a tidy little cairn next to the ditch about four fifths of the way there. We eventually arrive at a well-frequented track junction that offers a choice of heading down Deadman’s Ridge (again to where we started) or further into the range, towards peaks like Maungamahue (1661)

Alistair above Rangiwahia.

Nobody really feels like going as far as Manugahuia. At one point the wind might be picking up, but it nevertheless withholds itself from the full unchallengeable force of which it’s capable in this sort of area. We just want to get outside to do something, and can easily make up stories to impress others later on if it seems appropriate. Spot-height 1635 is a more enticing target, but not until we’ve already gone past the most direct way to the top, which is straight up a spur off the track fairly early on. Instead we begin with several minutes of clambering up a combination of scree and tussock, but eventually manage to intersect with the spur and from there things are much easier. At a quarter to eleven, roughly two hours after we left the hut, we stand on the anti-climatic top of spot-height 1635. It’s rather flat, actually. Hans and I both spend a short while trying to find the highest patch of tussock that wouldn’t sink into the earth when we stand on it. From the map it looks as if it’s possible to follow the north-west facing spur (not the west-facing spur!) from here down to a track into the bush-line, ending at a road called Titirangi Road that I’ve never visited. Following down to the end of a dead-end road doesn’t appeal to any of us, however.

Pete behind one of the many tarns in this area.

It’s overcast, reasonably windy and with recurring rain. Looming sunshine threatens very occasionally as infrequent gaps open up, but always submits. I like this kind of weather, and especially on the tops. It brings out the reddish colour in the alpine tussock that isn’t nearly as apparent in simple sunshine. There’s also a nice appreciation of the environment and how animated it can be. It’s pretty cool. We turn back the way we came, towards Rangiwahia Hut, stopping to admire the tarns and the tussock and the wind-whipped clouds as they blow around us and over the range. It’s nearly lunch time, and thirty minutes short of Rangiwahia Hut the horizontal southerly hail sets in. At this point I begin to regret having left my legs exposed as they start to get a mild hammering. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to have worn those long-johns after all, but I don’t especially feel like stopping right now to sort out that kind of thing. Surely the ditch will protect my legs.

Rangiwahia Hut remains empty when we return, but it’s literally within a couple of minutes that an Australian (though whom we later discover lives in Palmerston North) by the name of Nicola pops her head in the door. She’s just walked up over the slip from the road. It’s her birthday tomorrow. Lunch time.

Cloud formations from Rangiwahia.

We laze around the hut all afternoon. Rangiwahia Hut is warm compared with the freezing conditions outside, although the clouds give way from time to time to reveal a pathetically ineffective sun. As time goes on the hut’s transitory population reaches thirteen, and then fourteen happy people as the sun sets. A few will probably be on the floor this evening. Hans and Mika produce some kind of travel Monopoly, but it’s not really Monopoly except in name. It looks more like Yahtzee with tiny green houses. As time goes on, people begin preparing their dinner.

Mika and Bernie help Alistair prepare.

Alistair enjoys cooking. If he coordinates a trip with twelve hour days, you can be sure you’ll be carrying lots of good food to go with it. This trip was always likely to be cruisy by comparison, and tonight he’s complemented us with a menu we can boast about. A curry that’s simmered for about an hour and rice to go with it, some kind of giant chocolate thing and a giant slurry of custard. Bernie, Hans and Mika help him out, and it seems Pete and I will be on dishes tonight. As we sit to eat, another three people, this time cheerful hunters, roll up through the door in search of a night’s accommodation. Their first order of business is to figure out where to sleep. I offer them my second hand thin three-quarter length thermarest that I bought off Trademe some years ago.

Alistair is a culinary genius.

So, the hut contains six of us, an Australian named Nicola, two young couples, an Auckland man and his young and enthusiastically talkative son (who presently engrosses Mika’s attention with the detailed description of how to play a game that involves shaking tiny plastic animals to see which stands longest), an American backpacker who walked in as I was taking photos of the sunset, and three fairly big guys with grunty looking guns. One of them is busy explaining to another about something to do with being able to attach a camera to his scope.

Pete and I go outside with a map and compass and argue about which sets of lights are Mangaweka and Ohingaiti. Somewhere along the line we get most of the dishes done, and eventually I’m my sleeping bag and reading. Time goes on and the lights go out.

I’m lying in bed half awake as the three hunters, around the corner from where I lie, quietly pack their things and leave. It’s still dark outside, and I drift back to sleep for an uncertain amount of time. My next memory is the sight of Alistair, on the top bunk opposite, reading his book with a torch. Some light enters the window, and I collect my things to crawl out of bed. I find my thermarest standing against a wall, and pull it back with my things. Others are stirring now, too. On Sunday morning it’s still freezing outside, but the sky is clear. The sun glints near the horizon, provoking early morning refractions in the condensation on the window, and on stepping outside it forms patterns through the frosty icicles that cover our outdoor surrounds. The slopes of Ruapehu mostly hide under cloud in the distance, fronted by the township of Taihape.

We boil a billy full of water, and as we’ll be leaving properly today I begin packing up as I wait. It’s hard to get used to this lack of need to leave early. I look up and see Alistair still lying in his sleeping bag, perusing his book. I tell him there’s hot water when he wants it, and he says thanks.

Mika on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile everyone is stirring, and the atmosphere of a crowded but reasonably spacious hut is becoming less dormant. It’s the last day of a weekend, and everyone is preparing to leave. Having downed my ad-hoc porridge, I return to sit on my bunk, and examine my feet. The tape that I’d put over my little toe yesterday isn’t sitting quite right. I pull it off, and the whole nail comes with it. Grrrr. That one’s been loose for a while, I suppose, but hopefully it’ll seal over sooner or later. A band-aid will have to do for now, to be held together within a few minutes with wet socks. Yeah, wet socks. Others optimistically dry their socks in front of Rangiwahia’s sophisticated gas heating system. Actually, it was happening last night and there have been endless streams of steam vapourising from in front of that heater.

It’s nine am when we leave, having taken a some time for everything to become organised. The hut’s been swept out (such that I now feel guilty for having stood around outside all this time), and virtually everyone else has either left or is standing outside. I think I pulled my wet socks and boots on a little too early. Despite the luke-warmth from the sun, still low in the autumn sky, I’ve now been standing outside in the frosty grass for ten minutes. My feet are solid frozen bricks, and it’s not very comfortable. Hans points out that I can stand at the end of the hut, which due to its upright orientation has absorbed some of the heat more directly, but there’s still no way the warmth is getting inside my boots.

Actually walking somewhere, as we finally leave, quickly nulls the pain. My feet are soon warmed by their own traction, as is usual. We follow the same ditch we followed yesterday, this time carrying a little more. So far we only have a loose plan of going for another wander around the tops, then returning to the van via Dead Man’s Track. Nicola, the Australian woman whose birthday it is today, heard we planned to go down Dead Man’s and asked if she could hitch along, not being too confident about going that way on her own. She left a while before us, but might wait somewhere up the track.

Te Hekenga and Sawtooth had
a dusting of snow overnight.

Despite the sun still being low in the sky, and not yet very warming, prospects of a sunny day seem quite good. The sky is mostly clear, for one thing. It’s been a cold night, however, as demonstrated by the frost that covers everything. Crystals of ice have formed over the puddles in the ditch we now walk through, making an interesting light show for anyone prepared to get down for a look. Nicola is waiting at the junction with Dead Man’s when we arrive, and with a quick poll we discover that nobody really feels much like dropping packs and going for another walk. We’d rather see what Dead Man’s Track is like, and take our time with it, so Nicola comes down with us.

The ground is quite muddy.

Hans and Bernie near the
top of Dead Man’s.

Dead Man’s Track is a very nice route. It begins with a gentle climb up Mangahuia, and then we weave around down into a saddle to the west, covered in tussock with occasional obscured holes in the ground, and also full of mud. Once out of the saddle, it’s a gentle and long descent in a westerly direction. I don’t know specifically why this track is called Dead Man’s, unless it has something to do with the chainsaw massacre that must have taken place to cut through such a long line of Leatherwood — the scourge of a lost tramper in the Ruahines. With the day becoming increasingly bright and warm as the sun lifts its elevation, the walk slowly down-hill surrounded by such a landscape makes this entire weekend worth it.

Pete on part of the track that’s been cut
through the Ruahines’ Leatherwood Belt.

