Family-Friendly Adventure

Atiwhakatu Hut track
Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park 

18-19 September 2021

WTMC Families Trip (7 Adults, 7 walking kids, one infant in a carrier)

 

Lockdown ended just nicely in time for us to go on this trip, which I had been looking forward to for several months (really, a year, I had planned to take Spike in the October holidays in 2020, but my ankle would NOT have stood for it).

Meeting everyone in the carpark, there were a lot of people around. We felt ok about that, because we had booked the hut, and nearly every space in the hut was booked by our party, so we didn't feel any need to rush just in case.

Having such a number of kids, including several who knew each other through cubs, in addition to those who regularly met on families group trips, meant the kids mostly walked super well. They kept each other occupied, talked kid rubbish all the time, and easily fell into the standard families group situation of just asking whichever parent was closest for permission to do anything.

A couple of the kids struggled a little bit with the massive swing bridge that marked just beyond half way to the hut, which wasn't surprising. It was long, and a long way up. A little bit of coaxing, and some unique solutions got everyone across to stop for lunch.

We arrived at the hut around 3pm. The kids all decided they wanted to share the biggest bunkroom as a group, which we allowed for the time being. It was cold and dark inside the hut, as the sun had already moved off it, and there was no dry wood around, even in the woodshed, because of recent storms.

We limped a fire into existence, all enjoyed some quiet(ish) time, the kids explored down to the river and we eventually had dinner.

Since it was my birthday, Mark carried about 3kg of caramilk brownie cheesecake mix into the hut for construction into pudding for everyone. This was devoured rapidly, with the last piece shared to the family who arrived at darkness with their 4 year old, having come down the hill from Jumbo late.

We reconfigured the kids and families into family-pod bunk allocations, especially since several of the kids had decided they wanted to sleep with their parents after all, crowding the parents spaces and leaving huge swathes of empty bunks around, and started prepping everyone for bed.

Our exothermic 8yo was cold in the middle of the night, despite the three of us crowding in to two mattresses. We wrapped him up in some extra clothes and he warmed up. Not the first time he's been cold in this sleeping bag recently, I think it is partly because its getting too short to keep his shoulders inside.

Morning came indecently early, but dry. It was still cool inside the hut, lovely and fresh outside. We spent a while hauling and chopping up more wood for the people who would come after us, leaving it in piles on various parts of the deck and in the woodshed, before taking some group photos to prove we were there and heading off.

Morning tea was had at the bridge. It really needs to be replaced, because a one-person bridge of that length, with a party of 14, takes a LONG time to get everyone across. The poor people we met going the other way who were out for a run and had to wait a good 15 minutes for us to all get across!

Some of us stopped for lunch in the shelter at Donnelly Flat, but several others just kept going the last 20 minutes back to the cars. Change of clothes, change of footwear, use the flush toilet, and back on the road. We stopped for an ice cream on the way home.

All told, we had an AMAZING time. Tramping with the families group kids is a fantastic way to get Spike out there. His new pack meant he happily carried all his own gear for the weekend (including water, but no food other than some snacks) with no complaints, no pain, and no requests to have a break.