Hut Bagging

Covert Ops Black Tie Lunch at the Waihohonu Hilton

2011-10-27T21:35:00.001+13:00

Waihohonu Hut Daywalk, Desert Road.
Lodge weekend, 01 October 2011

Team: Myself, Mark, Colin, Nathaniel

Friday night, 5.30pm, Wellington Railway Station. Perfect. We have infiltrated a party of climbers heading for “The Lodge”. This lodge will be a perfect base for our weekend operation. We hope this lodge will prove as comfortable as it sounds, even if it traffic reports indicate we might be in for a long drive.

Friday night, 6.30pm, Upper Hutt. A detour to pick up another member of the climbing party. The interlopers still haven’t been roused out of the van, it appears there may be space enough that they continue not to notice us.

Friday Night, 8pm, Levin. The climbers have all disappeared into a den of iniquity calling itself “Noodle Canteen”. To continue avoiding notice we split in half and head for alternative eating establishments, ensuring we are back ahead of the climbers so we don’t get left behind.

Saturday, 7am. After a short nights sleep due to a late arrival, some generous soul is cooking breakfast already. We quickly demolish some food, do a spot of cleaning up and inch our way down the crusty ice to the van, where the climbers are waiting for us to drop them off. It appears we have been noticed.

Saturday, 10am. After a successful mutiny against the climbers in Whakapapa Village, we gained control of the van in a bloodless coup and have arrived at a carpark in the middle of nowhere, somewhere alongside the “Desert Road”. We have been reliably informed that our mission will see us walking in to a “Waihohonu Hut”, and that it should not be a long time before our destination is in sight.

Saturday, 11.30am. We appear to be lost. Colin has visited several “huts” in the past, and is adamant that this is not a “hut” and that the spacious lodge with running hot water we have instead found is the mysterious Waihohonu Hilton. With this in mind, we change clothes to something more suited to the location and settle in to demolish our lunch as if we are just here minding our own business.

Saturday, 1.30pm. We are starting to doubt our directions. We have consumed two courses of food and seen only a pair of Australian trampers. Perhaps our quarry is at the historic hut? We know we are running out of time, as we should be leaving the hut already if we are to make rendezvous with C at M, but we decide that since we are here, we should continue and make a thorough investigation, to ensure we have not stopped a hut too early.

Saturday, 1.45pm. There is no one at the historic hut either. We are perplexed. So we capture our smallest member and string him up instead, just to prove that we have achieved something with our day. To ease his feelings and our confusion, we return to the new hut for a spot of dessert, deciding we can now run late for our rendezvous as we were given spurious information in the first place.

Saturday, 2.30pm. After taking our time to ensure that the change to daylight savings the other weekend was not the cause of our mission failure, we change back out of our dress clothes and leave the Hilton as swiftly as we arrived. The trip back makes us aware of the fact that there is actually a height above MSL difference between the carpark and the Hilton – are we sure we are going the right way? We don’t remember feeling like we were climbing to get there, but we are definitely dropping now.

Saturday, 4pm. The van is in sight again. Luckily the climbers didn’t manage to trace us here and claim it back. We roar (gently) off onto the Desert Road again, back around the mountain to the Mangatepopo Carpark, where our next rendezvous point is.

Saturday, 5pm. There are more people at the rendezvous than there should have been. This makes us a little worried, but we collect them all anyway as they all appear to fit, before dumping one out at the next junction as we return to the lodge too late for a beer at the pub, and after Happy Hour has finished. Thankfully dinner appears to be not far away – not that us interlopers need any after a relaxing three hours having lunch on a mission that was only successful in that it caused no further injury to Colin and included tasty food.

Sunday, 10am. The climbers have invited us to join them at the Tokaanu Hot Pools. We gratefully accept, as it’s a perfect excuse to escape the boarders vs skiers debate that appears to be ongoing at the “lodge”.

Sunday, 12.30pm, Waiouru. The debate has found us again. Save us all. We escape as quickly as is politely possible and continue the drive back to Wellington.

Hot Days Peddling

2011-10-06T20:14:00.000+13:00

Rimutaka Incline Rail Trail, Hutt Valley

February 6, 2010

Mark and I

Mark and I had decided it was time for a new form of adventure, so we bought a mountain bike for me so we could go for bike rides together. Our first trip out was the Rimutaka Incline, just beyond Upper Hutt. Since we only had our car, we decided we would cycle in from the Upper Hutt end, have lunch at Summit Station and ride back.

It was a gloriously hot and sunny Saturday, as is fairly common for Waitangi Day in Wellington (2011 proved the exception to the rule), when we packed up the car with our two bikes, lunch and water and headed off. The carpark was already busy when we got there at 10am, but we snagged a spot in the shade, got ourselves sorted out and headed off.

The track was a bit deceiving – it appeared to be almost completely flat but wasn’t. So I was riding with my bike in quite a heavy gear because anything less felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Needless to say, I got most of the way to the end and was exhausted. I also was wearing my usual running shorts which had no extra padding, and wound up with an exceedingly sore bum – so I walked a lot of the last 1/2km.

The track is well formed and easy riding the whole way up to Summit. It was more than wide enough to ride two abreast most of the way, and still allow space for someone coming down the hill to go past. The biggest issue we found was getting our bikes around the barriers – considering its sold as a good walking track as well, you wouldn’t want to be taking a kid in a pushchair through there without help to get them over these!

Once at the top we dropped our bikes and ourselves in a nice spot of shade and thoroughly enjoyed the miniscule wisps of breeze that deigned to come through to cool us off. Apparently it’s an exceedingly rare occurance for it to be that still at the Summit. After a simple lunch of sandwiches and fruit, it was back on the bike – using my towel as extra cushioning on the bike seat so I could handle sitting! It was on the way downhill that I finally realised just how much of a climb I had completed on the way up, as I flew down the hill (a LOT of fun) at a pace that was also comfortable, not requiring extending pulls on the brakes as the incline was solid but not steep.

We didn’t stop much on the way down the hill, except to play with a long exposure photo in one of the tunnels. We did decide that at some stage in the future we really needed to come back and do the entire crossing, since I had been too sore to even walk down the Wairarapa side to the long tunnel and steep section.

Arriving back at the car we saw that oops, the shade we had parked in had vanished, the car was drenched in sunshine and about 40degrees inside.

So, final thoughts? All in all a good wee track. Definitely on the must do again at earliest possible convenience list.

A walk down memory lane

2011-09-10T13:27:00.002+12:00

February 2004 with OUTC

Alabaster Hut, Hollyford Track, Fiordland National Park

Its been so long since I did this trip, that I completely forgot it when I was writing my hut book / trip list until I found a photo of Hidden Falls Hut on my Flickr stream.

Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, as now that I remember it, I wish I didn’t.

I’ve actually done this trip twice (and there is a good chance that some of my memories of the trip are compilations of the two), both times in late February / early March with the Otago University Tramping Club. Apart from a massive mission to the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and a couple of Bushballs, its about the only tramping I did with the club (that I can remember at least) as I was constantly either too financially poor or too time poor to get out much.

2002 was my first club trip, and I was a punter. I remember two bus loads of students stopping in Gore for dinner on Friday night, harassing the bogans, lots of rain, a seriously over-full hut with a leaking roof, sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor, and sleeping on the bus on the way home.

In 200, I was living in Te Anau, and got roped in with Jo F to lead Alabaster Hut again. Not having to spend all night on the bus, and avoiding stops in Gore were big plusses to doing this trip again. I started packing at about the time the rest were leaving dinner in Gore, and was ready and waiting in my room when the text came through at about 10.30pm that they were nearly there.

The Hollyford Road end has nothing to commend it as a sleeping location except a long drop. When you have a party of about 12 people, the tiny patch of grass that was there was woefully inadequate to fit everyone, so we pitched a fly off either side of the van, my groundsheet was commandeered by a couple of American exchange students (not best pleased), and we all settled down to an uncomfortable night not really sleeping on the sloped gravel of the carpark.

Distributing the group food in the morning proved difficult, as two members of the party had bought what could only be described as school bags, and by the time they had packed their sleeping bag, warm jersey and bottle of wine into it, they claimed they had no space for group gear or food. A thought was had of leaving them behind for the weekend with their food, but we decided it wasn’t that bad a track and the rest of us could just hack it.

The weather was iffy all day, interspurced with bouts of heavy rain, and the girls were soon complaining. We stopped for lunch at Hidden Falls Hut, which was seriously infested by sandflies (outside was worse), before motoring on. Some sections of track here seemed to take forever, and I was very glad to see the guided walk companies Pyke Lodge, which meant we only had about 20 minutes to go.

The weather wasn’t nice enough to swim in the lake, so we all just chilled with a drink and our books before we had dinner. On one of the trips (it may have been this one), I got really awful chafing from wet shorts, and spent the evening trying desperately not to itch it, wearing my long johns inside out so something was resting on it, but not moving. I wound up wearing boxer shorts to walk out the next day!

Track maintenance was underway while we were there, and one of the things they had been doing was gravelling the track. But not with little gravel. The stuff they were using was an awful middle size, everyone had wicked blisters from their boots, as really you would have been better off wearing sneakers. These blisters led us to take a longer than anticipated lunch stop in the sunshine at Hidden Falls Hut.

Eventually my blisters got so bad I could barely walk any more. We started running exceedingly late. A splinter group was sent on to the road end to tell them we were definitely coming and would be there soon, but by the time they got there (20 minutes after we thought our pickup time was, so within waiting limits), the van was already gone. Turns out that there had been a mixup as to whether the pickup was 3pm Daylight time, or 3pm Standard time (as daylight saving ended on Sunday morning) and the van had waited an hour for us before leaving. Thankfully Roy dumped his load of people on the bus and came back to save us.

Our last bit of entertainment for the weekend was also a feeling of relief – the bus broke down about 30 minutes out of Te Anau, so we were exceedingly glad not to be on it! After taking my van load to my local fish n chip shop (rather than going into town, they all wanted to eat quickly then get going), they dropped me home and it was the end of my weekend. I threw the boots out when I got home after realising that the reason they had given me such awful blisters was the damage I had done to them the previous September, leaving them too close to the fire on the Abel Tasman track! (they had given me nasty blisters the last day of that tramp too)

(You'll need to click through to see this at a decent resolution...)

Skiing, or attempting to anyway

2011-08-30T18:19:00.000+12:00

Back in high school, I did PE as an optional subject, and one of our big assessments was a ski week in 6th form. It was about the only assessment I failed in two years.

We were at Temple Basin – in mid October. There was no snow on the learners slopes, and actually almost no snow on the entire field. After a day of doing nothing in the lodge there, we got some snow, and spent the rest of the week around the far end of the skifield in Downhill Basin.

The lessons were rudimentary. So rudimentary I don’t remember anything from them apart from using our poles to turn our skis from side on to the slope to facing down the slope. I remember fear, the knowledge that the runout at the bottom of the slope we were learning on was a fairly substantial bluff. Mainly I remember giving up after the one short lesson we were granted and spending most of the week hiding in the shed at the bottom of the hill, going out into the snow only when I had to.

By the end of the week the only thing I had achieved was more fear of skiing and a sense of utter failure. I was presented with an award from the group of “person most likely to never set foot on skis again”, and the tag really stuck.

It was easy to avoid skiing while at uni and immediately after. I very rarely was offered the opportunity, and could plead poverty when I was. Not many of my friends skied anyway.

Then I met Mark. Who had been skiing and loving it for a couple of years (on the plus side, at least it was only a couple, and not forever and a day), and wanted me to go with him to the mountain when he went away for weekends.

Our first year dating (2008), Mark paid for me to have a snowboarding lesson for my birthday. I was still adamant that I wasn’t going to ski, but I figured I could give snowboarding a go, so I didn’t have to sit at home alone for multiple weekends each winter.

Snowboarding was hard. After my two hour lesson and about another 20 minutes playing around, I needed a break, so went to the café. After that, I found it was just too hard to get going again. That night at the backpackers I was absolutely exhausted. I could hardly move, and was immensely glad I had a bottom bunk. I spent my Sunday miserable at the café at Turoa while Mark skied.

In 2009, I spent only one weekend up the mountain, and the weather was awful, so not much was open and no-one was really skiing anyway. In 2010, neither of us made it to the mountain, between starting new jobs and planning a wedding, we didn’t have the time or money to go.

This year, I had no more excuses, especially when the only weekend we had planned for the season was an absolute stunner. Staying in the lodge had bored me to tears (literally) on Saturday, and so I caved in to pressure on Sunday and went down to Happy Valley for a ski lesson.

I admit, I had a much better time than I anticipated, considering I had been nearly shitting myself with anxiety while waiting for the class to start. Our instructor was patient, well spoken and funny. We were corrected without being laughed at, cheered when we did things right and generally encouraged to keep trying even when we found things tough.

By the end of class, my big achievement was that I could stop myself, at least occasionally. It’s a skill that I barely managed to hold on to over my half hour lunch break with Mark. After that I decided I was sore, tired and to be honest a bit emotional at the fact of having faced my fear, and I didn’t feel the need to prove myself any more for the day. So we took my skis back to the hire shop and went up to Knoll Ridge on my sightseeing pass together.

I found that I was definitely less sore after skiing than I had been after snowboarding. I’m sure that the work I have done with various personal trainers over the last three years to increase my core strength, balance and fatigue point have all contributed to this. My sore bits were the fronts of my shins from the boots and my calf muscles.

Will I ski again? Probably. I suspect you will find me in a beginners lesson again next winter, and the winter after that until I get to the point of being able to turn and can move up a step. Its going to take a long time to be confident enough to get out of the learners area, but I’m ok with that.

Still here, just not tramping

2011-08-24T19:42:00.000+12:00

Dont worry, I havent fallen off the face of the earth.

After tearing my hamstring at Easter, I had to take a good bit of time off tramping. I'm not back into it yet.

But I did go skiing on the weekend - more on that later :)`

A case of perfect timing

2011-05-10T21:25:00.001+12:00

Easter 2011: April 21-25.

Ruapehu Round-the-Mountain Track, Desert Road to Ohakune Mountain Road\

Team: Myself (leader), Mark, Mike, Annie, Lieselot, Jonathan, Tim, Vincent, Jo (part time at least)

THURSDAY

This Easter, the clubs trips were all either north island based, or flying to Christchurch and starting from there. So Helen, Amanda and I were all corralling punters into vans at a very busy platform 9 on a warm and overcast Thursday. We were headed for the club lodge for the night – the other van was headed for somewhere north of Taupo.

Unusually, we encountered no traffic issues – we were all the way to Waikanae without delays. This seemed simply too good to be true – we assumed that many people must have taken an extra day off and left early since it was school holidays.

We still stopped for dinner in Levin, where people could choose from more options and get fed faster than Bulls, which everyone was happy with. It also enabled us to stop in at a supermarket and pick up the chicken for Sunday nights roast, and some wine to enjoy with it at the lodge.

Arrival at the lodge was at a good time – about 11pm – and in good conditions. There was a bit of snow hanging around on the path up to the lodge, but there was no depth to any of it, which was good. After our usual briefing, everyone was off to bed, with alarms set for fairly early the next morning.

FRIDAY

It was an absurdly early start for an easy-medium tramp. We knew we had at least 7 hours walking ahead of us, and daylight would run out at some time around 5.30pm (or slightly later depending on the weather), and an hours drive before we could even start walking. So we were aiming to be out of the lodge by about 8.30 – which we duly managed. The drive around to the far side of the mountain was uneventful, and we duly arrived at the Waihohonu Carpark, unloaded ourselves in the cold breeze and said goodbye to Jo, who was taking the van and staying at the Lodge for the weekend.

The walk in to the New New Waihohonu Hut (as opposed to the now Old-New hut, across the river, which is being, or has been demolished) was a doddle. A slight climb over just on an hour and a half, on easy ground. The joy of walking in to a great walks hut! We stopped briefly to explore the hut and have a light morning tea while chatting to the hut warden – who happened to be the clubs ex chief guide! He strongly encouraged us to visit the Historic Waihohonu Hut on our way through, which we did – for some reason taking our packs with us rather than leaving them at the track junction…

The historic hut was cute and interesting, and well worth visiting. It would also make a good day walk in conjunction with the springs about 10 minutes further along the valley towards Rangipo Hut. A discussion was had on the merits of continuing to the springs, or stopping at this point for an early lunch. Both ideas were vetoed in favour of lunch in about an hours time.