Along the way, we pass a couple of very nice campsites. I think that next time I come here, if it’s a nice evening, I might prefer to walk up Dead Man’s and camp rather than walk to Rangiwahia Hut. I heard a rumour a few years back that there are informal plans to move Rangiwahia Hut and make it more accessible to Dead Man’s Track, especially with the problems of the large land-slip on the other track. If this ever happens, there are at least a couple of very nice potential sites for a hut. Somewhere along the way, Nicola and I stop to wait for others to catch up. During the five or so minutes of quietly standing there, a Tomtit hops down from the trees and flutters around me for a minute or so. I think it just wants to see who I was, and as soon as its interest is satisfied, it flies away.

It’s about lunch time when we finally emerge from Dead Man’s Track, almost immediately at the parking area. What a nice cruisy weekend. We have some time to kill before collecting Sam and the rest of his trio from somewhere below Toka (near the Heritage road-end), so go for a drive to a place called Apiti. Apiti has a golf course which, from the road, looks as if it’s spread over flat sheep paddocks. Each hole is fenced to prevent the sheep from messing it up too much. The guy at the pub enthusiastically tells us how the Apiti Golf Club has a membership of about four hundred, about twenty of whom are active locals but most of whom are from Auckland and who have never visited Apiti. Supposedly the $80 annual fee makes it the cheapest way to stay affiliated with whatever New Zealand golfing body it is that lets them play on all the rich and swanky Auckland courses. Apiti’s a nice place, an alternative to the good pub/cafe at Kimbolton that’s helpful to remember, and a good place to wind down a nice weekend.

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

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

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.

Sue crosses one of
many side creeks.

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

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

Up from Lyell.

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

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

DOC’s vacant fly-camp.

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

Robert, Steve and Dmitry.

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

Day two, 1st January 2010

Steve followed by Allen at the
upper southern Mokihinui.

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

Mark, followed by Steve and Dmitry.

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

Steve gets wet.

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

Checking out the markers near
a vacant worker camp.

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

A dyslexic marker arrow.

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

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

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

Approaching sunset.

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

Steve toasts a marshmallow.

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

Day three, 2nd January 2010

Steve, shortly before leaving
dead goat island.

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

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

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

Reaching the small island.

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

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

Not a great idea.


Home for two nights.

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

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

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

Day four, 3rd January 2010

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

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

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

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

Day five, 4th January 2010

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

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

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

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

Free energy.

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

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

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

A troop of Whio swim below.

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

Checking out near the
mouth of Limestone Creek.

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

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

Day six, 5th January 2010

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

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

Steve on a one-way trip.

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

Robert in front of Mokihinui Forks Hut.

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

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

Mokihinui Forks, where the
south branch meets the north.

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

Views from above.

Crossing Specimen Creek.

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

One of the more awkward slips.

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

Rough and Tumble Creek.

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

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

Robert and Steve at the end.

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

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

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

The beginning (day 2).

The end (day 6)

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

The Orongorongo Valley.

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

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

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

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

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

One of a pair of Paradise Ducks.

A New Zealand Pipit (I think).

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

Baine Iti Hut.

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

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

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

The final stage up to Papatahi.

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

An ad-hoc campsite.

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

Saturday night.

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

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

A less ad-hoc campsite.

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

Mt Matthews is well signposted
from Matthews Stream.

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

Haurangi Hut.

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

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

The Orongorongo Valley.

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.

Alistair and Patricia navigating
down Te Mara.

Dates: 11th – 13th September, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ruamahanga and Kiriwhakapapa road-ends.
People: Marie, Alistair, Patrisha, Richard, Tim and me.
Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night).
Route: From Ruamahanga Road End up a south-east spur to Blue Range, heading south-west along the ridge to Blue Range Hut for Saturday night. Then up to Te Mara, and down to the South East. Out at Kiriwhakapapa.
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We spent Friday night in Kiriwhakapapa Shelter, sharing it with another club group, even though we weren’t intending to start from there. It’s not quite as exposed as the Ruamahanga road-end further north, though. The rain was coming down persistently by the time we drove up, and one way or another anyone on the edges migrated further inwards overnight. Eventually the bellbirds began to wake, and some kind of bird that I couldn’t identify began making a lot of noise as it started fluttering around with its nest in the ceiling.

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

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

The flooded Ruamahanga River.

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

Alistair working his way
around the creek.

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

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

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

Patricia on the ridge
towards Blue Range Hut.

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

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

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

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

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

Cattle Ridge in the distance
on sunny Sunday morning.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunning on the tram-line route down below.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next time, perhaps.

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

Dave getting snowed on.

Dates: 29th – 31st May, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth Road-end.
People: Dave, Marie S, Marie H and me.
Huts visited: Holdsworth Lodge (0 nights), Atiwhakatu Hut (0 nights), Mitre Flats Hut (1 night).
Route: From Holdsworth road-end to somewhere past Atiwhakatu to camp on Friday night, Mitre Flats and up then down Mitre on Saturday, back to Holdsworth road-end on Sunday.
[Photos and movies]

After starting out at Holdsworth Lodge, plan A would be to climb up Baldy, then get over Three Kings and Girdlestone to spend a night at Tarn Ridge Hut, drop down over Mitre to Mitre Flats on the following day (possibly with a very early start if we had to fit into a weather window), and walk back to Holdsworth on the Monday.

All four of us began walking at about 7pm. Some time around 8.30pm, we reached the site of Atiwhakatu Hut, now appearing nearly complete from the outside but still with lots going. A guitar from inside the old hut strummed something from Metallica as we approached, quickly identified by Marie S, and one of the builders came to the door to greet us and chat for a bit. He suggested we could camp on the helipad area next to the river not far away, but at the time we were set on carrying on to a river-side campsite below the second track up to Jumbo so we’d have less to walk before a potentially long day tomorrow. We never reached it that night, because sleepiness and undulating awkward tracks won out. About 15 minutes after Atiwhakatu, we set up tents on the track.

Despite having been walking with torches in the early winter darkness since we began, it still wasn’t terribly late. We sat in Dave’s tent for a while considering maps and likely scenarios. Recent weather had left snow on the tops, and although Dave had brought in an ice axe, we weren’t well equipped if the snow proved to be too much. Furthermore, a cold snap and heavy snow warning for Sunday morning meant we might potentially get to Tarn Ridge for Saturday night, and not be able to get out. Without knowing what it was like in advance, and after some lengthy consideration, we decided our best option was probably to avoid committing ourselves to the tops. Plan B was to aim straight for Mitre Flats, walk up Mitre from there, and find something else to do on Sunday, possibly head up to Jumbo and walk over the tops to East Holdsworth to get out on Monday.

Dave crossing the Atiwhakatu River.

Nearly ready to leave at 7am, I pulled on my right boot and was dismayed to see my boot-lace fray into some kind of thin elastic as I pulled it tightly. I was even more dismayed as I pulled on my left boot, only to have on of the lace eye-lets pop off and hit me in the face before burying itself somewhere in the nearby track. Fortunately my boots were still usable and my gaiters to a lot to help them remain tied up, but I think these boots might be on their last legs.

Marie H and Dave climbing up to Mitre.

We reached Mitre Flats at 10.45, dropped lots of gear at the hut, had a quick lunch, and within an hour we were on our way up Mitre. The track up Mitre starts with a small amount of clambering followed by a few short and sudden switches, but quickly morphs into a reasonably consistent and fairly direct track upwards through the trees, varying in gradient every so often. It’s not the most interesting track and the truth is that it is consistently up. With the weather not being too fantastic anyway, Marie S decided to head back to the hut while Dave, Marie H and I kept pressing up to the bush line where we promptly decided that Marie S’s idea wasn’t so bad after all. There wasn’t a lot to look at. Any possible visions of wondrous flats of the Wairarapa were being covered by thick cloud, and we decided at that point to turn around and return to the hut rather than press on up to the fog-smothered Mitre.

Dave highlights a rare view from
the bush-line below Mitre.

Marie H returns from an excursion.

Three of us arrived back at Mitre Flats at about 3.15 to find Marie S happily settled in. With evening approaching, we spent an hour finding and chopping firewood, and Marie H went off for an excursion with her pack. Sadly it was all too damp, and we never managed to get a proper fire going despite the helpful firelighters that’d been left behind.

As evening approached another 7 people showed up in a couple of groups, all having walked in from The Pines with the alleged intent of walking up Mitre on Sunday. Somehow this seemed unlikely, though, because the forecast from Sunday included a severe snow warning as part of one of the more extreme weather events seen by the region in recent times.

We were all on de-hy BackCountry meals that night, partly as a consequence of late organisation, but also because we’d expected the trip to be somewhat more exerting than it turned out to be with the change of plans. This was the first time I’d tried one, and I have to say I was impressed with my Classic Beef Curry meal, which was quick and easy to prepare (add boiling water and wait), and tasted good enough. Then we just trimmed the top off the bags, ate out of the bag, and so had minimal dish-washing afterwards. The only note was that a 2 person Backcountry Cuisine meal couldn’t possibly feed more than 1 person with the amount of food you get, certainly not in a tramping context when you tend to spend the day burning energy. All four of us had bought a 2-person meal for each night.