So off we trudged. And a trudge it was! The track through here was like walking uphill on a beach – soft, sandy soil that didn’t allow you any push, and had no solid sections you could walk on instead to make it easier. By the time we stopped for lunch we were all really glad that we had covered what appeared to be most of the sand before lunch rather than having to do it after!

We were visited at lunch by a very funky coloured bug, which necessitated the appearance of my zoon lens in order to get a decent photo. By this stage I was already feeling a bit tired, and wishing I could just go home again. Why do I keep doing this to myself?? I had also buried the sauce for our sandwiches in my billy, which was buried right at the bottom of my back, next to my sleeping bag – and I was NOT unpacking my whole pack for some sandwich fillings!

Onwards we marched, eventually getting to a ridge where we could see a building that we suspected was on the Tukino Skifield access road. By this stage it had taken us about 2 hours to walk the 4km from Waihohonu Hut, and we still had 2.5km to go to the road, then another “hour or so” from there to the hut. It was in the hour and a bit over to the road that I discovered that walking directly behind Mark in marching formation, and watching where he put his feet then following it exactly vastly improved my speed across the terrain, as it saved me having to think beyond “that’s where his foot was this time”.

When we got to the road it was about 3.30pm and we were all feeling cold, tired and physically challenged. But we held on to hope that Paul was right and it would only be about another hour on from here. Because of this, we determined that the next stopping point would be the hut. Unfortunately it (again) took us longer than anticipated to get to the hut. The hardest part of the day was ahead of us – every stream we crossed from here on out involved a good drop before then scrambling out the other side, and we also had to cross the lahar path at the Whangaehu River.

The signs are ominous – “Do not stop” “Do not enter if you hear a roar upstream”. We entered the valley as we couldn’t hear anything (and there wasn’t a high lahar risk), and discovered that this was actually some of the most tricky terrain we had yet encountered – clambering over large rocks, a double dip valley before getting to safety, a single person bridge halfway across. I commented to Mark when we got out the other side that if we had heard noises upstream, I would have had to dump my pack to get any momentum, and even then I would have been lucky to get out of the valley in any hurry!

The last of us arrived at a swelteringly hot Rangipo Hut just on darkness, to discover it was about half full and very dark inside. For a popular hut, it wasn’t laid out particularly well. There is space for at least 22 bodies on the bunks, but there is one small bench and one small table that can squeeze about 6 people around it, then the fireplace is in the middle of the room. We wound up doing our dinner prep outside as it was the only place we could find space. By the time we had eaten our very (very) hot Thai Green Curry and rice, many of the other hut users had started to go to bed. Most of us were so exhausted that we skipped the Chocolate Fondue planned for dessert and just ate the chocolate instead!

SATURDAY

It was a fairly early start for all on Saturday morning after such an early night. A couple who had come all the way around from Whakapapa village the day before and were off to Mangaturuturu that night left the hut at 7am – a wakeup call for all.

To start with, we made good time – arriving at the top of the “Grand Canyon” (aka the drop down into the Wahianoa River) within just over an hour. We watched a German tramper we had met the day before ambling his way back up the far side of the valley as we pondered the task ahead of us. After fighting off a complaint from one member of the group that it seemed ridiculous to group together again at the bridge at the bottom of the gully, we headed off at our own pace. Amazingly, even with a short stop at the bottom to ensure no-one had fallen off the track, we were up the other side less than an hour after we had left the Rangipo side – a drop of nearly 200m (in just over 300m) and a climb again of about 100m before dropping back over the other side of the ridge. Talk about extreme landscapes! That said, it was nowhere near as bad as it had looked from the top, especially the sidling climb out of the valley – although you would have had issues if you had a fear of heights, as it was steep and high (and would have been a nasty run-off if you had fallen)

Most of the party was making good pace (except, of course, me), and so when the next stop was determined to be in about an hour and a half for an early lunch, they had covered quite a distance, and left poor Mark and I quite a way behind! Thankfully Tim (an angel) took pity on me and came the 15 minutes (at his pace) back to us and took my pack off me for the last of the walk to the rest of the groups lunch stop. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived and sat down, some of the faster (and more regularly complaining) members of the party had been stopped for over 20 minutes and were keen to press on. We managed to get 10 minutes rest before they started off, and I then asked them to stop an hour further along the track (having figured out that we only had about 4km to go, and I had been covering ground at an average of 2km/hr the whole tramp so far) – although I also gave them the option that if they arrived at a bridge before that hour was up, they could continue on to the hut and we would meet them there.

The terrain after we left the lunch stop changed again. It got very hot at some point along here and I had to dig all the way to the bottom of my pack to find something I could change into from my long sleeved thermal I had been wearing (I had packed it at the bottom, expecting a continuation of Fridays cold weather). We were now also walking in and out of patches of forest, which was pleasant, and patches of bog, which was not.

Parts of the track had obviously received some work in the past, but some of these changes actually made the walking more difficult – steeply angled boardwalks made of 2x2 with a 2x2 worth of space between each plank, that you then needed to step off down to another steeply angled boardwalk that was more than knee-high below you. Needless to say, I slowed down even further through much of this, and walking poles didn’t help the situation. On the plus side, walking through the forested sections at least provided a little shade! After scratching my already problematic right knee (badly injured on a CUTC snowcraft course in 2005 and never the same since) on a boulder early in the scramble through this half of the day, I eventually gave in and stopped to take my boot off and put a support on. Not that it overly helped – especially since on one of those rare patches where we could pace out, I then pinged something in the back of my other knee. Yep, you guess it. This slowed me down further again.

About 15 minutes after the next scheduled stop and regroup time, we came across the group, relaxing in the sunshine at the bridge that I knew with certainty was about 500m from the hut. We looked across the river in awe to the perfectly formed boardwalk on the other side and dreamed about it being that way all the way to the hut.

Alas, it was but a short section of nice track, before returning to the norm of ladder-like boardwalks and slippery bogs. The others were so excited about getting to the hut in the early afternoon that they powered off ahead, and by the time Tim came back and took my pack off me again, we were still 10 minutes from the hut! Arrival at the hut was heralded the same way by all (we were told we had the same reactions as the others) – you walk on to the deck on Mangaehuehu Hut from the north and look over a very awesome landscape down to Ohakune, Waiouru and the Ruahine and Kaimanawa Ranges. Everyone thought “wow, that’s gorgeous”. Then you turn around. And the view to the mountain? It is far and away the best view we had had of the mountain in the previous two days.

I couldn’t tell you what the mountain looked like from the track north of Rangipo Hut – we didn’t have any visibility of it! And then between Rangipo and Mangaehuehu Hut all you get are tantalising glimpses, where Girdlestone’s triangular peak dominates the view. From the hut, you get a gorgeous view up the Mangaehuehu Glacier, and both Glacier and Skyline ridges are easily visible (both of which mark the edge of Turoa skifield). Even more awesome was the cloud formation to the east of the mountain – a massive cloud bank rising high above the top of the mountain.

The sun was shining, so most of us took advantage of an early afternoon arrival at the hut to enjoy some time on the deck with another party who arrived not long after us. About 4.30pm we decided we should light the fire to ensure the hut stayed warm – and it was so efficient we had to leave all the windows open all night so it was cool enough to sleep!

Eventually we decided we should have dinner – Rice Risotto (cooked partly on the very hot fire) with veges, followed by packet-mix cheesecake, with chocolate sauce (all the chocolate we hadn’t made fondue with the night before), fruit and gummy bears. Talk about delicious! This, and the presence of another party who also believed that 9pm was a much more respectable bedtime (also coupled with a much shorter days walking in better weather, and good weather for trying to take long exposure star shots) meant bed was had closer to 9pm than 7pm. It was still very hot – I started the night on top of my sleeping bag rather than in it, and after getting up for the bathroom at 3am, I pulled on a long-sleeved top so I didn’t stick to the cold mattress, and wrapped the sleeping bag over the top of me instead.

SUNDAY

About 6.30am I woke again to a beautiful pink sunrise. So I struggled back out of bed again (feeling stiff, but quite awake after a good nights sleep), grabbed the camera and a warm top and headed outside. The mountain was beautiful and it was lovely to have some time to myself to start appreciating my favourite mountain again (instead of resenting it like I had for large parts of the previous two days).

Unfortunately, my quiet digging into my pack for my camera was loud enough to wake the other party who were sharing the main room of the hut with half of us. So they decided it was time to wake up and share out their chocolate. Not too long after, most of us decided it was time to get up and about, and before long the hut was a hive of relaxed activity.

We knew that we only had about 4 hours walking to do, so were in no huge rush to head off – we departed the hut just before 9am, with a plan to head back to the lodge for lunch before heading off to Tokaanu for the hot pools in the afternoon. Mark and I were again in the back, as my knees were both still causing issues – I couldn’t stride out without pain, so was forced into taking much smaller steps than I wanted.

That said, we still made excellent time. The terrain was (generally) less difficult, the sun was shining, there was a light breeze to stop it getting hot. We made it to the first bridge in remarkably quick time considering how slow I felt like I was going. After just on one and a half hours we had made it to our third of five bridges we knew demarcated our day and discovered Jo waiting with the front runners – with fresh donuts. What a fantastic treat! Jo had walked in from the road end to meet up with us and visit Blyth Hut.

The walking from here to the Blyth Hut turnoff was on very well constructed boardwalk, so I was able to maintain a better (albeit still slower than everyone else!) pace for the 20 minutes. Annie, Mark and I left the others to visit the extra hut while we continued on to the van, anticipating that we would all then end up in the same place at about the same time.

The last of the walk from here included more wonderous boardwalk, along with some bits that were still in the process of being developed with new boardwalk (stacks of bits alongside the track attested to this). We had issues finding our way across a fairly substantial and unbridged stream just shy of the Waitonga falls – the big marker for people heading in our direction was less than obvious, and we had to back track to make sure we were in the right place.

Waitonga Falls were a bit of a non-event really, as you couldn’t clearly see the best parts of the falls from the lookout. But we stopped for a look anyway, and took a few photos before attacking the substantial climb up lots of stairs to the top of the hill. From here we were excited to get to Lake Rotokewa, but this was another disappointment – a large bog with boardwalk through it. The cool breeze picked up through here and became a markedly cold wind – so we didn’t stop.
By this stage we were seeing lots of daywalkers out and about, which was interesting. It was a lot like being an overnight tramper on the Tongariro Crossing – we seemed to be carrying such an excessive amount of gear!

The final bridge was reached, and crossed with a feeling of profound relief – there was the van and our way home! The rest of the group arrived about 30 minutes later after their hour-return foray to Blyth Hut, and apart from a brief stop in Ohakune for toilets, it was straight back to the lodge where showers and food were the order of the day.

3pm saw us congregating in the bunkroom, ready to head off in the light drizzle to the hot pools. Tokaanu was exceedingly busy, and we had a short wait for our private hot pool (well worth the extravagance - $10 per person for 20 minutes in a private pool, followed by as much time as you want in the main pool). Some people went for a walk around the local thermal springs area to keep moving, and everyone loved the soak in the very hot mineral pool – certainly excellent for what ails you.

All of a sudden the lights were turning on and we realised it was time to get back to the lodge, where we arrived just on dark, in heavier rain. Jo had done all the preparation for dinner, and the chicken was in the oven, with nibble platters out on the tables, so it was time for the wine to come out and some cards to be played.
A huge roast dinner, followed by apple crumble and custard followed, and we demolished nearly all of it. A mega Jenga game was played by several people – it fell over very quickly! A later night than usual was had by all – about 10pm (early by lodge standards I guess).

MONDAY

After a bit of a sleep in and some breakfast, we followed it up by cooking up a whole pile of the leftovers for second breakfast (didn’t want to hang around at the lodge long enough to have lunch), having left Jonathan to sleep until 9am. We were packed up, cleaned up and out of the lodge just after 11am, hoping this would mean we were early enough to beat much of the traffic.

No such luck. It was pouring with rain on and off the whole trip. Our first patch of heavy traffic was in Waiouru, followed by delays getting in to Taihape. We still arrived in Bulls in fairly good time – about 2pm, and stopped here for a late lunch to tide us over. I still wish I had had a pie rather than a slice of chocolate mud cake.

We decided to try our hand at State Highway 1 from here on in. We really should have gone over the Manawatu Gorge to State Highway 2 through Masterton. It took us 2.5 hours to get to Otaki from Bulls. That’s a trip of 80km. Ouch. An accident north of Levin and traffic lights / roundabouts seemed to be the main culprits. Thankfully everyone was well rested and in a good mood – we played alphabet games with shop fronts, and registration plate cricket. Tim jumped out of the van to say hello to the people in the car in front of us at one stage while we were stopped. We also stopped and bought feijoas from a poor guy standing in the rain on the side of the barely moving highway.

Eventually we made it to a very welcome toilet stop in Waikanae. From there, traffic was busy and heavy, but moving well (thank goodness) and we made it home to the railway station about 6pm.

Frozen Water

2011-04-28T22:23:00.000+12:00

Taranaki Falls Loop, Whakapapa Village

Winter Solstice Weekend, 19-21 June 2009

Team: Myself, Mark, Geoff, Andy H, Steijn, Rob, Several Others

The weather at the lodge was marginal, tending revolting. My group had originally intended to walk to Whakapapaiti Hut, cook up a brew for lunch, then wander on down to the village for a beer and hot chips before returning to the lodge. After a talk with Geoff K (Chief Guide), we decided to can that idea because it involved what would be a very cold river crossing about 3 hours from the road end.

Mark was keen to do Tama Lakes, but with the wind gusting as strong as it was, past experience suggested that lower Tama Lake would be as far as you would get, and even that wouldn’t be overly comfortable. Instead, we decided to do the Taranaki Falls loop – or as much of it as we could do, considering we had heard conflicting reports about whether it was open or not.

Knowing we had a maximum four-hour walk ahead of us, we all took our time, and took our cameras. We had a lot of fun testing the frozen streams to see how much weight they could hold (most that Mark tried easily held him), and how many large rocks we could bounce off them before they cracked (they often won that one – we gave up before we got a break).

All of a sudden, we were in a sheltered, sunny spot (but it was still not very warm) at the top of Taranaki Falls – which appeared to be frozen too! Awesome. This put paid to any remaining idea that walking on to Tama Lakes would be good – everyone was too keen to get down and wander around the frozen waterfall.

After some fun playing with the waterfall, we had a brief debate. There was a sign clearly stating that the track beyond the lower bridge was closed, and we were wondering whether this was more to keep out underprepared daywalkers, or if there was something seriously wrong with the track. We decided that we would climb the fence and continue down the track anyway, being prepared to turn around at any point where it became obvious why the track was closed, and we felt unsafe continuing on.

Turns out, the track was closed for maintenance around an old slip, which we easily navigated. Our biggest difficulty actually lay in getting past some of the machinery that was on the track to do this work!
Before too long we were walking back out of the valley, taking the long, slow march from the forest edge to the van, parked in the carpark, soaking up the sunshine for us. We had all bought our swimming gear, and had always planned to head off to Tokaanu for a soak in the hotpools, but some people felt they really hadn’t done enough walking to earn it yet – so we stopped off on the way at Lake Rotoponamu.

The loop walk around the lake takes about an hour. Some of us didn’t really feel like walking all the way around, so we walked down to the lake and back up while the others ran around the lake. We had some exceedingly interesting conversations while we waited for the runners to get back to us… Poor Mark was the only bloke that didn’t run.

The hot pools were divine as always, and we stayed longer than we really should have. By the time we were coming back to the side of Mt Ruapehu, the sun was setting on the mountain, lighting it beautifully. The problem with this was that by the time we got back up to the carpark, it was dark and we had no headtorches! Oops! Thankfully Serac Lodge had its light on over the path, but the shadows were still huge.

After that it was party time – a yummy dinner, an 80’s themed dress-up party and a good quantity of alcohol meant pretty much everyone just chilled on Sunday morning. Once a good sized group were up and about, someone decided we should take the lodge toboggans down to the snow in Happy Valley and have a play on the snow. It was great – till I came off awkwardly and gave myself whiplash! Oops. Thank goodness Mark and I were travelling back in Robs car rather than the club van, as that was way more comfortable for the drive home. Needless to say, I wrote off the rest of the season for possible snowboarding lessons (on the advice of my Osteopath), which I wasn’t really complaining too much about!