Dave, Marie S and I found bunks, Marie H set up a tent outside, and we went asleep with the noble intent of rising at 7pm to be away and off to Jumbo at 8. And thus I woke at 7.20 when Marie S poked up her head and asked if we were supposed to be awake by now. The only answer I had for this was “probably”, but it was easier to ignore any motivation for effort and wait for someone else to do something first. With Dave on the far end also unwilling to be the first to get up, it wasn’t until Marie H came in from outside that anyone really bothered to do anything.

Marie S, just after a washed out side-creek
crossing north of the Baldy saddle.

We left over a staggered time between about 8.40 and 9am on Sunday morning. The weather decayed, but it was cold enough to never actually rain, and the forecasts of snow down to 200 metres were happily accurate. Instead of rain we had a combination of snow and hail, but the shelter alongside the ridge there was very little wind, snow and hail both tended to bounce off raincoats (as it does), and this made it a rather pleasant walk if cold at times.

At about 11.15am we crossed the saddle below Baldy, covered in frost, and by now the snow was coming down very persistently, especially in the areas without much tree shelter. There was about a 20 minute slip-slide down the Atiwhakatu side of the saddle, and not long after we met another party of 6 or 7 people who’d come down from Jumbo and were heading for Mitre Flats. We exchanged information, and they told us there was a lot of snow up there. It was an enticing idea, but after a short conference at the track junction a few minutes afterwards, we decided we might just go straight out and find a cafe rather than walk up to Jumbo and spend an extra night in the range when it was seeming increasingly likely that we’d simply need to come straight back down again the next morning due to the conditions.

Balefire of the old Atiwhakatu Hut.

Now with a cafe in mind, all four of us duly abandoned the idea of lunch. Before 1pm we reached Atiwhakatu Hut during a land-mark moment. The new hut was still getting some final touches, but the builders had nearly finished dismantling the old hut which they’d been living in for several weeks, and happened to have a large bonfire going. It was hot, too. I suppose if we’d been able to burn the hut at Mitre Flats last night, we may have stood a better chance of getting a fire going, too. Oh well.

The final section of this route, between Atiwhakatu Hut and the Holdsworth road-end, is a very well-maintained track, being part of the Holdsworth/Jumbo circuit which is by far one of the most walked tracks in the Tararuas. If there’s something noteworthy about it, which both Dave and I found amusing, it’s the great range of types of bridges that have been used to make up this section. There’s nothing difficult (like 3 wire or 2 wire), but there’s a combination of 1970s swing bridges, more recent suspended plank bridges boardwalks with handrails (and typical 1 Person Maximum signs), strange metallic arch bridges that look as if they’re being re-cycled from some other location, and the list goes on. You can be reasonably sure that if there’s a muddy patch along here, DOC has built a bridge over it. The fun comes in guessing what kind of bridge it’ll be.

This more or less concludes the trip, because we walked out past Holdsworth Lodge at 2.45pm, around 6 hours after we left Mitre Flats. This is the first time I’ve really walked through New Zealand forest during snow, and it was wonderful. I hope I have more opportunities in the future.

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.

Between Atiwhakatu Hut
and Mitre Flats.

Dates: 2nd – 3rd May, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth road-end.
People: Just me.
Huts visited: Holdsworth Lodge (0 nights), Atiwhakatu Hut (0 nights), Mitre Flats Hut (1 night).
Route: Start at Holdsworth Lodge, walk straight to Mitre Flats (via the track), then walk back.
[Photos]

Being on my own and with the forecast, I made up my mind not to do anything too dramatic, and settled for starting at Holdsworth Lodge and walking north towards Mitre Flats, which would let me red-line the section of track between Mitre Flats and Atiwhakatu Hut. Having driven up from Wellington, I left the Holdsworth road-end at about 10am. From here it was a matter of following the Atiwhakatu River north-west for a while past Donnelly Flats, where about 30 people, all with tents and open flies set up, seemed to be doing some kind of bushcraft or first-aid training involving a mountain radio.

Nice Jumbo/Holdsworth Boardwalk.

This entire section of track up to Atiwhakatu Hut at the base of Raingauge Spur is part of the very popular Jumbo/Holdsworth loop, and the track is kept in very good condition. It was even much improved on what I remember from about two and a half years ago, when we were occasionally clambering over tree-stumps and so on. Now, nearly the entire track is flat. Every significant side-creek is bridged, and every insignificant side-creek or muddy patch is board-walked. It might almost have been a Great Walk track, except that I saw several twigs that had been loosened from the trees above and not immediately swept away by the lurking wardens of the park.

Atiwhakatu Hut is sign-posted at 3 hours, but for me walking by myself on such a flat track, it was about 90 minutes, possibly slightly longer. The track has been maintained this way the loop is so popular, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe it was an expensive prank by DOC to lure unsuspecting trampers deep into the Tararuas before unleashing on them the up-ward horrors of Raingauge Spur. I could sense the evil chuckle of the perpetrators as they rubbed their hands together with glee at the approach of another victim whilst they hid in the trees. This time, though, I had one over on them, because I knew that I wasn’t heading up Raingauge at all. I might be wrong about this, to be fair. I haven’t been up in a couple of years and the track up Raingauge could now be far more walkable. Perhaps DOC has installed handrails… and an escalator…

The rain started to fall lightly, which wasn’t much of a bother at first because the tree canopy sheltered me from most of it. I eventually wore my rain-coat over my shirt, mostly to protect it from the loose water coming off bushes that I pushed through from time to time.

Progress continues on the
new Atiwhakatu Hut,
midday Saturday.

Atiwhakatu Hut is currently closed. In fact, it’s about to be pulled down in favour of a new hut due to be opened at the end of May. Smoke emerged from the trees as I approached and the old Atiwhakatu Hut was inhabited. Despite being officially closed, the old hut is currently occupied by the people busy building the new hut, right next door. This is the first time I’ve seen such an event taking place. It was an interesting scene, although at midday Saturday there wasn’t much more than a floor.

Having passed Atiwhakatu and the turn-off up Raingauge Spur, I continued into the red-line jungle. The track this way is still marked, but being off the Holdsworth/Jumbo loop, it suddenly became much more rough in comparison. In practice, this meant less bridges over side-creeks, more mud, more wet tree roots, more slippery rocks, and more undulation. The track is also less direct. The straight line on a map represents a less-straight line in the real world. All of this added to taking about twice the time to cover a similar distance through the rest of the day. Actually it was typical Tararuas under trees.

My nice LINZ S26 Carterton map shows a second track leading up to Jumbo Hut that turns off north of Raingauge Spur track. I loosely kept an eye open for this, but I wasn’t paying attention the whole time and I didn’t see anything obvious. I’m wondering if maybe it’s not a maintained track any longer, but it could be an interesting navigation exercise some time.

Somewhere near the saddle
below Baldy.

The area further on from Atiwhakatu Hut includes a couple of nice campsites. About an hour after leaving it, which had included a brief sit-down for some lunch, I arrived at the swing bridge over the Atiwhakatu River, and this point more or less marks the end of anything that could be said to resemble flat-ness, despite what anyone might say about the track between Holdsworth Lodge and Mitre Flats being flat. It’s only flat compared with the rest of the Tararuas. Immediately after this swing bridge, the markers lead away from the Atiwhakatu River valley, up about a hundred metre climb to the saddle below Baldy (1325). The track then leads down into the Waingawa River valley, half way down a spur on the other side before sidling around and around and over side-creeks, a couple of which I thought might flash-flood in heavy rain. The track finally finds a spur to get down to Mitre Flats.

The first stream after the saddle below Baldy was confusing. My map indicates that the track happily sidles around and crosses the stream. On first reaching it and stepping over, I almost walked straight up a seemingly obvious parting in the trees on the true left which I’m sure people must have been up before, but suddenly this didn’t feel right. Backtracking, I noticed a marker down-stream a little. What actually happens is that it meanders around one of the side creeks for about 30 metres before lifting up on its true right, following beside it for another 20 metres or so, then dropping back from the true right into the stream, which joins another stream coming down at that point from the far side.

As I arrived at this point in the stream, marked by two of the giant orange triangles that DOC uses for entry and exit points, I was still confused. By now I was thinking that perhaps I still needed to continue further down-stream, and I double-checked my map which still implied I should expect to see a way out the other side anywhere near here. 15 seconds later, I found it. A large orange triangle sat in a tree on the true left, at the top of a 2 to 3 metre high steep-ish slope of scree and rock-face, which was not rich in obvious hand and foot holds. This could be awkward, especially given that climbing has never been a big interest of mine. I did manage to clamber up, but only after struggling to find any reasonable hand-holds. Glancing back, I had no idea how I’d get down the following day without blindly kicking around for thin foot-holds that I’d be unlikely to find before slipping, and thoughts of this concerned me for a long time afterwards.

Still, that was tomorrow’s problem. From now I could only hope that it wasn’t a sign of more to come and I bounded up the hillside to put it behind me. The route up this way actually passes through a very pretty moss-covered stream, up part of which it’s necessary to walk. I hadn’t seen anyone since leaving Atiwhakatu Hut, and it was awesome!

For a marked track, I did occasionally think it was a bit thin on the markers. I must have wandered off the track about three or four times, although it was obvious when I had, and it simply meant back-tracking a little and carefully trying alternative routes until I found something that looked very obvious. (I’ve felt more lost in bush on the Tinakori Hill in down-town Wellington than I was on that track.) I never had to resort to trying to use navigation skills.

My LINZ map shows that in the last section towards Mitre Flats, the track briefly splits into two, with an alternative section called Barton Track leading higher up the spur before coming back down and re-joining the track that sidles around the side. Although I noticed several possible places where routes might have led off to the side, I never saw an obvious track split off. At the time I wasn’t paying enough attention to whether I was predominantly climbing or sidling, and I’m still unsure which of these two tracks was the one I followed. Presumably the other is unmaintained, but maybe the higher one is a part of an alternative and more direct route up to Baldy from Mitre Flats.

Arriving at Mitre Flats.

The final swing bridge over South Mitre Stream was mildly confusing. I walked off the end of it and kept walking along what I thought was a track that evaporated into not much at all 30 metres later. Back-tracking, I discovered I should have doubled-back and walked underneath the bridge. I coasted into Mitre Flats Hut at about 3.10pm, where a couple of other people had also just arrived. They were expecting another four in a family group behind them, having walked in from The Pines. I quickly grabbed a mattress and hauled it out onto the deck for the best bed in the hut before anyone else would have a chance to snatch it.

We waited and we waited for the other four, and after two hours, another couple finally arrived and began pulling off gaiters and boots. Apparently one of the remaining two, who hadn’t arrived, had been having some problems, and they’d decided to bed down on the track under a fly for the night, so it was only the five of us. I read my book, we played 500, we played about four rounds of Last Card during which I only ever picked up a single 5!

For a while it rained outside, but the rain stopped and as darkness fell a crescent moon poked through the clouds from time to time. I heard two gunshots ring out in the distance that night, implying that some hunters were out nearby. Meanwhile the thought of getting down the slope into that stream near Baldy was still playing on my mind, and I was still very concerned. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, though, short of walking out somewhere completely different. I decided that it was likely I was blowing it out of proportion in my head, and that it’d be perfectly okay because people would be going that way frequently and not have any problems. That night on the deck and I had a wonderful dream. Strangely it was all about writing this trip report, having no recollection about anything on Sunday before Atiwhakatu Hut, and concluding that everything between Mitre Flats and Atiwhakatu Hut must have been completely eventless, insignificant and unmemorable, and nowhere near as bad as I was imagining it was going to be. Then I opened my eyes in the face of a bright sky at 7.15am, and I was both happy and sad.

The Waingawa in the morning.

I had everything outside on the deck, and was able to pack without being of much disturbance to those inside (I hope). I poked my nose in to say goodbye, though, and to return my mattress, then I walked away at about 8.20am, returning towards Holdsworth Lodge, taking a slight detour to stand half way over the main bridge over the Waingawa River for a look, before returning around the corner to the other bridge over South Mitre Stream, and from there straight up the spur.

Misty trees climbing
out of Mitre Flats.

Within a few minutes, a violent fwoo fwoo fwoo fwoo fwoo fwoofwoo fwoofwoofwoo fwoofwoofwoo came from the trees ahead of me, as a Kereru (aka New Zealand Pigeon) distanced itself from my approach. I find Kereru quite amusing to watch. They always come across as being clumsy fliers, and for their size, they tend to land and sit on branches that appear much too small to support their weight. The branches bend a lot but a Kereru will hold on and look at home.

I found that I barely walked off the track in this direction at all — contrasting the previous day when I’d walked off it several times. I spent much of the next 90 minutes, however, wanting to hurry up and get to this problematic stream, at the very least so I could happily discover that it wasn’t a problem at all, perhaps adjust my plans, or otherwise just put it behind me. Within five minutes of it I could hear the water running in the distance, and when I saw a goat track head off beside the main track, I was tempted to follow it on the pretext that perhaps it linked up to a more accessible crossing point. I decided not to do this on the grounds that it wasn’t a very logical course of action, especially as I hadn’t even been back to assess the drop properly and weighing that against following a random goat track, my original intention easily made the most sense. Thus with complete trust in the Department of Conservation, I followed the markers for another 3-4 minutes down to the stream.

Not that bad…..

And that was when I realised what I’d been hoping would be true all day. It really wasn’t that bad after all. I probably should have taken a third or fourth glance backwards a day earlier, and I might have realised it wasn’t as vertical as I remembered it. Solo tramping is great. There was still need for care, but I could actually see some foot-holds to slide myself into and lower myself down. From there it was one two three over a little scree, and I once again stood on the edge of the stream. It was insignificant and unmemorable, just like my dream had foretold.

And suddenly, for no particular reason, the music of Tom Jones broke into my head. Tom Jones and I celebrated my success with a jelly bean. Then we celebrated with another jelly bean. Then I walked across the stream, and the two of us celebrated once again. I eventually needed to convince Tom Jones that I couldn’t afford to let my teeth fall out before I’d had a chance to munch, crunch and digest my lunch.

“Sure thing!”, said Tom Jones, as he relented, and let me put the jelly beans away.

“Aren’t you getting a bit to old for this?”

“No Way!”, said Tom Jones. “I love tramping, and I love singing!”

And thus he launched himself up ahead and did a twirl on a slippery rock with his microphone in hand. Then I enjoyed, accepted, tolerated and eventually reviled repetitively singing together with Tom Jones as we powered up the hill towards the saddle below Baldy:

It’s not un-u-su-al to be loved by anyone
It’s not un-u-su-al to have fun with anyone
But when I see you something a some–thing anytiyeeeiiime
It’s not un-u-su-al, to see a fryyyy… a wanna yaaaaahhhh

Mmmmmmmmmwaaaa!

Tom Jones was singing badly out of tune. Twenty repeated first verses later it was clear that he couldn’t even remember the words to his song that he’s been singing for 44 years — a definite sign of senility. I left him deleriously spinning on a wet tree-root, and as I glanced back at the sound of a fwoop fwoop fwoop, I think he was being pecked at by an angry and unappreciative Kereru. There was nothing more I could do for him at the time, but if anyone’s looking for Tom Jones, he was last seen in the Tararuas, in the vicinity of grid reference S26 177367.

The rain had held off and at 10.30am when I stood on the saddle, I briefly considered heading up towards Baldy for a look, but decided it would be something for another day. Therefore from here, it was a 20 minute down-hill slide back to the bridge over the Atiwhakatu River. I’d been meaning to look out for that side track up to Jumbo — the side-creeks around it are easy to identify, and supposedly it starts opposite a substantial slip on the other side (ie. true left) of the Atiwhakatu River. Unfortunately I forgot to keep my eye open at the critical time, and once again didn’t notice any obvious track leading up a spur. Having returned, Amelia (a friend) has already shown me a photo of the giant sign that existed a couple of years ago. I’m reasonably sure I didn’t walk past that, although it wouldn’t be the first time I’d looked through something obvious. I’m curious now if DOC may have de-commissioned maintenance of the track in favour of encouraging everyone who does the Jumbo/Holdsworth loop up Raingauge Spur, but so far this is just me speculating.

One of a couple of camp-sites further
up from Atiwhakatu Hut.

I stopped and sat at one of the camp-sites along the way for about 15 minutes since maybe I don’t do enough sitting, and arrived again at Atiwhakatu Hut at almost exactly 12pm.

The new Atiwhakatu Hut looked different! Compared with the previous day, it now even looked like a hut. I was impressed with how quickly it had changed overnight. I guess they must be working on it fairly intensively. It was about lunch time, so while the builders hammered behind the trees, I wandered to the flats in front of the hut and had a quiet lunch in front of the river.

The new Atiwhakatu Hut at
midday Sunday.

The Sunshine even came out.