Taking the Lead

2011-04-13T18:30:00.001+12:00

February 29 - March 02, 2008

Rangiwahia Hut, Ruhaine Forest Park

Team: Me (leader), Paul, Karl, David

Rangiwahia is a hut I am going to have to go back to for the simple reason that I forgot to take a camera with me on this trip! Somehow I left both my SLR and pocket cameras at home, and only had my cellphone with me. Needless to say, I was already disgruntled by this as soon as we got up in the morning and saw the views across the plateau to Ruapehu!

We had all slept badly – the carpark was the only flat area around, and was gravel. We had set up the tent fly on the edge of the carpark where there was a small amount of grass and hunted down some larger rocks to use as pegs (as our pegs wouldn’t go in at all). We shouldn’t have bothered! It was a warm and breezy night and most of us were woken multiple times by the wind blowing through the tent making a LOT of noise!
Saturday mornings weather was sunny and fine. We packed ourselves up and headed off. Part way along the track was a massive slip that the track had to go up and around. At the top of the climb was a sign proudly proclaiming that “the worst is over, track undulates from here” (which is bollocks by the way. The track levels out for a few minutes then drops precipitously down the other side of the slip). This slowed us down a bit as one member of the party had a bung leg and found the clambering difficult.

Soon enough we were on the gorgeous old bridge over the very steep gully. Very cool! Further up the track and we crossed a waterfall, then suddenly we had arrived! The weather had started to pack up a little on our way up the hill and on arrival at the hut it was misty and windy. We had lunch and then most people went for a wander up on to the ridge, into the teeth of the wind. I went part way and then left the rest of the team in Pauls capable hands (he was my co-leader since this was my first trip leading with the club), while I returned to the hut for a nap.

Dinner was sweet & sour pork, followed by chocolate self-saucing pudding and was divine. Many hands of 500 were played (my first introduction to the game), and a hunter arrived after dusk for the night. The weather cleared briefly, allowing us to look out to the lights of the nearby towns for all of 10 minutes. Still not sure which towns they are!

Overnight the rain set in. Our visiting hunter snuck out early to see what he could see up on the ridge and came back wet and empty handed, but still in a good mood while we were getting organised. We knew that we needed to wait for people to make it out to another road end, and that this was likely to happen about lunchtime, so we decided to delay our departure from the hut by about 30 minutes.

This ended up being fortuitous timing! It stopped raining (was misty wet instead) by the time we left the hut, and the sun was out when we arrived at the road end. We changed into warm, dry clothes and spread out our damp jackets to dry for a while. Just as we were starting to wonder when we would hear from the other party, a vehicle stopped just down the road, and they climbed out! Turned out they had tried to text me to tell me they were out, but my phone hadn’t received it which was frustrating!

As we climbed into the van, it started to rain again, so we headed off and stopped for coffee / beer etc in Kimbolton – as far into the back of beyond as you get! Then it was simply a case of keeping on trucking home. It felt like a long drive both ways – which is the main reason I haven’t yet gone back to the hut, its too far to drive for such a short walk, and its MUCH further on to the next hut from there…

To see photos of the area, check out my friend Mikes photos from his trip in 2006

Helicopter-tastic, Episode Two

2011-04-04T20:11:00.002+12:00

Saturday 21 June 2008

Tongariro Crossing, Mangatepopo Road End, Tongariro National Park.

Team: Rene, Paul, Myself

As Mark was away in Europe, I was often away tramping for weekends to keep myself occupied. WT&MC does a Winter Solstice trip every year to the club lodge, where you daywalk on Saturday, party Saturday night and then mooch around a bit on Sunday before heading home. Plans are always fluid depending on who is around, what the people who are capable to lead feel like doing and what the weather is up to. This year we had fantastic clear, crisp skies. The schedule indicated Tama Lakes as the daywalk, with a mountain bike trip to a local loop.

Paul, Rene and I all agreed we didn’t really feel like doing the Tama Lakes walk again. I had done it in November 2007 and found it a bit tedious. Instead, with clear weather in winter we were keen to head over to the Tongariro Crossing to do a there-and-back to South Crater, picking up the mountain bikers on our way home in the afternoon.

The sun was bright and there was not a cloud in the sky as we parked the van at the Mangatepopo Road End. It was absolutely freezing, especially in the shade. As we meandered up the valley towards Soda Springs, every pool of water we found was frozen up to two cm thick, and further up the valley even the streams were frozen over in places. Large segments of the track also obviously never saw sunshine at that time of year!

We passed very few people, except one really oddly dressed tourist in jeans and chucks, carrying a stereo in her shoulder bag… She must have had a really early start, because she was at Soda Springs the same time we were, about 10am, heading down the valley towards Mangatepopo Hut.

Up the new devils staircase in the sun and cold, we got to the top and sat down to take a morning tea break, enjoying the views across to Mt Taranaki and the sunshine. A decision was made that I would wander into South Crater and try some photography, while the guys were going to try and circumnavigate the bowl of South Crater and pick me up on their way back.

All of a sudden there was a scream from slightly further along the track. We all looked at each other and looked across to the large asian woman who we had all noted walking towards us. We waited 10 seconds or so to see if she was going to get herself up, and when she continued screaming instead we all packed up our gear and headed over to find her moaning in pain, lying in a puddle with her ankle at a very odd angle.

In these conditions, with the cold and a strong breeze, the first concern we had was moving her out of that puddle because none of us had suitable dry clothing to change her into. So we grabbed her under the arms and around the knees and shunted her ever so slightly backwards. She spoke almost no English, so our examination was exceedingly cursory – “where does it hurt” was understood well enough as she pointed at her ankle (which was obviously damaged). “Are you warm enough” generated a response of her grabbing more clothes out of her bag (she was remarkably well prepared compared to many other tourists we had heard stories about).

There were no two ways about it. There was no way we could get her out ourselves. We were at the top of the Devils Staircase with a larger (about 95kg+) woman who spoke very little English and with only a very basic first aid kit. We couldn’t support her ankle enough for her to use it, and we didn’t have enough strength to carry her out, nor could we explain sufficiently assisting her out. So out came the cellphone and a desperate attempt at finding enough signal to make an emergency call.

Our lunch spot had coverage sufficient only to send texts and make emergency calls. Perfect. We pulled out the map and the GPS and got readings off both of them for where we were. Rene thought it a bit odd that I asked for the police when I rang 111, but then had a dawning realisation when I then asked for the northern region search & rescue coordinator. Wonderfully, the woman we got on the phone was an avid tramper and had been in our exact location less than three weeks earlier.

Once we had given them an update on what was happening, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Unfortunately, none of us had brought a cooker or similar with us, so a hot brew was out of the question. It also wouldn’t have been fair on our injured party as we had been instructed that they were only to be given water. No painkillers, no food in case she needed urgent surgery or similar once in hospital.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was only really a couple of hours) and a couple of false alarms where the aircraft flying towards us was obviously on a tour, the chopper we wanted hovered into view right down at the road end, following the track up to find us, as we had expected they would. The closest landing spot was our morning tea seating area, slightly above us.

During this time we had encountered several other tramping parties, some of whom had decided we obviously had things under control, some who completely ignored the situation, but we were so thankful for the small party of kiwis who gave up their attempt to get over the crossing in order to take a note back to the road end for our patients friend explaining the situation, and making a phone call to confirm our situation to SaR once they were back in cellphone range.

Finally someone else was taking over the situation, and we were all exceedingly glad. By this stage Rene, Paul and I were all wearing every single item of clothing we had brought along for the day and we were still feeling the cold. The cloud was also closing in on us, which had caused us substantial concern about visibility for getting the helicopter in if it had come in any further before it arrived.

After loading our patient into a stretcher and taking a quick photo of the “team”, we carried her over and up to the chopper and they were off to try and find her tramping companion – the one we had seen earlier in the day carrying a stereo and wearing jeans. As for us, we were off back down the track towards our van and its warmth. By the time we had made it down into the valley, the ledge we had been standing on when the helicopter arrived was no longer visible. By the time we were 20 minutes down the valley, even the head of the valley had disappeared into the cloud.

Once back in the van, it was time to wait for the mountain biking boys and then we were back to the lodge in near-darkness to have hot showers, retell our story and rest up before dinner and the all-evening party that is solstice weekend.

Hook Grass Hut

2011-02-22T21:59:00.003+13:00

18 - 20 February 2011

Trains Hut. Kapanui Conservation Area, Wanganui.

Team: Me (leader), Clinton, Ian, Karl, Danniel, Jono

If you ask any member of this weekends party what the two abiding memories of the trip are, all of them will respond with “Hook Grass” and “Amelia falling off the track”. All in all, it was both an interesting and a mind-blowingly dull weekend.

We left Wellington Friday evening on time, but in heavy traffic, and after stopping to pick Karl up on Mana Esplanade, we decided to have a slightly early dinner in Levin instead of Bulls, since we were only going as far as Wanganui for the night anyway. Noodle Canteen was over-filling as always, thank goodness Karl and I shared a bowl of dinner so he could also help Ian finish his! Our original plan was to stay at the Top 10 in Wanganui, but they weren’t cheap and we discovered that we could get a bed at a BBH hostel for only $5 per person more, so we went with that.

Tamara lodge wasn’t bad, but I would only ever stay there for one night. The beds were packed into the rooms, there was no shelving in the room so you couldn’t unpack except for onto or under your bed, and there appeared to be only three toilets for the entire hostel – two of which were in rooms shared with showers!

We would have left earlier in the morning, but reception didn’t open until 8am, which kinda sucked when we had had to pay key deposits the night before. By the time we had driven on to the road end, parked the van and organised ourselves, it was 10am and getting very warm already. Thankfully though, the sky was cloudy, although we didn’t fully appreciate this in our first two hours on exposed 4wd track until we walked out without it on Sunday. We had taken the advice of people who had been before and ensured we had all filled our water bladders before we left the backpackers, which was just as well, as there was no access to any suitable water for pretty much the whole track to the hut.

The track was… interesting. Much of it was simply a goat track on a ledge. All of it was well above the river, and good chunks of it were very narrow. The new slips we found were challenging to get across even for those comfortable with such things, and some of us were far less than confident! It was also, in places, completely covered in hook grass. Most of us were too hot to put on gaiters, so we just dealt with it, and plucked them off every time we stopped.

After 7 and a half hours walking and resting (because we were simply shattered, and demoralized because we thought we were further ahead than we were), we finally reached the hut. Out in the middle of a field that had been soaking up sunshine all afternoon, the hut was exceedingly hot on arrival. Contemplation was given to pitching the tent fly off the side of the hut by the door to create some extra shade, but everyone was just too tired!

We had all been looking forward to a hut that was nice and close to the river so it would be easy to swim. Nope. The boys went scouting and managed to find clambering access to the river that would enable a splash wash, but the gorgeous looking swimming hole just down stream remained elusively out of reach beyond a 5m or so waterfall. We had seen stairs down to the river at another swimming hole on our way in to the hut, but it had taken 20 minutes to get from there to the hut, so no-one wanted to go that far (it took us about 10 minutes to get back to that spot on Sunday morning…).

The open valley the hut was situated in got sunshine forever it seemed, so we relaxed, read, slept or enjoyed the river for what seemed like a long time before starting dinner. Well, we also ate a lot – trying to eat as much as possible of our snack food to avoid carrying it back out the next morning! A dinner of what would have been a risotto (but it didn’t quite work right with brown rice!) with veges was demolished, followed closely by freshly made cheesecake.

After that, it was finally dark and about 9pm. It was still so warm outside that several of us spent about an hour star gazing and waiting for the moon to come up. Eventually I gave up about 10pm and went to bed because we were planning an early start. Apparently the moon came up behind clouds and took ages to be seen. It was still so warm we left all the windows open and most of us slept in just our bag liners.

Sunday morning 6.30am, the alarm went off. Ouch. That’s an exceedingly early start for a trip I am on! But we knew the cycle group we were meeting in Wanganui would be there by lunchtime, so we wanted to be out as early as possible, and we wanted to start early to try and beat the heat.

The moon was still up as we took our bags outside at about 7.45am, having done a quick tidy-up of the hut before we left. It was already warm, and by the time we were 20 minutes down the track, the heat was starting to radiate back at us from the ground! However, we were making much better time than we had on Saturday and all felt pretty good. We were very glad of the fact that the track was pretty much flat – gently undulating, only one good climb, and that only took us about a minute!

Eventually, however, fatigue started to kick in and I lost concentration for a moment on the narrow track and suddenly found myself off balance, falling off the side of the track. I barely had time to let out a yell of shock before I had managed to dig my toes in and grab the grass at the rack edge to stop myself. Thank goodness I only fell about the same distance as my own height – it was a long way down to the river if I had fallen further! I scraped my knee, twisted my ankle and pulled something in both shoulders, but I was more shocked than anything. I managed to extricate myself from my pack, which was pulled up and out of the way, and then two of the guys sat down hard up against the back of the ledge to help pull me up.

After a short rest to let me calm down a little, we decided to move on again. I was a little sore, but wanted to give it a bit of time before taking any painkillers or strapping my ankle. In the end I needed a couple of neurofen to get me to the end of the track, but that was it. Thank goodness! That was all we had by way of incidents, and we made it to the road end at 1.30.

From there, it was time to get changed into less sweaty clothing before heading back down the road that never ends to get petrol and icecream, then into Wanganui to collect the cycle tour group who had been waiting nearly 4 hours by this stage and then back home!

Photos to come soon - when I get them edited later in the week!

Hell and Blisters

2011-01-03T11:35:00.001+13:00

29-30 December 2010

Jumbo - Powell Loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Mark, Myself

Tuesday and the weather was awful, but predicted to clear for Wednesday and Thursday, so we thought "why not"... And suddenly we had decided that this years summer tramp would be the Jumbo-Powell loop, since Mark was due back on call on the 3rd, and we didnt want to have to go away per se.
Tuesday night we had Mike and Stacey over for dinner while they were both around before dissappearing off to Melbourne for the forseeable future. So after a couple of drinks each and tidying away the dishes, we decided to just go to bed and see how we felt in the morning before we packed.

Wednesday dawned bright and breezy with a few clouds and a continuing good weather forecast online. So we packed up and headed out the door about 10am. Meals had been planned from whatever was in the pantry and lightweight so that we could avoid having to stop at the supermarket. Minimum required gear had been taken. Packs still felt like they weighed a lot.

Arriving at a very busy Holdsworth campsite, and absolutely packed road-end, we were a bit nervous. We were made even more so when we arrived at (the now very different looking) Holdsworth Lodge to discover in the hut book about 14 people indicating they were headed towards Jumbo, possibly for the night. We jotted down our plans anyway and made our way along the Atiwhakatu Valley. At the worst, Mark had a inflatable mat, and I knew there were a few spare mattresses at Jumbo to put on the floor.

Although its not a long walk, the hike along the valley seemed oddly interminable. It just never wanted to fricken end. By the time we got to the hut, I was all for the idea of actually just staying there for the night and not bothering with the rest of the loop. Mark was having none of it, since the weather was meant to be actually nice the next day and it might be the only chance either of us had of doing the crossing with a view.

A short way up the spur and I felt a tearing on both my ankles. Oh dear, that felt like blisters. Even more Oh Dear, my heavy-duty, stick-like-anything strapping tape was on the computer table, where it had been deposited after finishing its duty as tape for the injury Mark did to his hand 3 weeks before our wedding. The only thing for it then was to harden up and keep going, which I did.

With no small amount of grumbling, by the time the heat and general tiredness made it take us three hours to get to Jumbo Hut, half our precious supply of chocolate was already gone (as were half the cornchips), and we had belatedly realised we had bought no rehydrating powder with us to make up for this distinct lack of sugar.

Dinner was an unusual concoction: Rice cooked in Chicken soup mix with carrot and zuchini, served with cheerios. Yes. That is what we had in the pantry, so thats what we made for dinner. It was actually surprisingly edible. We then finished off the pineapple lumps and snagged a piece of carrot, apple and walnut cake off a fellow tramper who had bought half of said cake with her.

The weather being good, at 8.30pm it was still light, but all 14 people in the hut were obviously used to the idea of having dinner and going to bed soon after, so well before dark everyone was asleep. This led to an interesting occurance of about half the hut residents taking turn about to the bathroom at about 1am.

7am came along with sun shining into my eyes through the hut window. I had slept through sunrise and to be honest didnt really care. The weather report that came at 8 via the warden indicated the weather would be "fine", so packs were shouldered and off up the hill we meandered.

The tops are a lot of up, then down, then up then down, then up then up then up then down. Mark wandered off to the summit of Mt Holdsworth, but I just didnt care by that stage, I was starving for lunch at Powell Hut. Our time across the tops had seen some interesting moments - some boggy areas that didnt have clear paths through them, a freezing cold wind above 1400m and eating most of the last of our snack food - but we made it up, across and down to Powell in 3hours40minutes, which is about the time we expected to take.

After a 45-odd minute stop at Powell for lunch, we struck off back down the track towards Mountain House, the road end and home.We were both tired and hungry (completely out of food and sugar by this stage, bar an emergency packet of two minute noodles), and I was very sore, so the trip was slower than usual. We stopped at Mountain House for nearly 25 minutes, just to rest, and snagged a half biscuit off a lovely couple who stopped there for lunch with their dog.

The track down from here was some of the worst hell I have ever experienced. My blisters hurt, my knees were sore (always are, going downhill), I only had one walking pole (so that slowed me down more than having none, as I couldnt use it the way I wanted - as my downhill brakes) and the bottoms of my feet ached. I am ashamed to admit that it took me nearly 2 hours to get down from Mountain House.

Eventually, though, we made it to the road end. We dumped our packs in the shelter and Mark went and moved the car to it so we could both use the toilet there and get changed at the same time without having to shoulder packs again. Our first stop on the way home was the dairy in Carterton for icecreams and powerade. Next stop was immediately to my parents place for dinner. I was so thrilled to not have to cook.

Helicopter-tastic, Episode One

2010-12-22T21:21:00.005+13:00

8-10 February 2008

Waitewaewae Track, Otaki Forks Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Ray (leader), Sue, Sam, Kerryn, Mark, Antony, Sarah, Carol, Daniel, Me

Friday began much like any other normal weekend tramp. Well, maybe not, given it was sevens weekend and almost everyone else headed towards the railway station was in costume...
On arrival, I greeted Ray and was introduced to the group at large. I started chatting to Mark, on account of his awesome t-shirt (Reads: "Dirty, Filthy, Stinky, Tramp" in big letters down the back), and discovered that he was new to the club and fairly new to Wellington as well. I thought he was kinda cute.

Driving on to the road end, dinner was in Waikanae, which has really only average dinner venues. But it was hot and greasy, so thats all that really matters. Before too long we were at the Otaki Forks road-end setting up camp outside Parawai Lodge.

Mark, Kerryn and I shared one end of a club fly and my ground sheet. Problem was that where I wound up within the tent had a lump in the middle of it, so neither end of the bed was a comfortable way around to sleep - I just cant sleep with my head below my hips. Eventually I gave up and went up onto the hut deck to sleep - far more comfortable, and shaded from the moon!

Saturday morning dawned HOT. And sunny. Real February weather!
We wandered off down the track at a pace that both Kerryn and I struggled with in the heat. At the big swingbridge I was already having dreams of stopping on the way back for a swim. The river was so beautiful, it was an amazing spot.

Once all across the bridge one at a time, we continued on, around the massive slip that keeps moving, and eventually onto the old tramway.

At the old pulley we stopped to have lunch and dry the tent fly, which had got a bit of condensation on it and not enough sunshine. Once we had packed up we were off again towards Waitewaiwai Hut, our destination for the night. We dropped into the river and followed the track in and out of it and up and down around it for a while.

All of a sudden there was a screaming yell from behind me. Sarah had had the track collapse underneath her feet and had slipped partway down the bank, badly twisting her ankle. First aid was administered in the form of cold cloths, elevation and painkillers, and once Sarah was feeling better we made an attempt to start walking her out. After about 15 minutes of difficult scramble due to her being unable to bear any weight on her ankle and the ground (and lack of strong people) making a carry impractical, we stopped on another bank where the river narrowed and discussed options.
The route around the slip was in no way going to be at all negotiable with Sarah unable to walk. It wasnt a "track" so much as "goat-track" - narrow, steep and slippery. There was no way we could get even one support person alongside Sarah through there. The river had good wide flats, but could also possibly require a series of swims to get back to Otaki Forks, and it was a river that got much larger as you got closer to the forks, and with two young boys on the tramp it wasnt really a suitable option.

In the end, Ray set off his PLB, which was an old 121.5 with 3-years "expired" batteries, left his food with us for the evening and took Sam for a rapid walk back to the road end to call for assistance from the ranger station. The rest of us got out cookers and billies and made a brew while we waited to see what would happen. We set up two tent flies alongside the track (in an area so narrow that the party that came through the next day looked around them and wondered WHERE the tents had been!), threw on warm clothes and generally made ourselves comfortable, telling stories and sharing jokes.

Suddenly, I could hear a helicopter. Surely not. The beacon had only been on for two hours, and there was no way Ray and Sam could be back at the road end yet! But yes, it was a chopper and it was looking for us - turns out an aircraft had picked up our signal within about 20 minutes of the beacon being set off!

Next thing we knew, a man had been dropped from the sky and was turning to talk to us about what was going on.

Within 45 minutes of that, Sarah had been airlifted out and we were all of a sudden on our own again, waiting out the night alongside the track. The idea of walking back to the road end, or at least back to the old steam-engine pulley, was very briefly voiced, but there would have been a risk that we would have wound up walking in the dark. Funnily enough, walking on to the hut held even less appeal by this stage!

Bed was early since there was nothing else to do, and was not a bad nights sleep, all told. Yes, my bed was on a slope, and yes, I spent most of my night with one leg hooked around a punga stump to stop me sliding down the hill, but I actually woke feeling refreshed, which was lovely.

In the morning, we were up fairly early. After leaving a note for the other party, we divvied up Sarahs pack and wandered off, stopping for a good while at the point where the track leaves the river, in case Ray and Sam had walked back in to meet us. After a while we decided they obviously hadn't and continued on. The day was muggy and threatening to rain, which it finally did once we were past the big swing bridge.

The swim at the road-end carpark was divinely cold and welcoming! Mark, Ray and I were in the van, which was waiting for Stuart and his party to come out from a harder tramp. Joyously, they had junkfood to share on the way home!

Getting a Roasting

2010-11-01T11:26:00.001+13:00

Saturday 16 October 2010

Whakapapaiti Hut Loop, Bruce Road, Tongariro National Park

Team: John, Mark, Amelia

To be honest, the weather report for the weekend was not pleasant in outlook. Mark and I headed to the railway station weighed down with warm clothing, anticipating bad weather and a weekend spent holed up in the hut (with a possible drive to Tokaanu for the hot pools on Saturday if the weather was really bad).

The lodge was nearly empty. Our group of three plus Andrew for Saturday night, and Richards group of 4 plus a skier for Friday night. In a 32 bed lodge. You could totally tell that it was nearly the end of the winter season and the snow had been fairly average all year!

Saturday morning dawned fairly clear. There was definitely some cloud at lower levels, but up on the skifield the sun was shining. Our original plan had been to get dropped off at the Mangatepopo Road end and walk back to Whakapapa Village, where Richards group would leave the van. Discussions with people who had done that walk indicated that the track was not overly well maintained, and would be nearly impassable due to bogs after any stretch of bad weather. Which the mountain had definitely seen in the week before we arrived.

A plan was instead hatched to attack another portion of the “round-the-mountain” track, which we could clearly see from the large west-facing window of the lodge. There were two ways to get to it: The orthodox way where we either got dropped a few hundred meters down the road or walked the same, or the tramping-club way where we tried to find the most direct route to the piece of track we could see and did some exploring.

Given the walk was only meant to take about 4 hours or so (especially since we were doing it in the down-hill direction), we decided to go with the slightly more navigation-based walk. After a leisurely preparation, and having made lunch, we struck off at about 10am straight towards the Manawatu Lodge.

The walk down to the track did include some interesting moments of navigation – like when we found ourselves at the top of a bluff that we couldn’t tell the size of. Thankfully all three of us are regular trampers and comfortable with route finding, because there were times when we needed three sets of eyes hunting out an alternative path! There were only a couple of occasions when we needed to do any back-tracking, and when we did it was only a few metres at a time.

After about 45 minutes, we started finding marker poles. Some of these did not seem to mark track at all as there was nothing around them. Eventually we did find the track and we started making even better time. The track through this part was well graded, and the “steep-looking” uphill I had worried about turned out to be an easy stroll.

Once at the top, it was a fairly steep drop down into the next valley towards Whakapapaiti Hut. Arriving on the deck of the hut at just on Noon, we decided that this was definitely a great place to have lunch. Sitting in the shade, looking out and up to Ruapehu, I cant think of anywhere better to be on a sunny day. We took a leisurely lunch break of about 45 minutes before heading off down the valley further to complete our walk.

The track between the hut and Whakapapa village is a little odd.

For example:

There is a major river that needs to be crossed. In one location this requires actually entering the river in order to cross. Further downstream, a bridge is provided
There are areas where the track is exceedingly well maintained – boardwalks and all – and then within moments, you can be in an area where it looks like no track maintenance has ever occurred.
Some of the signs are obviously fairly new – the well-recognised DoC-style green and yellow signs. Others are really old.

Overall, it is not an overly difficult piece of track. The river crossing could be tough on people who aren’t confident with it, or if the weather has been bad and the river is up. In cold or snowy conditions, or with strong winds, I wouldn’t do the walk. It is very exposed, and if already cold, the river crossing is still 2 hours from the road. In fact, in winter, I would be keen to go to the hut, but from the upper access only I think. It is well poled for the snow it obviously receives on a regular basis, although some of those poles were falling over a bit – we made sure we straightened and firmed up the support on any we could while there.

Eventually, through the heat, I ran out of water. It was a swelteringly hot day on the mountain. Worse, once we got down to the lower parts of the track nearer the village, the breeze disappeared. And I had brought no t-shirt or similar, so was stuck wearing a superfine merino top that is designed for keeping warm!

Needless to say, we were all glad to see the road end and the camp store selling ice-creams. Once we had stopped here to eat them, it was time to wander down to the Tama Lakes carpark to pick up the club van and return ourselves to the lodge for some relaxing and dinner.

The sun was streaming into the lodge when we arrived home, and after a relaxing (and long by lodge standards – but there was no one else wanting one, and heaps of water in the tanks) shower, it was great to sit in the lounge in the warmth and read a book to relax before dinner. It was only when I went out to the bunkrooms for something that I realised just how warm the lounge really was. And it took stepping outside for sunset photos to realise that opening the windows to cool the lounge off would be a really bad idea (it was freezing. The wind we had been expecting all day had arrived and it was bitterly cold!).

After an early night (by lodge standards at least) of about 9pm, we woke Sunday morning to clag. At times the clag was so thick we could barely see the neighbouring lodge. Needless to say, the radio stations were reporting that the mountain was closed due to combined poor visibility and wind. We spend the morning fluffing about, relaxing and reading books before cleaning up, grabbing some lunch and heading off around the mountain to the Desert Road to collect Richards tramping group, who had taken half the DoC suggested time to get out from their overnight accommodation at Otarere Hut and so had been waiting in the rain for us for an hour.

Then it was time to head home, via a stop in Taihape for coffee and another in Bulls for Dutch Licorice.

The red dot is roughly where the club lodge is based.
The blue line is a rough guess as to where our navigation took us before joining the track and heading to Whakapapaiti Hut and the Whakapapa Village

Death in the bush

2010-10-26T20:30:00.000+13:00

Its a sad, frustrating story.
I dont have the energy to write it up here, so go read Mikes Blog post about it. Sums it up nicely.
Stupid non-hunters doing stupid things and killing innocent campers...

Views? What Views?

2010-08-12T11:08:00.007+12:00

15-17 February 2008

Jumbo - Holdsworth loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Jackie (leader), Dave C, Lucille, Emmanuel, Adrian, Sally, Myself

I was SO excited about this trip when I signed up for it - the Jumbo - Holdsworth loop had been on my "to-do" list for years! Nuttily enough, it would also be my second Tararuas tramp in consecutive weekends... I considered pulling out of the trip the week before, but my aim for 2008 was (as always) to do as much tramping as I could, so I did both. And I'm glad I did because a) I met my now-fiance on the first trip (still to be written up) and b) this trip was awesome.

Friday
Friday night was very much "as usual" to start with - Meet at the railway station, clamber into the club bus and head off! We stopped as normal in Carterton for Kebab, and with Steve driving, we all had time for kebab (unlike in Bulls where time is often too short!). Randomly got a text from my mate Nick, indicating him and Peter were out safe from some random tramping mission, so I rang him back and Dave & I had a good catchup with them while sitting on the side of the road eating dinner.
Given we were only headed for the Holdsworth Road End, we were (as usual) there at a cracking good time - about 8.45pm or so. There were only the two parties for the weekend, us and a Fit group going over the three kings. Thunderstorms were expected overnight, so our group opted to wander up to the lodge at the road end and stay there for the night rather than camp at Donnelly Flat. The fit group were aiming to get to Atiwhakatu Hut for the night.

About 45 minutes after we farewelled them, it started pouring with rain. Given they were a fit group, we later found out they were most of the way to the hut already and only had about 20 minutes of walking in the rain to contend with. We were thankful to not be following them!

By the next morning though, we all wished we HAD walked in with them! Turns out that the others who were staying at the lodge with us were weird. Its something that Dave and I still talk about sometimes "you remember those guys at the lodge?" - "I'm off to secure the perimiter!" - we think they were high on something, they had a kid with them who they kept up till all hours and then one of them left at about 3am, taking the car and abandoning the other (although at least that meant we could sleep!).

Saturday
Given we had all had a really bad nights sleep, unsurprisingly everyone was very keen to get up and out of that place early. So we were on track by not long after about 7.30 - very early when you consider we were only planning on getting as far as Jumbo Hut that night rather than all the way across the tops since the Fit group werent due out till after 3pm on Sunday, so it was only about 4 hours to walk!

Beacuse of all that, we were at Jumbo hut by just after Noon in cold, drizzly conditions. We found a surprise when we got there - Geoff was waiting for us. Turns out he hadnt been feeling 100%, and so had opted to stay the day at Jumbo, knowing that we would end up there sooner or later and he could join us rather than slowing down the fit trip guys who had a 12-odd hour day ahead of them planned.

After a leisurely lunch, everyone pulled out their pits and proceeded to sleep away most of the afternoon. Geoff read to us all from his book, and turns out he has a great reading voice for falling asleep to. Cant remember the story though!

Sunday
Up early again on Sunday, partly to see the sunrise, mainly because if we were going to try for the tops, we had at least 6 hours of walking ahead of us and wanted to be at the bus at 3pm.

It was still quite windy and claggy, but we were determined to give it a go. We saw nothing, and I think in some ways that made the day easier for me - if I couldnt see what was coming, it was easier to cope with!

A decision was made to definitely visit the Holdsworth summit trig,

and then we all high-tailed it down to Powell Hut for a late lunch. Of course, as soon as we got back off the tops, the weather started clearing and it started getting quite warm!

My knees didnt hold up that well to the walk down from Powell to Mountain House and I wound up borrowing a pair of walking poles for the rest of the downward leg. I wasnt able to walk again easily for over a week!!

The guys from the fit trip wound up arriving at the road end at about 3.45pm, not bad considering the day they had done, and we all stopped at the White Swan for a quick eat and beer before we ambled off home.

Finally, Good news!

2010-06-12T15:03:00.003+12:00

So, the media are finally showing outdoors people in a good light, and there has been an exceedingly positive article on stuff today about a hunter being rescued in the Ureweras.
He was well equipped, and SENSIBLE - waiting for rivers to subside while in the safety of a hut, before returning to the hut where his gear was (his base hut), which is where rescuers found him, healthy and well, but still stuck by high river levels.
Thank goodness there are still some people out there who make it to the news for what are really all the right reasons!
Good gear + good decision making = postive SaR outcome. That being said though, I would be curious as to what the weather reports had been when he went in, and therefore whether going in AT ALL was a good idea... But I cant remember what the weather reports have been like this week.