Well that was nice, but by now I was starting to feel as if I was ready to get home, so I didn’t waste much effort in making my way back along the well-graded loop track to the Holdsworth road-end. And the Sun began to come out — at first on the far side of the river, but soon it crept more closely into where I was. From here I finally began to see more people again — typically a mixture of people who looked to be aiming for Jumbo, and several day-walkers and dog-walkers, although there was no way any of the day-walkers could be hoping to complete the loop in a day with remaining daylight. After an hour at 1.15pm, I stopped for a couple of minutes contemplating whether I might want to head up the hill to Mountain House, just to see it again for the first time in a while, but I decided against it reasoning that the detour would probably add at least an hour. So at 2pm I walked out past Holdsworth Lodge and back to the car, and that was the end of a nice overnighter.

Bernie in front of Lake Constance.

Dates: 9th – 13th April, 2009
Location: Nelson Lakes National Park, Lake Rotoroa.
People: Hans, Mika, Marie, Jen, Matthew, Bernie, Paul, and me.
Huts visited: D’Urville Hut (0 nights), Morgan Hut (0 nights), George Lyon Hut [formerly Ella Hut] (1 night), Blue Lake Hut (1 night), West Sabine Hut (1 night), Sabine Hut (0 nights).
Route: Water taxi to D’Urville Hut, south past Morgan Hut to George Lyon Hut for Friday night. Climb over Moss Pass and down the other side on Saturday, to Blue Lake Hut. Roam around and explore on Sunday morning, then continue north up Sabine to West Sabine Hut in afternoon. Continue to Sabine Hut (and return water taxi) on Monday.
[Photos and movies]

Our trip had been carefully planned by Steve, who sadly had to withdraw at the last minute over a foot he injured during the Oxfam 100 km Trailwalker the previous weekend. Having hired a cheap rental van and taken it onto the Interislander from Wellington on Thursday night, we arrived at the end of Lake Rotoroa some time well after midnight. I don’t know exactly what time it was, but I do know that after setting up some tents and flies, we were drifting off to sleep some time after 1.30am. We discovered at late notice that we’d almost mis-calculated how much shelter to bring and were short by a small fly or so. Thankfully, however, enough people had brought their own anti-social tents beyond the need of the organised plan. Marie crunched into Hans and Mika’s tent, Jen and Paul set up their small one-person tents, while Bernie, Matthew and I slid under my Huntech two-person fly, which can easily and comfortably accommodate three people despite the name.

Lake Rotoroa on a chilly morning.

The early morning bed-time may potentially have been an issue, as we were also booked on an 8am water taxi over the lake. 5.5 hours of sleep later, we crawled up and packed in the cold. Hans’s plan was to have a quick snack before heading over to the water taxi, and then have a proper breakfast at D’Urville Hut on the far end of Lake Rotoroa. The water taxi ride over the lake was typically photogenic, with a thick mist overhanging the northern end of the lake, slowly lifting as we approached the southern end which was more exposed to the morning sun.

Our first day was to be the furthest distance, although it was basically to be walking in a straight line along the D’Urville River on the flat to George Lyon Hut for the night. Paul wasn’t feeling completely confident with his current condition for getting over the pass, however, and after some discussions which revealed he was very self-sufficient right down to his own tent, about twice as much food as necessary, a GPS receiver and his own personal EPIRB, he elected to catch the ferry slightly further and thus start on the Sabine side, skip Moss Pass and walk directly up the track to Blue Lake Hut to meet us there in a couple of evenings’ time.

The rest of us hopped off at D’Urville Hut at about 9.15am, did some general re-packing, and ate a cheery breakfast over the next 30 minutes. With the Sun now rising and finally warming up my frozen fingers, I looked around the group and noted that Marie was easily the coolest person present. Marie had packed an ice axe. (It’s a sign of cool-ness in New Zealand’s back-country to tie an ice axe to one’s pack.)

Jen and Marie.

Before we left, I had some concern that most of the walk could just be along straight, flat, well-formed tracks down a valley, which is more or less what it looks like on the map, and is similar to the last time I visited Nelson Lakes. It eventuated that for a while there was more of the same. The track that follows the river is actually some way above it, so there are few convenient opportunities to simply scoop water out of the river. The one time that we did venture onto a flat, the track didn’t. The flat ran out within a few minutes, and ended with an awkward and uncertain clamber about 30 metres up steep and unstable hillside to find the track again.

After three hours we reached Morgan Hut, somewhere between half and 2/3 of the way to our destination along the D’Urville River. In the bright sunshine, Hans had already pulled out his soppy tent fly to dry it on the grass, and I did the same with my own open-ended fly. The hut is parked in front of a vast meadow, and a few wasps buzzed around as we munched our lunch. It was another hour before we actually stood up and left towards our final destination for the evening, eventually reaching George Lyon Hut (formerly Ella Hut) about two hours and 45 minutes later.

Mika, Hans and Jen relaxing for
an evening at George Lyon Hut.

The hut has two rooms behind a small entrance-way, almost identical with eight bunks each except that the room on the left has a stove. Four people were in the stove-heated room already, so we settled into the other room. With some consideration we decided not to bother them for use of the stove, and in our own room we cooked a wonderful meal of Thai Green Curry, prefixed by an entree of Pita Bread in dip, which had been cleverly crafted by crippled Steve who sadly remained at home in Wellington. Hans and Mika had lots of candles, and after dinner Mika improvised candle holders from the dip containers. We chatted with each other about topics such as maximum amounts that people should carry based on their body-weight, leading into discussions about the benefits of eating pies. Bernie was kind enough to take the rubbish we produced that evening. For half an hour or so, I lay out on the deck under the stars, eventually watching the glow of the Moon slowly appear behind the Mahanga Range.

The route over Moss Pass appears absurdly short for a day’s walk at first glance. There’s a 2 km walk south beside the D’Urville river, followed by about a 4 km walk to Blue Lake Hut in the next valley. My first impression when the well organised and sadly to-be-crippled Steve first showed me his favoured route was that it’d take a couple of hours. Then I noticed the contour lines, showing a steep 1000 metre climb followed by a 700 metre drop. Suddenly my primary school knowledge of Pythagoras’s theorem told me that a 4 km walk had become a 4.4 km walk, but more importantly it was probably going to involve some steep clambering. This alone wouldn’t account for the 7-8 hour walk advised by the Department of Conservation, but it eventuated that we were also held up by details such as lunch, stopping for ages to look at some impressive scenery, and various injuries.

A curious South Island Robin hopped about in the nearby branches as we left George Lyon Hut at 8.15am on Saturday morning, beginning with a short walk for about 45 minutes to the swing bridge that crosses the D’Urville. Marie looked mightily impressive with her ice axe and I begged to be able to carry it so I could share in the prestige value of having an ice axe on one’s pack, but she wouldn’t let me.

Mika, Marie, Matthew, Hans (obscured)
and Jen below the bush-line.

To the tree-line it’s about 600 metres of vertical climbing, and fairly steep. Some people would hop up it rather quickly, but most wouldn’t and we didn’t either in our sizeable group. It’s completely manageable, though, and the section under the tree-line is not unlike a route up many of the spurs in places like the Tararuas and the Ruahines with which I’m more familiar. One short section of the marked route involved a short skimp up a slanted rock-face, and a kind person had left a knotted rope for assistance. Even then I’m not sure it was entirely necessary, and as I waited for others to get up the rope, I even wondered if it’d be possible to find a short detour out to either side in the trees so as to avoid climbing directly up the face at all. On the other hand, maybe that rope was there for a good reason.

We stopped for a casual photograph, and then my dream for the past 80 minutes came to life, when Marie finally decided to give in to my earlier request and let me have the privilege of taking the trophy ice axe for a while. I took it quickly lest she change her mind, and immediately felt that warm glowing feeling that one gets when they can display an ice axe on their pack.

A stream at the bush-line.

The trees thinned during the climb, eventually opening into a wide panoramic view of the Ella Range on the far western side of the D’Urville River below us. At the tree line there was a nice stream, where we re-grouped for a while, took more photographs, and re-filled water as necessary before continuing up into the sunshine. It was nice that the views over the valley were finally opening up, and we were getting some reward after an entire day of walking up a track above a river and under trees. Bernie bounded ahead and scouted out a good route, which was helpful because at that time in the morning before the Sun had imposed itself, much of the rock was still covered in sheets of ice. In a couple of places it was necessary to be quite careful.

Jen climbing up an icy rock.

The route is poled the entire way, and we walked above the tree-line for about two and a half hours, sustaining some injuries in the process. Jen had been increasingly concerned about some knee problems which were proving difficult on the unstable moraine above the tree-line. To compound matters, Mika managed to damage a calf muscle some way up the hill, and thus had quite a painful walk for much of the second day. Both of them were heavily strapped in whichever ways were most appropriate, but unfortunately it was only a partial solution. It was all good though, and with such fantastic weather I think we would have taken just as long if everyone was feeling perfect.