Wet concrete and a good fall

2010-06-10T12:18:00.008+12:00

5 - 6 June 2010

Totara Flats Hut, Waiohine Gorge Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Myself, Mark

Queens Birthday long weekend, 6 weeks of unemployment for me, and a variable, but not BAD weather forecast saw Mark and I getting up at a reasonable time on Saturday to head for the hills for a night, just to get away.

Our original plan had been to complete the Jumbo - Holdsworth circuit, but the weather report indicated that the best way to do this would have been to complete the tops on Saturday and be on our way out on Sunday, which would have been do-able, but we didnt feel like the early start that would require!Instead we decided on Totara Flats Hut, somewhere neither of us had been before, and therefore another hut to cross off our list - sweet - and a reasonably flat tramp to a reasonably large hut, so hopefully not too hard (since I havent tramped since Easter), and fingers crossed not a full hut!

Reading up the information we could find, all indications were it would take about 3.5 hours, so we allowed for over 4 hours of afternoon daylight and left the road end at about 12.30. An hour later, we rounded a corner to a spot that looked like it would be great for lunch to find it already occupied - by Megan S from club, and a friend of hers! Small world!

A quick lunch was had and we continued on, reaching Clem Creek after only a short stint. It wasnt too bad to cross, but getting down to it and back up again was a challenge, as access was very steep. In very bad weather, it would be impassable, and so we had a very brief discussion here about returning to the car, given the weather report. We decided to press on and hope that the weather report was right, and only light rain came through overnight and on Sunday morning.
There wasnt much memorable along the next part of the track, until the point where we first came down to nearly river level. This involved a short clamber down a slightly slippery tree root "ladder", and after one good step I lost my footing and started falling headfirst down the bank! I had enough time to realise that this was NOT a good place to do this (just on 3 hours from the road end, and we believed about 45 minutes from the hut), before I landed somehow feet first, jarring my neck a little and rattling my teeth together, Marks hand wrapped tightly around my upper arm, where a long graze and large bruise was already showing. (Photo taken later that evening at the hut, where the bruising is starting to become evident under the graze. This later turned black, then deep green for a couple of days, before fading within 10)
Thank god I landed feet first and not head first... Sunday night at home I kept having nightmares of the fall, and the aftermath if I had landed badly - pitching tent on a narrow bit of track, having to send the next people through back to the road for help (we knew they were there), a helicopter ride back to town, ringing my parents with the news...

At this point we could see river flats ahead, and instead of pulling out the map, we assumed that these were the last flats before the hut, meaning the hut should be about 2km along the valley - perhaps 45 minutes. So I put on a thermal top to limit shock and we kept going. My first aid kit was somewhere in my pack, and when a moments rumaging didnt dislodge it, I gave up on finding a bandage and pain killers in preference for moving on towards the hut.

A short way further on was a decision point: The high-river track or the river-side track? The river was low, so we took the river-side option and clambered down the rocks to it. Ambling along the riverbed, we suddenly found ourselves starting to sink into concrete-like mud with every step! Looking away from the river, we saw the obvious scars of a fresh slip (Megan said later it must have been that week because DoC didnt know about it). We were about halfway between the river and the bank, and so wound up with no option but to start running from large rock to large rock across the face of the slip until we got to the other side and out of the quick-sand cement!

Going in to Totara Flats from here there is a LARGE orange triangle that marks what is obviously a track people have created by trying to get back to the track from this marker, as at that point it is not at all obvious that there is another route back to the track. There is, however, a much easier track to get back on to the main track about 20m or so beyond this marker triangle. Trust me on that one.

At this point we thought "yay, we MUST be nearly there". Not quite. We were back in to bush and climbing away from the river again... So once at the top, the map came back out and we realised that only now were we at the point we thought we had been at over an hour earlier. Getting across the bottom of the slip had taken quite a while. It was well on to 4.15 and we were down to less than an hour of daylight left. By all accounts, we should have already been at the hut by now, and the map indicated another 2km to go!

The stomp down the valley across the plain was slow and tedious going, and by the time we reached the bushes near the hut, it was dark enough that we pulled out my head torch to light the way. Arriving at the hut in the just-darkness at 5.15 we were exhausted, having taken over an hour longer than we had anticipated (4hr 45 min as opposed to 3hr 30min). AND we were worried, as we knew there were two other parties a good distance behind us in the dark.

At 6.30, the group of 4 girls who had left the road end at the same time as us arrived, reporting that they had last seen Megan and Ruth at the river more than an hour previous, as the light was fading. Megan and Ruth finally stumbled into the hut at 7.30pm, having been walking in full darkness for 2 hours, including some interestingly steep scrambling, and having had difficulties finding their way off the river in the gloaming.

Dinner was a yummy rice risotto with canned chicken and carrot, followed by steamed pudding for dessert! Then after re-dressing my graze, and taking a couple of painkillers it was off to bed fairly early. Every time I rolled over I woke up because that arm was dead, and I had to consider my sleeping position carefully to ensure minimal pain...

At some stage overnight it started raining. Just a steady drizzle, rather than an intense downpour. So we were out the door not long after 8.30am, aiming to get back past Clem Creek before the rain got any heavier and caused any issues with crossing. Thankfully it did. Getting across the slip was easier on the way back too, as we stayed closer to the river, where the mud was less sticky. Another group went the long way around the top of the slip and found it only just passable.
Clem Creek was up, but only by about 5cm or so, and crossing it was made more fun by having 10 of the 12 of us coming out that way all arrive there within a few minutes of each other, and therefore crossing together.

The road end was reached in just on 4 hours, with only about 5 minutes of stops (apart from the 10 minutes it took to get everyone across the creek), with the party of 4 leaving the carpark as we arrived, and the four girls arriving at the shelter as we were re-packing to leave.

Pizza and Chips at the White Swan for lunch was the next order of business, and this attended to, it was time to go home!

Raindrops kept falling on my head

2010-06-02T09:23:00.008+12:00

5 - 7 October 2007

Boulder Forks Hut, Leatham Conservation Area, Marlborough

Party: Myself, Geoff

Friday

After rushing home from work early so I could park my car in Johnsonville and then catch a bus to Thorndon Quay / Old Hutt Road to walk to the ferry, it turned out I didnt have enough money on my bus card to cover my fare... Thankfully the driver took pity on me and let me on anyway, since my wallet was buried somewhere in my pack (which weighed a tonne!), behind the ice axe, crampons and helmet.

The walk from the south bound bus stop to the ferry terminal was very straight forward - as is the walk from the north bound stop, if you negate the fact that stop requires you to cross four lanes of traffic with a speed limit of 60kph! - and a lot faster than I anticipated, so I was at the ferry early
The ferry trip was a bit rough, as it was exceedingly windy.

There had also been a lot of rain leading up to our trip (not uncommon for spring), and so discussions were had about alternative options for the easy group. The plan was for them to follow us up to Boulder Forks Hut for the night as their entire tramp, while we were planning to go on from there to climb Bounds Peak.

Arriving at the road end in the pitch black of midnight in the pouring rain, a decision was made that our party, and the other climbing party of two, who were aiming for Pinnacle, would cross the river in the dark and head to the hut for the night to get a head start on the climbing. I really wish we hadnt. The river was high and unpleasant to cross. My head torch then started running out of battery, and I struggled to keep up with the guys as they missioned their way at full speed towards the hut. About 5 minutes from the hut there was what appeared on the map to be a minor side-stream that would need to be crossed. When we arrived, it was a raging torrent and you could HEAR the rocks being moved in the dark brown current.

Being now nearly 2am, the decision was made to link up and try it anyway. Even with no runout. Talk about a scary experience for me, who was on my first ever club tramp! We made it, and arrived at the hut in the dark a few minutes later. The family that were already there woke themselves up and volunteered to squeeze into a couple of bunks so we could have enough space, and the eight of us hunkered down for the rest of the night.

Saturday

Saturday dawned beautiful and clear and Geoff and I decided we would make a go of getting to the peak and back from the hut. So day packs were shouldered and we headed off. The ground was super saturated, it was like walking on marshland. Waterfalls had sprung up everywhere

and the gully Geoff had marked out as a way to climb up to the ridge was now a substantial river and very slippery.

After the night before, I was really in no mood to take risks as I was completely freaked out, so early on in the piece I abandoned the climb to the ridge and returned to the hut, leaving Geoff to his own devices.
I then went exploring in the direct area of the hut, including down to the river we had crossed the night before, which had dropped a bit since the rain had stopped at 4am or so.

I also clambered about in the old Boulder Forks Hut, which is in antique condition, but with groundsheets and mats would make a suitable emergency shelter if the main hut was full

the sun stayed out all day, and the ground around the hut was surprisingly solid considering how wet the next valley was. The family group who had stayed the night headed out about lunchtime, and so I pulled out my mat and sleeping bag and napped / read my book in the sunshine outside the hut for most of the afternoon.
Geoff returned about 4pm, announcing that the ridge would really need a long weekend to get up, and the easier access is from further back down the river towards the road.
The other two (Stuart and David I think) returned from Pinnacle at about 6.30pm, bang on the time they told us not to start worrying before. The easy group never arrived at the hut, so we had to assume they had decided to go somewhere else instead.

A nice dinner was had, followed by an early night.

Sunday

Overnight it had started raining again. The river we had earlier crossed had been down quite a bit the evening before, so we werent hugely concerned. Until we got up and saw it starting to rise very rapidly! (Obviously a rather large catchment area!), but it stopped raining by about 9am, so we thought it should go down again fairly well, forgetting it had taken all day Saturday to get as far down as it had...
We got to 11am and realised we really needed to get going if we wanted to meet the van at 2 for the drive back to the ferry. It was decided that we would try to true right of the river, as there were apparently large "River Flats". Yeah, they were flooded, and we wound up scrambling along rain-soaked hills on that side till we were bluffed out. Then we had no choice but to cross the river because going back against the flow wasnt really an option.

Crossing here was actually the easiest part of the day. The river was wide and slow flowing and only really ankle deep. We were now running late though, and had to mission along the 4wd track to the next river crossing to get back to the van.

We arrived on the far side of the river just as Paul was about to give up waiting for us and head the 3km back to the van for them to all go home without us. The river here was wide, fast and deep. An area which had been a puddle on Friday was now part of the main river. The spot the van had parked in had also dissapeared into the river. We could see why the easy group hadnt arrived at the hut!

We then discovered from Paul that there had been a washout on the road that the van had been unable to get past, they had been lucky to get it out Saturday morning. So we had to keep walking. It was cold, I was soaked to the skin and we were all miserable. Thankfully Paul was in good shape and offered to take my pack so I could keep up. Then even more thankfully, a local farmer came past and offered us all a ride on the back of his ute. Even with that, we still only just made it back to the ferry on time, and very WET!

Lesson: Dont sign up for trips beyond E/M. They will likely be beyond my capability!

Misery loves company

2010-05-21T10:59:00.004+12:00

October 2005

Kaitoke Road End - Mt Reeves Track

Party: Myself, Dad

This tramp was planned as a nice father-daughter weekend and as a chance for me to escape Christchurch for a few days. I was also home for a job interview on about the Wednesday after we were due out.
The original plan had been for us to go in at the Kaitoke Road end, stay at Tutuwai Hut and Mitre Flats hut and walk out at Holdsworth OR Waiohine on day three. As with many of my trips, the actual events wound up being rather different!

The night before the tramp we were at some family function or other in Masterton. Dad and I did the grocery shopping for the tramp without writing a proper menu, and we didnt have time to pack things down or limit quantities. I also hadnt tramped in ages, and had brought the bare bones of my kit up from Christchurch. The weather report also indicated that things were going to turn not very nice on about day two, with snow on the way - but we were staying in valleys, and had good exit routes planned, so we should be ok, right?
(can you see disaster waiting in the wings on this one?)

Day One
Welcome to hell on earth, part one

Mum dropped us off at the Kaitoke Road end and took a photo for the memory (AND I suspect, in case anything happened, so she had a photo of what we looked like!), and we headed off in the heat of the day.
Part way to Smith Creek, there was a big slip where the track advised you to go up and around. "Sod that" we thought, and we trundled off into the river for a while. Eventually we decided that we should really try and find the track again so we could stop at the hut for lunch. Thankfully this didnt prove too challenging, and we were on the track almost right at the hut.

Lunch (Marmite and cheese sandwiches) was had, and packs were re-shouldered for the walk to where the bridge over the Tauherinikau river USED to be. In February of that year, a massive storm had come through and washed away the bridge, and a new one had not yet been built because they hadnt decided where to put it yet.

Getting to that point seemed to take longer than it should. Perhaps we were just taking our time with our stupidly heavy packs. Anyway, once we arrived at the river crossing point, we realised that actually, the river was fairly high already, and there were only two of us (and Dad only just over a bad knee). It took nearly an hour to find a spot we felt comfortable crossing, and even then it went over our knees, which neither of us were comfortable with. I was exhausted - according to everything I had calculated, read and talked to people about, we should by rights have been at Tutuwai Hut at about the time we got to the river.

To then spend an hour looking for a crossing point, and knowing there was likely still an hour of walking on the other side of the river was enough to make me want to give up. But we had no bedmats, no groundsheets and no tent (stupid, I know and I've never made that mistake since), and with bad weather likely to arrive overnight, we had two options:
1. Go on across the river to Tutuwai hut and on from there
2. Go back to Smith Creek and sleep straight on the wooden bunks for the night, returning to the Kaitoke Road end to wait in the rain for a pickup since we wouldnt get cellphone signal until nearly at the carpark.

So we continued on. We made it safely enough across the river, and eventually to the hut, JUST in time for the end of the evening sched on the radio. This was because the track from the river to the hut was also badly degraded, including one gnarly bit where we had to take our packs off and pass them up a cliff higher than our heads that had no way around. I think the worst part though was going up all those STEPS to get to the hut!

After checking in with the Mountain Radio operator, we quickly cooked up some rice risotto with carrot, looked at the maps and had a discussion about how we felt and what the weather report indicated, then went to bed early.

Day Two
Welcome to hell on earth, part two

Just after I woke up on day two, it started to rain. And not gentle drops, but a torrent. Given the weather wasnt looking to clear for several days, and we hadnt been able to bring a book each for lack of room in our packs (so how on earth would we stay sane for up to three hut days), we decided to get out now before even worse weather arrived.

Having never tramped through this area before, we werent sure what the side creeks between Tutuwai and Cone would be like for crossing in heavy rain. (looking at the map now, I have more trust that they would have been ok as they only had small catchment areas). We also werent sure how exposed the ridge from Cone to the Waiohine Road end was (I now know it would have been the better way to go!). So we decided to go over Mt Reeves as it was the most direct way out from where we were, and if we managed to make it in the times suggested, (or even if we ran up to an hour late), we should have been able to catch the train from woodside station, which was only about 2km from the road end, at about 4.30pm to get us home to Wellington.

Yeah, Right.
To start with was the climb. Straight up for what seemed like hours in light drizzle. Getting across the top took forever because we had heavy packs that still had at least two days food in them. Lunch was a premade sandwich each, followed by an orange shared and a tube of sweetened condensed milk to keep us going, had in the lee of a large tree, still sortof being rained on. Dad was wearing a "gore-tex" he picked up in China that wasnt really waterproof, and a cotton tee shirt and had managed to injure his good knee at some stage. I was sore and miserable. We were exposed to the southerly that was constantly picking up, and at about the time we would have expected to be nearly at Rocky Knob, we discovered we were only at the point where the old track used to go down to the creek (about 3km short of where we thought we should have been).

By this stage we were resigned to the fact we were not going to make it to the train, and alternative arrangements had to be made. In fact, by this stage we were contemplating calling up one of Dads friends in SAR and asking them to come and help us out because both of us could barely walk and we had no emergency shelter, but we did have cellphone signal!
We managed to keep going by sheer force of will (and luck at not getting hypothermic), assisted by large quantities of whatever sugary stuff we could find in our pack.

Finally we had arrangements for transport in place, and made it to farmland (where I promptly put my hands on an electric fence. it was one thing too many and I wound up sitting on the ground in tears for several moments... Not my proudest moment!) to see Grandads car coming around the corner on the private road through the farm, having gone past the sign saying no access (bless him, we couldnt have walked that far!). He then delivered us to Upper Hutt where Mum and Dads friend was staying late at work to take us home.

Once we got home, Mum had the fire going, and while she helped Dad shower, I was told to strip in the hallway, given a fluffy towel out of the drier and sat in front of the fire. Then (embarrasingly!) Mum had to help me wash myself as well, as I just could not move. Dinner was wonderful takeaways.

Dad and I haven't been tramping together again since. Perhaps I should persuade him to come with me to do something easy like Atiwhakatu?... I still havent made it all the way through the Holdsworth - Kaitoke. I was meant to last Queens Birthday, but we didnt have enough people interested. Oh well, still on the "to-do" list then!

Sunny days and Snow

2010-05-21T10:11:00.006+12:00

23-25 November 2007

Upper Tama Lake from WTMC Lodge

Trip Leader: Darren, Party: Myself, Marie S, Donna and several others

Yeah, so I found this trip report hidden in the drafts folder of my personal blog. Rather than just delete it, I thought I should move it here and possibly add some photos... Now to hunt out the photos and let the post speak for itself!

Went up to the tramping club lodge at Whakapapa for the weekend to do some tramping and we had a great time - mainly because we spent more time sitting around drinking than tramping, but thats not really the point...

After a long (6 hour) trip on a very uncomfortable bus, punctuated by a stop in Bulls for very average Chinese (wanted Kebab, but the queue was horrendous and we only had half an hour), (and a very cool sunset)

We arrived on the mountain to find warm conditions and the moon shining very brightly through the clouds, making all three mountains visible on our way up the start of the Bruce Rd. I really wished I had an SLR camera and tripod to get some images of how stunning it was, and I think this trip was the one that started me really thinking about getting one!

Saturday dawned clear with an early start (breakfast from 7, out the door to the bus by just after 8). We had stunning views to Taranaki all morning!

My group got dropped off behind the chateau and headed for the Tama Lakes, completely pummeling all DoC listed times in our casual stroll to the top lake.

The track in places felt like a highway with the number of people on it - a bit of a surprise given how good the weather was for a Tongariro Crossing! We wandered past Lower Tama Lake, where a school group or similar appeared to have set up camp on the shores
, and headed up to the shelter at Upper Tama. (There was a LOT of wind, and considering how hot it was everywhere else that day, we were totally grateful for it!
After a casual and leisurely lunch we wandered back down, past Taranaki Falls and on to the Chateau for a couple of beers each while waiting for the bus to go and pick up the others before collecting us on the way back through.
We got a lot of beer time in the wait... over 2 hours... If it hadn't clouded over and started getting cold and windy it would have been great! Eventually the bus came and we all crammed in for the trip back up to the top of the bruce, where we promptly queued for the shower, drank Raro for those of us who had no alcohol and waited for dinner.
During the wait for dinner we were treated to a fantastic sunset light show. Marvellous!!

Sunday dawned far too early... The light was shining full-force on our window at 6.45am, and the curtains were not very thick!!
Up for breakfast and more stunning views over Taranaki, a group of us decided to take a lazy wander up to the snow line. It started to get quite hot as we got further up, but we found snow in more than just patches at the bottom of the waterfall express. I had developed lumps on my archilles on Saturday and so was only in light sneakers so stayed in the chairlift area while the others went for a wander up to the waterfall.

After that, it was back down to the top of the bruce to the pub for some icecream, then back up to the lodge to clean up and chat...
Finally it was time to leave, and we stopped in levin for dinner on the way home.

Last of the summer sun

2010-04-09T12:41:00.007+12:00

Easter (01-05 April) 2010

Sabine Valley, Nelson Lakes National Park

Team: Me, Mark, Karl, Craig, Mike, Barbara (with appearances by many other members of the club!)

Thursday

Thursday afternoon saw me finishing work early and wandering around the waterfront to meet my Dad, who had offered to drop Mark and I off at the ferry terminal for our sailing. Once sorted into the vans, we hung around for a while waiting to be loaded onto the ferry for the journey south.
Pretty much everyone in my group had brought their own dinner rather than buy on the ferry, and some of the food was pretty incredible! I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich and had brought half a banana cake (leftover from a leaving morning tea earlier in the week) to share, while Karl and Craig had fantastic looking bacon salad sandwiches! Yum! During the sailing, the ferry lost its computer service, and so for a while there was a massive queue for hot food because they couldnt serve anyone. Eventually they started letting people have the food for nothing since it was a dinner time sailing and a lot of people obviously had no other food with them!

Eventually we arrived in Picton and drove on to St Arnaud, our stop for the night. The campground there is lovely, and has HOT showers! (pay at the DoC office if not staying in the campsite already). It was actually quite warm considering how cold it had been at the road end a month earlier! I was prepared for it to be freezing, and instead we all actually commented on how warm we were, which was nice!
Friday

The other two club groups were heading off from St Arnaud directly, while we were heading around to Lake Rotoroa to start our tramp. Given that all the groups were ending up back at Rotoroa and we had two people willing to drive club vans, we took both vans around to the other lake on Friday morning to start our trip

There was another group on our water-taxi as well, who were walking in the D'Urville valley, so we dropped them off first at D'Urville Hut

Before heading over to Sabine Hut, where we would start from.

After an obligatory group photo before departing on our walk, it was time to get moving! The weather was lovely and warm, and we knew we didnt have too far to go (only about 5.5 hours or so) and so we took our time, stopping regularly for breaks, including at a really awesome bridge over a really deep gorge. We were only about 40 minutes from the hut, but damn we all wanted to go for a swim!
The walk up valley progressed largely as expected. There was still a lot of visible tree-fall from the really heavy snow of two winters ago, and some of this was quite tricky to navigate. There was also a lot more up and down than was visible on the map!
We stopped for lunch in a lovely little spot with a view over the river, just beyond a small stream crossing, which was about the first time we had to get our feet wet. Soon after this, at a really narrow piece of track, my pack made a bid for freedom towards the bank, and nearly took me with it. Soon after this I wound up in so much pain I could barely walk - it appeared I had pinged something in my back! Bummer!
We knew that we were more than halfway though, and so decided to continue on, because in this case, the Devil we didnt know was more appealing than the devil we did, and a rest day was available the next day anyway. I had to continue carrying all my own gear though, as no-one had enough space in their packs to take anything off me! (the joys of being on day one of four!)
By the time I got to the hut, I had been "on the move" for the better part of seven hours, and never before have I been quite so grateful to find a hut with bottom bunk space available!

Dinner that night was a scrummy pasta with veges and tomato pesto, followed by what should have been instant pudding, but we didnt bring enough milk powder, so it still wasnt really edible - we contented ourselves with eating marshmallows instead! After such a long-seeming day, we were all in bed by 9pm, which was great!

Saturday

Saturday morning Barbara and I relaxed for a day of rest. Me for my back, Barbara because she was on holiday and didnt feel like going anywhere! The boys all headed off to Blue Lake Hut for a daywalk, although Karl came back within about half an hour because he was getting pain in the back of his foot.

So our lazy day consisted of not going much further from the hut than the toilet, except Karl, who spent most of the day getting in and chopping more firewood for whoever was there next. Thoughtful chap, that Karl, must remember to tell his parents that at some stage...
Other parties eventually started to trickle in, including our intrepid boys and the Medium group who had come over the saddle, all arriving about 4.30pm.
After some obligatory shots of dinner preparation, it was time to eat at about 6.30. Our group had vegetarian rice risotto, followed by an awesome camp cheesecake. There were NO leftovers...

Eventually it was off to bed, not too late in the end because everyone was fairly tired.

Sunday

After a slightly lazy start, we were off towards Sabine Hut again by about 8.30am, figuring it would be nice to get there for a late lunch since the weather was meant to turn nasty at some stage that day. It was cloudy, and miserable looking.
Our times were substantially better getting to anywhere on the way back to Sabine than they had been on the way out, mainly because we were stopping less often because the weather wasnt so nice!
In the end, we managed to make it back to Sabine Hut dry (having seen only some very light drizzle) and in time for a late lunch at about 2pm.
The other group werent far behind us, and once they arrived, most people headed down into the lake for a dip. It wasnt too cold, but the bottom of the lake was covered in some awful gunk that was spread everywhere when anyone stood on it. Needless to say, most of us didnt stay in there very long!
A lazy afternoon in the hut followed, with many games of 500 played before a fairly early dinner due to daylight savings having changed that morning (it got really dark, really quickly!). We had vegetable couscous, followed by chocolate biscuits for dessert, and yet again what looked like heaps of food dissapeared rather quickly!
The personal fight was to stay up until 9pm, since it was dark at about 6. Most people managed, but pretty much everyone was in bed by 9.30pm.

Monday

Another lazy, nothing day. No one really felt like doing anything, so we sat around the hut and played cards, and cleaned up. Barbara and Mike went with Clintons group on an earlier water taxi so that the vans were evenly packed, and the rest of us waited for our pickup with Pauls group after lunch.
The weather turned cold as soon as we got to St Arnaud, and only half the showers actually had hot water in them, which sucked (I got a cold one!). From there, after a short stop at the shop to get cake and coffee, it was straight back to Picton and into the queue for the ferry. Dinner was a greasy and great Chicken burger and fries, HUGE.

Easter

2010-03-30T15:54:00.001+13:00

Yay! Heading away now for a four day weekend tramping for Easter. We are off to the Nelson Lakes National Park.
Should be great! Photos and write up to come next week!
I am so excited :)

Feeling HOT HOT HOT!!

2010-03-08T14:13:00.011+13:00

February 26-28 2010

Lake Chalice, Mt Richmond Forest Park, Staircase Road End

Team: Me, Karl, Ian, Olivia, Valentina

Photos are a little different this time, they are low-res versions uploaded directly, as I have yet to post any shots to flickr to have links... This might be remedied later, but for now, we'll see!

Friday night saw an unusual start to a tramp for me - catching the bus along the Old Hutt Road to walk over the bridge to the ferry terminal. After a few nervous moments, waiting for everyone to arrive, we were all there and checked in. Dinner was had on the ferry, and I have to say that the Lasagne wasnt actually too bad, although I wish I had brought dinner stuff like Olivia did - that looked fantastic!

We then collected a rental and drove off into the dark, heading for a campsite at a much easier to find road end. It was fairly cold overnight, and most people didnt sleep particularly well I gathered, and we were all glad for some hot water at breakfast time!

Once the tent had gotten some sunshine, and our condensation-damp sleeping bags had spent some time in the sunshine drying off, we packed up and headed back down the road in search of our actual road end. It was a nightmare to get to, and I am VERY glad we didnt do it in the middle of the night (plus there was nowhere suitable to camp AT the road end anyway!)

From there it was down the hill (and a steep b*&ch of a hill it was!) to the hut for lunch. After a suitable rest period of about an hour, we packed up day packs and headed off around the lake, which was estimated to take about an hour. The lake was very low, and it was very hot, so we were immensely grateful to find that at the far end of the lake it is entirely possible to get down from the track to a small beach-like area where we paddled our feet, and sank in the mud. It was so refreshing no one really wanted to leave, but it was also SO hot, and there was no shade, so we were all feeling the heat a bit!

We headed around the far side of the lake, already having decided that perhaps walking up a spur and on to the tops in this weather was a bit foolhardy, as we were all feeling rather tired from the heat. This was a great decision, as once we got to where the spur we were planning to follow went, we discovered it was bluffs at the track level, and so would have been a tad tough to get up!

Eventually we got back to the hut. Well, it felt like eventually, as the heat made everything seem like it took a lot longer than normal! In fact, we had only taken just over three hours to get around the lake, which was about on DoC time of 2.5 hours, plus our half hour lounging about in the lake!.

The rest of the afternoon was given over to rest. Pretty much everyone had a nap, although I decided not to as I didnt think I would wake up in time to get dinner going if I did! Plus I was feeling dehydrated, so I figured sitting around reading and re-hydrating was possibly more important than napping!

Soon enough it was time to start dinner, which was a bacon risotto followed by apple crumble. It went down a treat, and all of a sudden it was 9.30pm and everyone was getting ready for bed! I think because the hut stayed fairly light for ages, being in a nice sized clearing and with good weather, we must not have started dinner quite as early as previous trips. The cards didnt even come out before people headed to bed!

Sunday morning we were up slightly earlier than Saturday, as we were unsure how long it would take to get back up to the road end, and drive back to Picton. Our aim was to get to Picton by just on 1pm (at the latest) to allow us time for lunch before our ferry. Out of the hut at just on 8am, we were at the road end by just after 9am.

Even with a stop at the lookout, and cruising our way down the nasty road, then stopping at the actual road turn-off, we were still in Picton at just after 11am! We split up and all headed off to have lunch wherever we felt like it, planning to come back to the car at 12.15pm.

While at lunch, I got a text from Jackie (our weekend contact) telling us that there was a Tsunami warning, but the ferries didnt seem to be affected. This was good news, we guessed.

We also decided to see about getting on the 1.10pm ferry instead of the 2.25pm one, which we managed, and that was great, as the ferries were being diverted away from Tory Channel and out past Ship Cove instead, adding an hour each way. So we got home at about 5pm, which was nice for a change for a South Island trip - still enough time to go home and unpack before collapsing in to bed...

Navigating the Blue Range

2010-02-19T16:29:00.004+13:00

October 12-14 2007

Tararua Forest Park, Kiriwhakapapa Road End

Team: Ray (Leader), Jackie, Jane, Corwin 1 other (aplogies, I have forgotten names from then!), Me

Starting in the usual way, with the group meeting at the railway station at 5.30, we proceeded over the hill and stopped for my first dinner at the great kebab shop in Carterton. The Kiriwhakapapa road end was reached with no great drama (which was great given we were in the crapper old bus!), and beds were constructed in the shelter.

Saturday dawned clear and quite warm, and we wandered along the track towards Mihimihi, looking for a spur heading off the side where we would leave the track and start bush bashing. It was surprisingly obvious and easy to find! The plan from there was to head up the ridge to Te Mata, a small peak, then down and on to the track and on down to Cow Creek.

The navigation was something we only did because we wanted to, as it turned out that the ridge was an old track of some sort, and was clearly marked every couple dozen meters with pink markers of various types. Hence, Te Mata was reached without too much ado and lunch was had.

The track from Te Mata down to the river and Cow Creek Hut is steep and nasty, and I have vowed never to do it again. Once at the bottom, there was a bit of track that had washed away in a slip and a short river sidle was required, before we reached the bridge that marked we had arrived at the hut.

Cow Creek Hut is lovely, and if there was an easier way to get there, I would definitely go again! 6 bunks, old forest service style with a wonderful potbelly that we stoked up before all taking a nap before dinner. Sleep was early for everyone, since the was no table to sit around and play cards and the weather was packing in.

In the morning we headed back out, straight up and over the hill towards the road end. The short sidle in the river had turned into a well beyond knee deep mission due to overnight rain, which had also made the track slippery in many places.

While the others all headed off to Blue Range hut for a visit, I kept plodding along, worried that if I didnt I would be entirely left behind. The track down from Blue Range is also very steep, and VERY suddenly flattens out. I was caught about 10 minutes from the end of the track, and was very glad to get home!

A Monumental Achievement

2010-02-12T12:01:00.003+13:00

Yep, I'm finally getting around to writing up older trips. Its about time some of these were written up!
20-23 October 2007

Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth Road End

Group: Me (leader), Emma, Emily, Rita (assessor / supervisor)

After a hectic Friday spent packing and shifting, before then unpacking, grocery shopping and packing again to go away, I slept really well, and somehow managed to be nicely organised just in time for people to arrive at my new flat on Saturday morning to share a ride to the road end.
The purpose of the tramp was to complete my Gold Young New Zealanders Challenge of the Duke of Edinburghs Award, and therefore we needed to spend 4 days tramping, exploring both the valleys and tops of the range.

My previous attempt at a Gold DoE tramp had been cancelled about 5 days out, as we had planned to complete the round-the-mountain tramp at Ruapehu, but a Lahar had come through and washed away a major bridge, leaving a very acidic river blocking our path and cutting the available track in half, meaning the walk was never going to be long enough.