Jen and Marie approaching
the saddle of Moss Pass.

Bernie easily reached the top first with everyone else filtering up behind him at their own pace. Taking that final step onto the saddle and seeing the Sabine Valley suddenly open up on the far side, with the realisation of being completely surrounded by beautiful scenery, was actually quite awe inspiring. As I stood in the light breeze for a while at the top of the saddle, I checked that I still had the ice axe, and then appreciated the moment before continuing down to join everyone else at a marginally more sheltered area a few metres below, where we ate lunch. The ice axe still hadn’t been needed, but that wasn’t important.

Mika and Jen dropping down from
Moss Pass on the Sabine side.

We stood up to leave after lunch at about 1.45pm, but it wasn’t absolutely clear where we should be walking off the Sabine side of the saddle. The poled route seemed to point directly down a steepish-looking avalanche chute with some initially uncertain-looking snow. Meanwhile, a cairn had been built a few metres away, and appeared to be designed to encourage people to walk off in another direction before curving down to meet the poled route below. Marie began creeping down the right-hand side of the chute, cautiously at first, and we eventually confirmed that the snow was fairly safe. From then on we were able to use it to get down quite easily, apart from both Mika and Jennie who were still quietly writhing in pain with knee and calf problems until the ground became more stable and predictable.

Looking back towards Moss Pass.

As the descent flattened, our poled route off the pass sidled us around a combination of scree, moraine, and vivid green landscape that was lightly dusted with snow. Straight ahead down the valley, we could see Mount Travers, and Mount Hopeless in the distance. In front of Travers was the spur that led down to West Sabine Hut, although with our plan we wouldn’t see that hut for another day. Below us, Blue Lake stood out clearly, and for 30 minutes we stopped and sat down, simply to take in the scenic surroundings while the Sun was still shining.

Blue Lake on Saturday night.

The remains of the route down the hill followed a small stream that channelled snow-melt down to the Sabine River. Spaced out, we rolled into Blue Lake Hut some time before 4pm. By the end of the day, it’d taken us a bit less than seven hours to walk around 6-7 km, so we didn’t exactly average a very fast day. The hut wasn’t exactly empty when we arrived either — quite the opposite. One chap who stepped outside commented that the ice axe tied to my pack looked pretty hard out, but he accepted my response when I told him that I’d really only brought it to look cool. Inside I felt ashamed to know it was really Marie’s ice axe and that I’d nicked off with it earlier in the day. She’d probably want it back soon, but I still jealously wanted to keep it.

We were supposed to be meeting Paul here, with him having walked up the Sabine River to meet us, and were concerned when he wasn’t present. Discussions with with several people who’d also come up the Sabine implied that he might have been held up somewhere and possibly wouldn’t arrive. Our concerns were put to rest within an hour. Paul returned from a side trip he’d made out to see Lake Constance, which wasn’t far away, and then we all suddenly recognised his pack which had been leaning against a bunk in the hut for the entire time. Being fully prepared as he was, Paul also had much more food than he needed, and was generous in handing it around.

Twenty one people shared Blue Lake Hut that night, so I guess it was quite a popular place over Easter. This number didn’t include Jennie who’d decided to set up her tent outside rather than share our cramped and stuffy dwelling, or the two people who were camping around the corner next to Blue Lake. For dinner, we crowded around a table at one end of the room, which we shared with a young German guy who was writing a diary, and consumed our meal of spiced chickpeas that had been cleverly crafted by crippled Steve who sadly remained at home in Wellington. Hans and Mika had lots of candles, and after dinner Mika improvised candle holders from the chickpea tins. We chatted with the German chap about what he could expect on Moss Pass the following day. Bernie was kind enough to take the rubbish we produced that evening. For half an hour or so, I shuffled around trying to find enough space to stretch out on the floor between a muddle of boots, packs, and inconveniently placed tables.

Not having remembered to dry it out earlier, Jen’s tent still had some moisture inside which by late evening had morphed into shiny stalactites. Apparently it wasn’t too bad though, and probably still preferable to sharing the hut with so many other Easter trampers. Marie and I were both on the floor, and two couples were double-bunking down the far end. There was surprisingly little snoring, however.

The third day of our expedition was to be a very easy day. Even the DOC signs only estimated a 3.5 hour walk along a nice track to West Sabine Hut. It was so easy, in fact, that we didn’t intend to leave until after mid-day. This, of course, left all morning to explore the area.

Matthew climbing over Blue Lake.

With time to spare, Matthew, Bernie and I decided to go for a walk in the other direction to see Lake Constance. On yet another bright sunny day, we put safety first and took our raincoats, sharing one pack between three of us with the idea that we’d switch it around at some point. Matthew took it first, and this meant that he had the privilege of carting it up a vertically 200 metre climb on the far side of Blue Lake. We passed several three metre patches of soft snow near the top and I was already regretting having left the ice axe behind, but I survived the shame. Several “just over the next rise” comments later, the route finally plateaued, and soon we saw what really was quite a stunning sight of Lake Constance in front of the mountains not long after sunrise, in all its reflective awe. Wow!

First views of Lake Constance.

More views of Lake Constance.

I took over the pack at this time, and after some general gawking at the scenery from above, I carried it down about 50 metres of moraine, with some thin covering snow, to the edge of the lake. For half an hour the three of us just sat on the edge of the lake, watching and throwing stones to induce ripples in the reflection.

Matthew’s boulder-hopping.

I promptly forgot to collect the pack when we turned to leave. Matthew picked it up again, and eventually took it all the way back to Blue Lake Hut… so Bernie and I got off lightly. Rather than climb back up the moraine that we’d come down, which would have been easy, we decided to try something that was surely even easier, and sought a more direct route up the boulders to our right. We could see from the bottom that the plateau we wanted to reach was right at the top, and it looked short and easy. Naturally, of course, it was only deceptively short and easy, but turned out to be educational instead. Over a rather uncertain twenty minutes, three of us found three separate paths hopping up and around and occasionally down parts of the sometimes icy boulder slope, before finally crawling over to the top with some minor relief — except for Bernie who possesses a perpetual smile. We made our way back to Blue Lake Hut to meet with the others, who were happily drying out socks and boots and tents, and generally enjoying themselves. Hans and Paul were still roaming somewhere in the vicinity of Blue Lake, but they returned for lunch and at 12.25pm we prepared to leave.

Checking the back of my pack which I’d left at Blue Lake Hut, Marie’s ice axe was fortunately still exactly where I’d left it, meaning she hadn’t (successfully) stolen it back whilst I was away as I’d been half expecting her to try. Pulling the compass out of my pocket, I noticed that Marie was exactly south-west of me as she sat on the step at the front door. This was disconcertingly consistent with a folk tale that I’m sure I’d heard in the past about how you can never completely trust someone to your south-west, especially when you have their ice axe. I strategically changed the subject of our conversation away from ice axes, and I think this was the main reason why Marie forgot to ask for it back, allowing me to keep looking cool for yet another day in New Zealand’s back-country.

Part of the Sabine River.

I hoped that unlike our Friday experience, the track from Blue Lake heading north along the Sabine would be more accessible to the river. Happily it was, and I was able to comfortably walk without carrying much water, and with my mug attached to my pack for easy access whenever I felt thirsty. It’s quite a very nice walk, and not too artificial and graded as some of the tracks around here are. It passes several avalanche paths directly over scree slips, and on a couple of occasions we found ourselves climbing through some rather thick (but not too cumbersome) tree-fall which had yet to be cleared from the August 2008 storms. The Sabine River includes several impressive rapids in this vicinity, and steep sides of the valley combined with streams running down from the snow-melt above result in quite a few cute waterfalls.

One of the robins that followed us.

We didn’t see much bird-life but we heard it up in the trees. We saw a few fantails, a tomtit, and for a while Jennie and I were chaperoned by another very curious South Island Robin, presumably more interested in the insects we were kicking up than it was in ourselves. At 3.15pm we saw West Sabine Hut over the river, and 10 minutes later after crossing a bridge and back-tracking on the far side, we reached it. One party of Wellingtonians who’d been up Mt Travers earlier in the day was leaving as we arrived, and that night we shared the hut with perhaps twelve or fifteen others, at a guess. This was fine because its designed for about 34 people, and the platform bunks would make it easier to cram in even more people if necessary.

We crowded around a table next to the door, and consumed our meal of Moroccan Couscous, which had been cleverly crafted by crippled Steve who sadly remained at home in Wellington. Hans and Mika had lots of candles, and after dinner Mika tried to improvise candle holders but couldn’t find any suitable rubbish. Bernie helped out by fishing out our old candle holders from the rubbish bag. Then we chatted about topics such as hut passes, looking cool, and carrying ice axes. Bernie was kind enough to take the rubbish we produced that evening. For half an hour or so, I lay up on my bunk reading my FMC bulletin, before I dozed off to sleep.

Bernie at one of several
avalanche paths.

Our final day was to be another very cruisy day, simply following the main track back along the Sabine to Lake Rotoroa for a 2pm water taxi collection. For the first time during the tramp, the weather was muted with light grey clouds and occasional drizzle. We didn’t mind at this point, and for me it was almost welcome to have some contrast. The track still follows several avalanche paths, but nothing complicated to traverse. We shared the track with a couple of other parties who were also walking between West Sabine Hut and Sabine Hut. At our lazy pace as we were overtaken, I watched quite awe-struck as a man walked past with not one, but two ice axes attached to his pack. Then I understood as his contrastingly un-cool girlfriend approached and walked past behind him. I think all I can truthfully say about this sorry scene is that nobody likes a show-off!

At 11.40am, about 30 minutes ahead of the posted DOC time, we reached the track junction that could have given us the option of crossing the D’Urville River and returning to D’Urville Hut where we’d begun on Friday morning. Very coincidentally as we were standing around, the young German chap whom we’d met a couple of nights before wandered up from the direction of D’Urville Hut. He’d crossed Moss Pass, spent the previous night at Morgan Hut all on his own, and really enjoyed himself, and was now on his way up to Angelus.

Shortly after this junction, along the short track back to Sabine Hut, a bridge crosses a deep gorge. The water was clear and the trout in the river below were also obvious. With our trip reaching an end, Marie and I left first, wanting to knock off the final leg to Sabine Hut on the edge of the lake. We arrived to a welcoming party of wasps and sandflies, and very quickly sought refuge inside the hut with several other people, to eat lunch as we awaited our 2pm pick-up. As we rode the length of Lake Rotoroa, the ferry operator informed us that the 17-18km track along its north-eastern side was still very damaged by tree-fall from the August storms. The Department of Conservation has been prioritising other work in the area, and signs still exist at either end to indicate the damage. Although it’s supposed to take about 5 hours give or take, one group recently took 3 days, and the water taxis get regular call-outs from people who’ve simply dumped their packs half way along so they can escape more quickly, but then need to return to collect them.

Lake Rotoroa from near Sabine Hut.

It worked out as a really nice weekend, and the weather played its part. I enjoy a little rain and wind from time to time, but part of its attraction is that it helps one really appreciate things when the weather’s simply bright and sunny for four days in a row… particularly when it’s a place with so much alpine scenery.

We stopped for ice-cream and pies at St Arnaud, which incidentally has a very good meat pie shop, ensuring that by our increase in body-weight we’d all be medically cleared to carry heavier amounts from now on. For a time in the van as we traversed the system of roads back to Picton, Bernie and I considered what we most enjoyed about the trip. It’d been quite a long way to come from Wellington. Why would people travel like this to walk around Nelson Lakes National Park? Especially when you could go to, well, maybe the Akatarawas or the Aorangis if undulating terrain is desired, or the Duck Pond outside the Whitby shopping centre if visible birds are required for one’s enjoyment.

It took some deep consideration, but just as Jerry Springer commentates something deep, meaningful and relevant at the end of each of his shows, I came up with a decisive-sounding conclusion to recent events. I decided that it’s probably a combination of the people and the ice axes which make a weekend so enjoyable. Many of my trampey club friends happened to be going there, I was able to carry a grunty looking ice axe to help me look cool, and by tagging along and following everyone I had a hand in some very nice meals thanks to crippled Steve whose presence we would have enjoyed if he’d been able to come. We also got to walk up mountains and in snow and stuff, and did I mention how impressive I was able to look with an ice axe tied to my pack?

Bernie on the Bluebridge.

For several months I’ve been using a baseplate Coleman compass that I found at Rebel Sport for a quarter of the price, and for me at least it works just as well as the Silva Field 7. It’s slightly larger though, if only because it includes extra features like a magnifier that I never use, and ultimately that’s why I decided to replace it. It’s only after I’d been using a smaller Field 7 compass for a while that I noticed the Coleman compass was actually quite heavy, and that’s why I bought myself another Field 7.

It’s a shame they’re priced at about $35 for something so basic, which I think is more of a branding thing than anything else. If I could get a cheap un-branded compass of similar specifications then I would, but they’re hard to find on short notice. I suppose that all you really need is a magnetically sensitive needle inside a nicely divided circle. It probably helps some people to have a few features like a better grips on the dial thingee and a magnifier for maps (which I’ve personally never used), but I’ve yet to see anyone using something like a typically expensive sighting compass for tramping navigation in New Zealand. Perhaps it’s a consequence of the circles I associate with. They’re in the shops a lot so they must sell, and I’m quite interested to know what sorts of activities people use them for.

At Totara Flats in the Tararua Range, March 2007

It was raining outside. A lot.

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.

Alistair collects water from one of the
tarns on the way up Te Hekenga.

Dates: 5th – 7th December, 2008
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia road-end to Heritage road-end.
People: Alistair, Dirk, Paul, Amanda, Harry, Steve, Roger, Bernie and me.
Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (1 night), Howletts Hut (1 night), Heritage Hut (0 nights).
Route: Up to Rangiwahia on Friday night. On Saturday, walk past Maungamahue, around the back of Te Hekenga, then to Taumataomekura and Tiraha, and down Daphne Ridge to Howletts Hut for Saturday night. On Sunday, continue to Taumatataua, Otumore, and Tunupo, then descend to Heritage Lodge and out at the Heritage road-end.
[Photos]

Levin is a good place to stop for dinner when driving north of Wellington up SH1 on Friday night. People often want to stop at Bulls because it has a kebab shop which some people like, but this time everyone agreed on Levin, and that suits me because I think there’s a wider variety of choices. There’s also a supermarket, which suited Alistair who was last back to the van, carting a 12-pack of toilet paper after he’d realised he never packed any.

We reached at the Rangi road-end at about 9.20pm, where a couple of hunters were waiting for their friends from Wellington to arrive before heading up the Dead Man’s Track. In our own group, there was a short delay due to technical difficulties with a torch not working, but that was resolved pretty quickly and we headed up and over the slip to Rangiwahia Hut, arriving after about 90 minutes at 11.10pm. This went the same as every other time, except that I noticed one of the Best DOC Signs Ever has disappeared, that sign being the “The Worst is Over” sign which used to exist at the top of the slip (see my photo from one of the earlier trips). A couple of hunters were hidden asleep at Rangi, and I think they were very polite considering the unassuming noise with which ourselves and another club group slowly filtered in without everyone realising they were there (oops!). They were up and leaving some time before 5am, and despite our entrance, they made an obvious effort to be as undisruptive as possible.

Saturday morning came, and those sleeping out on the balcony would have woken to quite an awesome view of Ruapehu lit by the rising sun. Alistair, meanwhile, realised that in the excitement of the night before, he’d once again forgotten to pack any of the 12 rolls of toilet paper he bought in Levin. In the end he made some kind of deal with evil Roger which netted him 1/3 of a roll. It’s not yet apparent which part of his soul Alistair sold, so we can only assume that will make itself more obvious in time.

Steve looking into the Ruahines from
the junction north of Mangahuia.

Our group of 9 left Rangiwahia Hut at 7.30am, reaching the junction on the ridge of the Whanauia Range at 8.20′ish, which is very consistent in timing with the four previous times I’ve walked that stretch. The day was already becoming hot. At around 9am we passed a three people sitting in the sun at the top of the spur leading down to Triangle Hut, before sidling (left-side sidling) around the eastern side of point 1635 towards Maungamahue (1661). There were also a couple of hunters wandering around above Maungamahue somewhere, but we didn’t meet them close up as we sidled around it (left-side sidling once again), and towards point 1493 and onto the spur underneath the north-western side of Te Hekenga.

Harry grabbing a cup of water from a
tarn on the side of Te Hekenga.

This was the fifth time in about two years that I’ve started at Rangiwahia Hut. Four of those times we’ve intended to get to Te Hekenga (1695) for some reason, and this was the third time we’ve successfully done it, so I’m starting to feel reasonably familiar with the area. Te Hekenga, on the north-western spur, is divided into about three main sections of climbing, between which it briefly flattens out. There are also a couple of tarns on the way up, or at least there were on this occasion in early December. I guess I’m reasonably fit and I found the first half of climbing Te Hekenga to be very straightforward. The second half was much more of a grind, although I’d attribute this to having drunk two cups of water from the tarn half-way up, mostly because I could. We left the bottom of the spur at 10.50′ish, and reached the top around 11.40 or thereabouts. More specifically, Bernie and Steve reached the top, but I don’t think anybody else bothered, and we sidled around the western side (yet again it was left-side sidling) to sit on a short east-west ridge at Te Hekenga’s shoulder and stop for lunch.