Rough Plan:
Day One: Holdsworth Road end - Jumbo Hut via Powell Hut
Day Two: Jumbo Hut to Mitre Flats Hut
Day Three: Day walk to Mitre
Day Four: Mitre Flats - Holdsworth Road end

Saturday
Even though it was late October and the weather had been fairly mild for the previous few weeks, there was an almighty storm going on over the tops on Saturday morning, so we decided to head along the valley to Atiwhakatu hut, and then from there to Jumbo Hut for the night, and see where we felt like going on Sunday. It is a very pretty valley, with some cool bridges and the walk in was fairly easy, apart from one massive slip that had obviously re-slipped since the track had last been cut through.

It was quite mild weather wise with just a nice breeze. At Atiwhakatu hut, we met a couple of runners who had tried to get to Jumbo and had had to turn around because the weather was too bad, with lots of wind-driven hail, and a bit of snow as well. We stuck with our decision to head up the hill to Jumbo Hut on the theory that the hut was only just above the bushline, so chances were, we could still make it. Worst case scenario was that we would have to turn around and come back to Atiwhakatu, which although not pleasant, was at least there!

The climb was steep, nasty and slow. And very soon, surrounded by snow / hail / ice. Which was kind of cool, as none of us had tramped in snow before. Everyone was very tired, but got a bit of a second wind when we got to the bushline and started getting pounded by gale-force-wind driven hail! OUCH!!

Later in the evening, the weather settled somewhat, and we got a bit of a view over the rest of the range, which looked rather nasty, and gave us a fair indication that wherever we were going the next day, it definitely involved going back DOWN the hills!

Sunday
Sunday dawned fine but cold, and a lot of the ice from overnight had melted. There was still enough around for a snowball fight though!

We decided to head down the old track that would bring us out closer to Mitre Flats, rather than head back down the Rain gauge track again. It was actually a really lovely piece of track, still well enough formed and marked, and we were at the bottom before we knew it!

Right near the bottom of this track is a really great-looking campsite that I keep meaning to go back to. Its a nice sized clearing, with a fire pit already built and easy access to the river. We stopped here for a while for lunch, and everyone started looking a bit tired, which was worrying.

We continued on up the valley, eventually reaching the bridge thats as far up valley as the track goes. Its probably the longest and slowest bridge we crossed all weekend. There are a couple of fingers and toes, turned-round-backwards moments on the track before here, which were fun.

From here, the track goes UP to the junction with the track to Baldy and across Pinnacle Ridge. At the track junction, we sat down for food and a discussion. Everyone was shattered, and we had at least another 3 hours to go at current pace before we got to Mitre Flats Hut, from where we would have to come all the way back through where we were. There was also a technical bit coming up that had seen many experienced parties get lost for hours at a time, going around in circles. So the decision was made to return to Atiwhakatu Hut for the night, and go from there up one of the spur tracks to Powell Hut for Monday night. This way we were closer to the road end in case the exhaustion got worse in anyone, and we knew what was coming with regards to tracks, distances and times.

It was a fairly straight-forward tramp back to Atiwhakatu, although it took quite a while, and after crossing an unbridged stream between the two Jumbo Hut tracks, I managed to put my hand in a patch of stinging nettle. This meant a brief stop was required to dig out antihistamine cream, and at every small bit of flowing water I could get to, I was dunking my hand to try and cool it, as it felt like I was wearing a very tight balloon glove and my hand was effectively useless. All up rather unpleasant. But at least we got one laugh out of it - when I pulled my hand away from the nettle and realised what I had done, I yelled "Ow, it burns, it burns!" in what was apparently quite a comical tone. I couldn't not laugh at the imitations over the next 36 hours... :)

Monday
A short day distance wise, but it still took us the better part of 6 hours, from Atiwhakatu Hut via Mountain House to Powell Hut because we were all SO sore and tired! The weather clagged in on us as well as we went, and eventually we were walking in quite thick mist. We stopped at Mountain House for a pre-lunch snack, which wound up being soup. And Damn that was the best cup of soup I have ever had.

It at least wasnt windy on us! It cleared a little in the afternoon, so we spent some time exploring the close surrounds of the hut, which neither Emily or Emma had been to before, and then tucked in to some really quite average backcountry cuisine dinners. We had two flavours, and so everyone had some of each. This was great because only about the first 3 or 4 mouthfulls of each actually tasted any good!

Thankfully most of us still had hot chocolates and the like around, as the huts gas heater was broken, and with only four of us in the hut for the night, it did NOT get very warm at all! (Most of us had dinner sitting in our sleeping bags at the table)

Tuesday
Tuesday morning we got a text telling us that a southerly front with wicked winds was due to come through soon. Given at least two party members had spent most of the night awake becaus they thought the wind was going to blow the hut down the hill, we figured anything that was worse than we had now was worth getting out ahead of. So we bolted down breakfast, threw our raincoats on (it was hosing down) and bolted out the door fairly early.

By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, it had dried out and warmed up (a little at least), which was lovely, but would have been nice to have had that weather on our way down! The track down was much the same as always, although this was before the recent re-build of the lower part of the gentle annie, so there were lots of steps that had fallen away. But the road, car and fish n chips were just a short walk away, so we pounded down the hill with our much lighter packs, ending back at the carpark by Noon.

New Atiwhakatu Hut

2010-02-10T10:47:00.003+13:00

12-13 July 2009

Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth Road End

Group: Me (leader), Mark, Kyle, Jo

What a cruise of a tramp. Purposely advertised as an Easy Easy trip at club, with a Saturday morning departure and only a couple of hours walk to a brand spanking new hut, we planned to take it easy and eat extremely well!

Saturday morning saw Mark and I off to the rental company to pick up the vehicle the club had hired for us for the weekend, which happened to be a nice sedan instead of a van for a change, which was great. Collecting the other two at the railway station at 9am and with only a brief stop at Carterton to get the meat for dinner, we were at the road end in good time.

Its a track I have completed several times before, but there were some new sections along the way, where they have been improving the track to what can only be described as "great walk standard", which is nice for the fact that the bits done are so front country. Due to the fact I had had a fairly major back injury less than a month previous and was only leading this trip because I was damnably determined to get to this new hut, we passed on the option of going up to Mountain House and then down, instead heading direct for the hut.

On the way in we passed a pair of Dads with their collective kids, off for a couple of nights at Atiwhakatu, with a day walk up to the snow on the rain-gauge track on the day in between planned. It was nice to see the kids out and about, enjoying themselves. I'd like to see it more often!

The new hut is a VAST improvement on the old, although the toilet that was there when we came through was still the old one - the new one was lying on its side behind the hut, so I assume by now they will have dug a new hole for it...

We had lunch at the hut, and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to get the fire lit in the new fire box to keep the hut warm. Snow was already confirmed at only about 500m above the hut by people who had come down from Jumbo and stopped to chat, and more was predicted overnight. Kyle went for a wander up along the track a way, and then came back to chop up some more of the old hut as firewood.

Eventually it was dinner time - Mince Nachos, a real treat on a tramping trip! Since we had only had a couple of hours walk, we had decided to carry mince, canned tomatoes, chilli beans and cornchips for dinner. Dessert was meant to have been Butterscotch instant pudding, but it was made with too much water, so only the marshmallows to go with it were really edible... Oops!

Eventually, after a couple of long games of 500, we headed to bed. By this stage it was very very warm in the hut, and the kids on the top bunks were not sleeping well. I think several wound up on mattresses on the floor eventually.

After breakfast and packing up, we headed straight back for the road end and home, delivering people back in Wellington about 1pm. A great, cruisy weekend and one I really think I should do again soon!

So much for 5 days...

2010-01-06T16:19:00.005+13:00

Our plan for the summer break from Christmas to New Years this year had been ambitious. Too ambitious, the weather gods decided!

Original Plan

Day One - Holdsworth Road end to Jumbo Hut via Atiwhakatu Hut and Raingauge Spur

Day Two - Jumbo Hut to Mid Waiohine Hut via Mt Holdsworth Summit

Day Three - Mid Waiohine Hut to Maungahuka Hut via Aokaparangi Biv

Day Four - Maungahuka Hut to Totara Flats Hut via Neill Forks Hut, with possible detour to Tararua Ladder

Day Five - Totara Flats Hut to Waiohine Gorge Road End

So, it rained, or blew gale force winds the whole period between Christmas and the return to work...

New Plan

Head to Ohakune for a couple of nights and see about fitting in the Tongariro Crossing, plus a couple of day walks (hopefully beating the bad weather to that part of the country) and then head to the beach, hope the weather clears and go into the Tararuas later in the holiday break...

Well. We didnt beat the weather.

We set up our tents in Ohakune in hot, sticky and claggy weather mid afternoon, wandering off to the supermarket in shorts and t-shirt, almost hoping it would rain on us without our umbrella or raincoat. It didnt. After picking up the bits and pieces we needed for the next couple of days, we started looking into options for doing the Tongariro Crossing - debating the merits of taking our own car around and getting a one way shuttle, then heading to Tokaanu for the hot pools, or just getting the shuttle both ways.

Given that going to Tokaanu would quite possibly have had us back in Ohakune so late that we would have had to go to Waiouru for dinner (everything closes at about 8pm), we decided to do a return shuttle. The company we wanted to book with said they werent planning on going the next day because the weather was going to be too bad, but to call them after 6.30 the next morning to reconfirm.

I admit, I went to bed sort-of hoping that when we rang at that ungodly hour they would say the weather was still going to be too bad, and I could go back to sleep for a while longer, but they didnt. Instead, we were told we had 30 minutes to get organised and be outside the campground for pickup. Cue rushed bolting down of half-sized bowls of porridge and quick filling of waterbottles and being thankful that we had made lunch the night before!

The weather was looking pretty nasty, and was on the edge of being bad enough that the shuttles wouldnt go, but we went on anyway, being dropped at the road end unable to see anything up the valley. It did not look much like it was going to be fun.

The weather stayed bad all the way up to Soda Springs, where most of the others in our shuttle were stopping to have the breakfast they had not had time to have before they left. Under my raincoat, I changed clothes at least once along here, swapping my warm thermaplus for a running top since it was quite muggy. I was really glad of this all the way up the devils staircase. I was also really glad to not be able to see the top as we were climbing up, as I really just wanted to stop and go back for most of the climb!

Once in south crater, the cloud clagged in even further. There had also been quite a bit of rain as there were some large puddles around. Interestingly, it was better to walk in the middle of them, where the ground was still solid with a layer of water on the top, than around the edges, where it had become mud. Once at the turn-off for the Tongariro Summit, we saw a brief couple of moments of sun, but Red Crater was still largely hidden, even when standing on the edge of it!

The drop down to the emerald lakes was longer than I remembered, and I was glad of the bad weather putting so many people off, so I didnt have to weave among slower walkers. When we got down there, we stopped for a museli bar each, and I changed back into my warmer thermaplus, as the wind was getting quite strong and cold on my now-soaked-to-skin body.

Beyond blue lake is the cairn valley, very cool and very odd. The zigzags down to Ketetahi Hut werent as bad as I remember, although this could be because we couldnt see the hut, so there was no agonising "Oh my god, another zig zag." or thinking of dropping down the ridge direct to the hut. We had lunch on the deck in occassional sunshine, which was lovely and then missioned our way out the last of the track in time for a 4pm shuttle, as did all but one other couple from our morning shuttle.

I was very sore in the backs of my knees after the tramp, with an awful burning sensation. We discovered that I was badly windburnt when we had a bath at the campground. It certainly made for an interesting night in a little tramping tent, especially when I had to get up and go the toilet at 3am and had to crawl, crying, out of the tent!

It started raining overnight, and we packed up the tent wet, quite early, keen to get to the beach house, real beds and the care of my Mum for my legs! Mark drove because the pain was so distracting. We stopped briefly at Te Apiti windfarm, and then again in Woodville for cheesecake and toilets, but other than that, it was pretty much straight through, arriving at the beach early enough for us to peg the tents flat to the ground in the gale force winds and sunshine and watch them take 30 minutes to dry!

So, we didnt even look at the Tararuas! By the time my legs had recouperated and I could walk properly again, it was time to go home and get ready to go back to work! (they are still peeling in places though!) In any case, the Tararuas had had nearly half a meter of rain over 6 days while we were away, along with low cloud and gale force winds. It really wouldnt have been a nice time to be in there. I'm still dissapointed at missing all those new huts - but now I'll just have to go later instead!

Photos to come (written at work, all the photos are still on the computer at home!)

Three Weeks of (very worthwhile) Hell on Earth

2009-10-15T15:58:00.003+13:00

Outward Bound, Anakiwa, Marlborough Sounds

February 2007

Warning: Contains 3,000 words of superfluous waffle, plus photos (and eventually maps)

Initially, I signed up to Outward Bound for two reasons. One was that it would allow me to complete both the residential and expedition training components of my Gold Duke of Edinburghs award at once. The other was that it gave me something to work towards in getting off the anti-depressants I had been on all winter.

Arriving at Picton, I was met by a whole crowd of other people being herded about by tanned, fit-looking people who were obviously instructors. My group (all those doing a “Classic” course) got to dump their bags in a truck and then go and wait for a water taxi, while a group of 14 had to change into activity-suitable gear and load themselves and their luggage on to an awesome-looking sail boat. Yikes! There was much discussion amongst the group I wound up sitting with as to what would happen to us on arrival. Some of the talk was near paranoia, including the suggestion that the boat would stop away from the jetty and we would be required to swim in to the beach at Anakiwa…

On our eventual arrival, we were greeted by a powhiri, and then separated into our watch groups. After some really nutty getting to know you games, we were introduced to our bunkroom for the duration of the course and suddenly (and eventually at the same time) it was dinner!

The first few days of the course were definitely the most mentally challenging. When we went tramping, I overloaded myself with kit because I was experienced – giving no thought to the heat and terrain we were heading for. The actual stuff we took tramping was a revelation though – because we had small packs and huge sleeping bags, plus large cookers (cooking for 14 at once), there was almost no space for personal belongings. For an overnight tramp I took one dry set of shorts, top, bra and underwear, a beanie and gloves, a warm jersey and my raincoat. There was no space for anything else!!

Our overnight navigation tramp took us up a steep hill, in the sunshine, on the hottest day we saw through the entire course. I was miserable. Because we wouldn’t see water for the entirety of our trip (no rivers up the hill, and no hut with a water tank), we had to carry all the water we would need for drinking, cooking and cleaning for two full days. This meant each person was carrying about 6L of water, which for a lot of people (myself included) was a lot too much weight!
After eventually successfully navigating our way out of the bush it was back to camp to prepare for the next adventure! Part of our descent had included a steep, slippery mud path, lined with gorse bushes. Wouldn’t you know, I slipped over. And I did what came naturally – put out my hand to catch myself, and instead all I managed to do was slice my palm open!

From there, the next trip was white water kayaking. For me personally, this was the hardest thing I had to do. Even though I’m a strong swimmer, I had a paranoia that I was going to get caught under the water. Day one was fine, I had a great time!

Day two dawned with a feeling of dread that I just couldn’t shake, and it took the entire day to get myself relaxed enough that I stopped tipping out at nearly every rapid! Of course, it wasn’t helped that I knew there was a substantial run to complete to get back to the bus, which was parked 8km back up the river… I’m not a good runner, at all, and I was immensely shamed when the group was forced to run at my pace for the first couple of km’s, and felt worse again that those who got to the bus before me had to run back to me so that everyone finished together. I admit though, that it gave those who were stronger runners more of a challenge, which was good, but that day I would rather have gone home than have had to do that run…

Running continued to be my biggest challenge – the morning after the kayak trip my morning run for PT was horrific. So bad, in fact that I wanted to just go home!! Thankfully that day we did an activity that bought back the positive for me. Called the “life run” it was about who you were, and who you wanted to be. Some of it was hard – “10 things you like about yourself” nearly didn’t happen, “10 things you’d like to change about yourself” was hard to limit – but other bits were relieving, making me feel much better about myself.

Other "smaller" things we did included high ropes, rock climbing and swimming from the other side of the sound back to Anakiwa beach...

Soon enough it was time to go off for a service project. Ours was cutting and shifting wood for a gentleman who then gave that wood away to poor elderly locals. He was neat, and had a cool museum of all sorts of old farm stuff, which we got a tour of on the second day. We stayed overnight in the paddock next to a cobb cottage, which we helped clean out and weed around as well. The work was hard and hot! I discovered that I wasn’t that good with an axe, so I stuck to moving wood around for those who were chopping it instead. I still worked up a wicked hunger and was really glad of the really cold swimming hole we found before dinner!