Amanda sidling the goat
track behind Te Hekenga.

Getting over Te Hekenga is difficult, if even possible, without being an experienced rock climber. On reaching the top, the peak abruptly drops into a 10 metre vertical rock-face on the south-east, which makes it impossible to continue in that direction. Fortunately, by sidling around it and down the southern side of the ridge on the western side, there’s a very easy-to-follow goat track which crosses the scree of the slips on the southern side, and can be followed around to Taumataomekura (1682). Once again, this is left-side sidling.

I think the biggest problem I had on the entire trip was a short stretch of ridge between Taumataomekira and Tiraha (1668), which is at the southern end of Sawtooth Ridge. I don’t even remember this section the previous time I was here, but this time I panicked a little with it being one of those ridges that’s fairly steep and without much to fall onto. Everyone else trundled along the side of it without raising issues, but I was quite glad to get through that 10 metres or so. Alistair and Roger were waiting on the other end for me, almost laughing I think, but I get as much as I give so it was fair enough on their part. We reached Tiraha at about 1.30pm, and sat there for about 10 minutes, watching the clag from a light easterly roll in. It was still a very hot day, and very humid at that. The extra heat over the sea might have been a significant contributing factor to the clouds that were drifting into the eastern part of the range from New Zealand’s east coast, which isn’t too far away in the Ruahine Range.

I thought this profile of Sawtooth Ridge
from below Tiraha was an especially
awesome sight.

From Tiraha, the final stage of our Saturday journey was to follow Daphne Ridge along to Howletts Hut for Saturday night. There were a couple of options at this point — several people in the group elected to sidle through the tussock on the inside of the ridge for some distance, but the rest of us followed another goat track along the ridge top. From the latter route, we had an impressive view of the profile of Sawtooth Ridge.

It wasn’t until 2.30pm that we actually reached Howletts Hut, but on that particular Saturday night we had it all to ourselves. This was fortunate in some respects because even though there were nine of us for a ten bunk hut, it’s not a large hut and there’s not much space to wander if everyone’s up and walking about. Despite its small size and perhaps partly because of it, Howletts Hut is one of the nicest and most characteristic huts I’ve ever visited. It’s looked after by the Heretaunga Tramping Club, which clearly takes a lot of care of it. So for Saturday, our walk added up to a total of seven hours, although this was at a reasonably brisk pace (though definitely not running). It was too early to prepare dinner, though, and some people were feeling a little drowsy, so we agreed on a schedule of “quiet time” during which nobody was allowed to talk, or something like that… which is not to say that anybody important really took any notice of the rules.

Paul, Amanda, Roger and Alistair
working on dinner at Howletts Hut.

Preparations for dinner began at around 5pm, which was very organised thanks to Alistair’s insistence that all the relevant veggies be chopped up and prepared before we left. The recipe was reportedly from page 23 of Gourmet Tramping in New Zealand by Jon Sawyer and Liz Baker, which wasn’t of any immediate help since nobody had actually brought the book or the recipe with them, but Alistair seemed to know what he was doing and he was well armed and matched to the task with his full-body cooking underwear. He delegated Amanda to supervise the pasta cooking, and after much noise in the kitchen we sat down to a fantastic Saturday night dinner, which is a common theme on club trips. My only issue with dinner was that it broke my spoon, since the custard (more like scrambled eggs) was unusually thick… but it was a cheap spoon.

On Saturday night, I lay down to read more of my book, Roger and Steve beat Harry and Paul in a noisy game of 500, despite Harry’s claims that he and Paul had been playing the game the way it was supposed to be played, and eventually we went to sleep. The next morning I heard reports that some sod had been snoring all night, but I never noticed them so it was no biggie.

On Sunday morning I consumed my rolled oats with the head of a plastic spoon — the ultimate device for weight saving. It was about now when I noticed that very unusually for the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club, especially for a large trip, all nine of us on the trip were native New Zealanders. This meant that we had a group of people who weren’t all just wearing short shorts and gaiters, but were proud of it. It also meant there weren’t any “foreigners” with strange habits like having weird things for brekkie. It was an active morning, particularly because Roger and Bernie were having very noisy laughs. More specifically, Bernie was being as a perfectly constructed sphere of highly enriched uranium whereas Roger was being a detonator.

We left Howletts Hut at 6.50am, having risen early with the sunrise. There’s lots of noisy life around the Ruahine tops at the moment, unlike some times of year when it’s very quiet apart from the wind. In particular, there’s a lot of insect life which was evident whenever we stopped, and this is notably different from several other times when I’ve been on the tops in the Ruahines, so I guess it may have been symbolic of warmer temperatures at this time of year.

Roger climbing out of the saddle.

Our first stop, at about 8am, was at the bottom of the saddle between point 1431 at the end of Daphne Ridge, and point 1271 on the other side. The saddle would be an awful place to cross in strong wind, but today it was just the persistent light easterly which meant that most of the rest of our day would be spent in clag on the eastern side of the range. It was 8.30 before we reached point 1271, and then continued south along the new ridge towards Otumore (1519), and stopped for a few minutes on its shoulder to the north at around 9am, before sidling around passing the sign marking the junction where one would turn off towards Longview Hut (around 9.25am). From here we headed further south over the other point 1519 that’s not Otumore, but which does have the remains of an old trig station (9.35am). At this point the ridge juts over to the west, leading to the top of a major spur that ends up at Iron Gates Hut (we passed a sign at 9.50am), but we instead followed the main ridge further south-west to point 1505 — also a junction at the top of a spur leading down the opposite side, towards Top Gorge Hut.

Dirk climbing up Tunupo.

The entire ridge along here is very broad and easy to walk on, and with almost no wind (except for that light easterly bringing in the cloud) we had a rather relaxing walk to our final destination on the tops, known as Tunupo (1568). Tunupo is a deceptive climb, and there are several occasions where the top doesn’t look far away until it’s reached, and then it becomes apparent that there’s still more to go. We reached it at 11am, however, and it was there that we stopped for an early lunch surrounded by insects which tended to blacken anything light-coloured and still, simply by their ferocity of landing on and crawling over things.

Now being near the end of the journey, we left Tunupo at about 11.35am, finally heading down the tracked spur towards Heritage Hut. An alternative, which we briefly considered, was to remain on the ridges for a little longer and head further south-west towards Toka (1519), but in the end by now everyone was too fixated on home, and nobody could be bothered.

Bernie flies through a 3-metre wide
chasm between the leatherwood.

The Ruahines are renowned for being surrounded by a ring of Leatherwood, such that it’s often very difficult to actually get to the tops without following some kind of cut track. It was helpful, therefore, that this route from Tunupo down to Heritage Hut was well cut. In fact, it appeared as if it’d been cut with the future in mind, because for most of the threading through Leatherwood plants, the track had been cut a good 2-3 metres wide, which I’d expect would keep it very walkable for at least a decade, since Leatherwood grows quite slowly. Having left Tunupo at around 11.30 and onwards, we reached the first significantly big trees about 40 minutes later, and after that we spent the rest of the rather long, shallow-gradient spur beneath the bush-line.

Nobody was sure if raincoats were worth it,
and Dirk just threw a poncho over everything.

It might have been good timing to get below trees, too, because shortly afterwards we began to get recurring rain showers. They didn’t last for long, and Roger (who’d bounded ahead by a few minutes) claimed he’d never even been rained on, which I guess is a testament to how difficult it is to forecast weather in New Zealand when it can be so extremely localised. I managed to roll my ankle about 2/3 of the way down, but fortunately it wasn’t too serious so after about 5 minutes I was able to walk on it again, and we reached Heritage Hut (often called Heritage Lodge) at 1.30pm after passing 4 or 5 possum traps laid near the end. Heritage Lodge isn’t actually on the route, but is literally a 2 minute side-trip from the junction of the spur we came down with the main track that runs along the true left of Iron Gates Gorge, so it was a handy opportunity to wander up and get some water, as well as to check the hut book to see if another club group had been through earlier in the day as they’d intended.

Greenery somewhere above Heritage Hut.

We didn’t really leave the junction (2 minutes west of the lodge) until about 1.50pm, and after that we only had a brief, 25 minute walk to the Heritage car-park, ending a nice weekend that was very enjoyable.

In summary with good weather and a reasonably fast-moving group of 9 (albeit travelling in a relaxed fashion with several generous stops), we had a 7 hour day to get from Rangiwahia Hut to Howletts Hut (via Te Hekenga) on Saturday, followed by a 6.5 hour day to get from Howletts Hut down to the Heritage road-end, via Otumore and Tunupo.

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.