After a second day chopping and shifting wood, it was off back to Anakiwa, stopping about 6km out for another long run. Yikes! I managed to survive, although was still the slowest in the watch, and Oh the shame of having a truck moving with you at your slow pace with a sign on the back saying “Caution: Runners” when you are the only one any overtaking vehicle would see! I got quite bad cramp in both calf muscles, but kept going because stopping was not really an option. In fact, once the rest of the crew were running back to meet me, I was moving quite well again, and I remember some of them being shocked when they had slowed down to walk with me (because it was all I could manage) to suddenly find themselves well behind me! I may not be a good runner, but I am a fierce walker!

Thankfully our next big activity was sailing, so there was plenty of time to rest sore bodies from chopping and hauling wood! We spent three days out on the water, and got all the way out to Cook Straight in that time. The first day we had brilliant sunshine and were all keen for a swim during the day.

Later in the evening, the wind dropped, meaning we had to start rowing (no motors on these boats!), and then it got dark, and then it started raining… By the time we got to our designated campsite for the night and moored the boat, we were all soaked and it was near on midnight! We also soon discovered that we had managed to break the only cooker we had, so there was no hot food for dinner. Oops!

Day two of the sailing saw me and a couple of others swimming out to retrieve the boat and row it back in to the shore to pick up the others, followed by a compulsory jump off the instructors launch for everyone. Having had no hot food for dinner or breakfast meant that what sunshine we had didn’t manage to warm us very well, and all of us spent the entire rest of our sailing experience in our warm PVC raincoats!

We headed off to Ship Cove for lunch, there finding another watch who were also out sailing and who generously offered us some of their gas so we could cook lunch. We carefully put said gas well away from where we were cooking. Turns out that was where the other watch decided to sit, and they mistook the gas they had given us for theirs – there went the planned steak for dinner that night!

That night we tied up alongside the launch for the night and slept on the boat. It was a great way to sleep, even though 14 people in a 10-meter boat is a bit of a squeeze! Dinner was partially soaked 2-minute noodles (we were given hot water by the instructors) with raw veges and canned tuna. It was rather unappealing, and I wound up giving most of mine away. Thankfully the instructors followed this up with hot water for drinks so we could sleep.

Our last day was a wander back to Anakiwa, stopping off at Blumine Island along the way for a walk. The old battlements on there are really awesome and I would love to go back at some stage. We had the wind behind us the whole way home and managed to sail all the way in to the bay and almost all the way up to the wharf, dropping sails at the very latest safe point.

“There is no rest for the wicked” is the common saying. At Anakiwa it would more commonly be “there is no rest. Except on Solo”! We arrived back from sailing at about 4pm. By 9pm, we were back on the launch, headed for a point of land below the Queen Charlotte Track for our Solo experience. Setting up camp at about midnight (or at least, what felt like midnight. Watches were not allowed), it was a mission just to set up the tent fly and pull out the sleeping bag before collapsing in to bed. Sleep was the order of the day for almost the entirety of the three days we were there. We were confined to a small area close to our tent site and not meant to go away from it. Some of those who were closest to the water wound up heading to the beach, but I would have had to pass a half dozen tents to do this, which would have disturbed those people who I had to pass.

You are given a food allocation and a water allocation for solo. I consumed all the water (and had to be given more on day two), but came home with food, as I specifically decided to only eat when I was actually hungry. I think I was so tired that I just didn’t get hungry! I also managed to lose my voice almost entirely from not talking for three days, combined with the chesty cough I had had the entirety of the course thus far. Being collected on day three and taken to the launch which had fresh bread for sandwiches was great. Everyone in the watch commented that the solo seemed to have worked wonders for me, as I was glowing with what was best described as joy when we got back. I loved it, and keep meaning to do something similar again, but just don’t get around to it!

That evening we had to share with the rest of the group what we had done during solo, as we had been given specific tasks to complete. This took a really long time – it was well on 11pm before we were heading back to our bunkroom. On arrival at the bunkroom we were told that it was time for a briefing and to repack for tramping. Yikes!

At 6am the next morning we were all bundled in to the bus again, heading for the road behind Canvas Town, heading in to the Richmond Ranges for a three day tramp, taking only one of our two instructors. Almost the entirety of this tramp was off track, and up on ridges, camping under fly sheets. Thankfully though, this is a regular route and they have put a water tank in early on day two so you only need just over a days water at a time. First day was a LOT of climbing, and eventually we settled on a campsite and cooked tea, then did a short session of Yoga to stretch the muscles (one of the girls in the group is a part time yoga instructor).

Day two and the weather continued to be fair, if cold in the morning, and we had to make it up to a specific high point before dropping down a couple of technical ridges to the river to find our campsite for the night – an old helicopter landing pad, where we had permission to light a fire. We were so excited! Some of the navigation got a bit tricky, and time started to slip away on us (there is a rule that off-track tramping must STOP at dusk), but we were confident that we would just make time, even with the very sore limbs and blisters that were pestering party members and slowing our travel significantly.

All of a sudden there were screams from further back in the group. Someone had disturbed a wasp nest and was being stung quite viciously. Our stop point at that stage was three quarters of the way down a ridge, with a couple of very small clearings that we could put shelter in to, all on funny angles. Thankfully our party member with the most stings was just shocked, rather than allergic, so we set up camp, calmed her down and fed everyone.

The next morning we knew we had at least an extra hour of tramping to make up to get through our route for the day, so we were up and getting organized as soon as there was any light. Once it was light enough to see clearly, we were off down the hill. Our route that day involved finding a fork in a river as a main navigating point, and we managed to arrive at the river exactly on this point. After refilling water bottles it was off back UP the next hill, and we climbed solidly for over 3 hours until meeting the track to the top of Mt Royal. A late lunch was had on Mt Royals summit – it was a lovely day! – and we decided to go back to the road via the track instead of the longer option across another ridge and down the other side of the next valley.

This turned out to be an absolute blessing, because as it was we didn’t arrive at the road end until nearly 10pm, because so many of us were so sore that walking barely happened. The most challenging part for others was that we had eaten the absolute last of our food at about 4pm, which was only a small bag of scroggin anyway – every other ounce of food we had brought with us (and we had taken extra from the kitchens before departure) had been devoured at lunch time.

We were all intensely glad to see the bus at the road end when we finally got there, especially as our instructor had put a muffin on each seat for us, and then took us down the road for flush toilets and more water before heading back to Anakiwa for a very late (and very tasty!) dinner.
Finally heading to bed at nearly 1am, it was the shortest nights sleep, as the alarm went off at 4.30am for breakfast and run briefing so that we could start our half marathon at 7.30am. The route for the half was quite cool – half of it was on the road, and the other half on the Queen Charlotte Track to enable a finish at Anakiwa. My mood was buoyant, apart from the pain in my legs from the tramping, and this was aided by the singing in the bus I wound up in going around to the start.

Being a slow runner, I started off slowly but surely and near the back of the pack. At the back I stayed! I was second last through halfway (there was a limit to how long you could take to get there before they drove you back home) and dead last home. When I reached half-way, the fastest people were finishing. I only kept going because there was no other way home and my instructor was running with me. In the Anakiwa mind-set, when she caught up with me as tail end Charlie, my thoughts were not “that’s ok, she has to stay behind me” but rather “bugger, I have to keep ahead of her”.

Crossing the line in tears at 4hours 6minutes, I collapsed on the ground and took about 20 minutes to get myself together enough to walk to the showers. Lunch that day was sincerely welcomed, and it was all “treat” food, which was great, but almost too much after such a simple diet for three weeks!

The rest of the day was cleaning up, packing up and sleeping before a final night concert, an early night, no PT on the last morning and home. Finally!!!

Two and a half years later, I can now truly see the changes that completing Outward Bound has instilled in me. Each person changes perceptibly, but differently after the course. I gained a more positive outlook, and more of a belief that “Yes, I can do it”. I still get the winter blues, but they are no longer the debilitating blackness that they once were. I recommend Outward Bound to anyone who needs a challenge or wants to revitalize their life.

Yes, it was hellish while I was there, but it was also fantastic. Good friendships made, challenges met, the art of relaxing in very short time periods perfected. The best and worst three weeks of my life so far!

Paua Hut

2009-05-04T09:23:00.003+12:00

May 2-3 2009

Orongorongo Valley, Rimutaka Forest Park

Team: Sue (Leader), Ravi, Lillian, Amelia, Mark, Mike, Angela, Toby, Stacey, Bronwyn

Weekends like this are why I love tramping!

Friday night some of my workmates and I headed out for dinner at the Flying Buritto Brothers to celebrate surviving the dramas of the end of the financial year (and the seeing off of the auditors!). Even the CEO joined our small group for the evening, which was actually quite fun! Mark and I then headed home to pack for our tramp that was leaving on Saturday morning, and I have to say that my pack seemed MUCH smaller simply for not having to spend a night at the road end - not that I could think of much that I would normally take but didnt, although, I did forget hut shoes entirely, which is really kinda stupid when you consider that I KNEW we had to cross a river multiple times to get to the hut!

The track in to Paua Hut is a fairly simple amble. Well, it would normally be if I hadnt had too much marguerita the night before! It starts with a bit of a climb up the hil, then wambles up and down for what took us about 2.5 hours before reaching the river. We had Toby, a 6 year old, with us, which meant more frequent stops for all, and a slower pace than normal as well!

Before too long we reached the end of the track, where it drops rather steeply down to the river, and a really funky bridge...

From here it was time to start a half-hour or so amble along, across and through the river to the hut.

For the first couple of crossings, we practiced "good technique" even though the river was well down (given the heavy rain of the previous few days, this was a relief!), just so we could say we had. From then on though, it was every person for themselves, and we had quite a lot of fun in the river!

All of a sudden, we were at the hut and it was lunch time!! Mark, Stacey and I had arranged between us to carry some treat food for the afternoon, so we spent our time nibbling on crackers and cheese, and corn chips with salsa dip. This was a big plus, as the dinner was rather plain and dull to be honest - Mac n cheese with bacon, followed by choc instant pud with marshmallows... Edible, but given the easiness of the trip, I would have expected something a little more... extravagant... perhaps. The other groups Thai Green Curry Tuna actually looked rather appealing compared to ours!!

After an afternoon sitting in whatever sun we could find, reading books, still we all headed to bed for a reasonably early night - because we could!! I slept in as late as I could get away with in the morning, and when I got up, found that most of the hut were up and about and outside, reading or generally relaxing before breakfast!

The walk home was more of the same, only the other way around, and we ended up back at the road end at the same time as the medium group, who had taken a much more challenging route to get there!

In the Summertime

2009-04-03T09:23:00.006+13:00

Abel Tasman Coastal Track, Abel Tasman National Park
24 - 28 January 2007
People: Amelia, Emma, Emily, Olivia, Marion, Tiffany, Kathryn, Lizzy, Dani, Sam, Chrystal

Now, its been well over two years since I did this track, but I had completed the same walk at least twice before the trip I write of here, so at least the track itself is easy to remember!

We started in Wellington, staying overnight at the guide hall to make sure everyone had everything and that all the food was sorted in such a way as to keep it safe until needed. Dropped at the ferry terminal at 7.30am, we had a nice, relaxing start to our week. Chrystal met us in Picton, having been in the South Island on holiday for the previous week, and we boarded our bus bound for Nelson, then onward to Kaiteriteri beach for the night.

We had a quick swim at Kaiteriteri in the afternoon, before having ice creams from the shop and cooking dinner on our little gas cookers at our tent site with our little tents... We felt a bit insignificant when we compared our little site with the massive behemoth tents that surrounded us... Emaa, Olivia and I shared a tent fly to save weight and it was lovely to have that light breeze coming through the tent at night.

In the morning we started lazily. Safe Crossing time at Awarua wasnt until 7pm, and it was only an hours water taxi and two hours walk to get there. We were booked on a Noon taxi, which meant sitting out at the beach in the heat with all our gear for a couple of hours after we cleared our campsite. the shuttle ran to time at least, and while out we got to see some seals.

Working on the theory that it shouldnt get full dark until about 9.30pm and it was only meant to be an hour and a bit from Awarua to Onetahuti, we had planned to walk through to that campsite in the late evening in order to make day two slightly shorter. This meant we needed to have had dinner, cleaned up and repacked by 7pm, ready to start crossing. Now, the thing with the Awaroa Inlet is that "safe crossing time" extends quite a way each side of low tide (about 2 hours), and if you go at the very start or very end, the water gets quite deep...

(This isnt the deepest it got of course. The girls all wound up having to hold their packs funny in order to avoid getting them wet too)
Deep water means slow movement, and looking back I think it would have been better to wait for actual low tide before crossing and then stay at the Awarua campsite, especially as it got well dark before we managed to get to the campsite and one of the groups nearly got lost! Crossing the small Onetahuti inlet (which never really gets more than waist deep anyway) would definitely be much easier in daylight than in the torch light we wound up crossing it under!

Having read the weather report posted at the Totaranui campsite that we started out from, our smaller group decided to get up early the next morning to hopefully get in some good tramping before it got too hot. This plan failed epically when Emma started showing signs of heat exhaustion only about an hour and a half into the anticipated 7 hours to complete that day. We managed to get Emma very slowly to Bark Bay Hut, where water taxis come in for pick up / drop off and then sat and waited for the other group to turn up. We worked hard at relaxing, cooling and rehydrating Emma, and by the time the rest arrived, she was feeling much better, but still not up to tramping the next 4 hours to our overnight campsite (which was also about the next place we could expect to pick up a water taxi for her!).

So Emma and myself were accompanied by all the group tents and Dani's pack on to Anchorage by water taxi while the rest of the group walked through to Torrent Bay. When they got there it was starting to rain. They helped a guy pack up his tent, and in return got a ride across that estuary rather than having to walk the tidal track around it. In the mean time we had pitched all the tents bar one (someone had forgotten to give us part of it), had a swim and had a nap while a thunderstorm raged above us. Dinner was cooked in the small shelter provided and included fresh soup and bread.

Instead of walking out from Anchorage, we had arranged Sea Kayaks to take us out.

It was a great day, although we all had wicked motion sickness when we got back to Nelson for the night - I clearly remember standing in the shower at Tahunanui Beach Campsite, holding on to the walls so I didnt fall over when I closed my eyes (and can I just say, the showers at that campsite were fantasitc!!). Most of us got at least partly sunburnt that day, and after fish n chips from the camp store for dinner, we all went to bed fairly early, with most people deciding to sleep out of their tents since the weather was so mild.

After all that, the only thing left to do was to catch a taxi, bus and ferry home to Wellington. I think most of us slept most of the way!!
If I was to do this again, I think I would go to Marahau for the night before instead of Kaiteriteri, as then you would have the option of leaving travel stuff at the campground while on track and collecting it on the way out. I have only ever walked the track Totaranui - Marahau, and I think I prefer doing it that way, especially with the days kayaking to finish!

(Almost) Four Seasons in three days

2009-03-31T14:40:00.003+13:00

Kepler Track, Fiordland National Park
29 - 31 December 2008
Amelia and Mark

Monday
Man I hate Monday mornings. Even more so when you are meant to be on holiday and still have to get up early. This morning was made even harder by the fact that two days previous I had managed to get VERY sunburnt at Mt Cook, and it had been VERY warm overnight in our room at the Holiday Park in Te Anau, where it had stayed light until well after we were in bed and asleep.
After a quick breakfast and re-pack of the car, we were off to Safer Parking (its home for the next three days) to wait for our shuttle to collect us. Sure, we could have walked the 45-odd minutes around the lakefront to the control gates to start the track, but we figured the cost to get a ride was small enough to spare and save us some time!

Pick up was at some ungodly hour (about 8.30am), so we had to be all set, with the car parked before then. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare, and were at the control gates, ready to start the track at about 9am. It was sunny, warm and a lovely day to be enjoying the shade of the bush when carrying three days worth of stuff, plus emergency gear! (our food was a substantial portion of this weight it turned out!). The weather was not meant to stay nice for all three days though, so we enjoyed it while it lasted!

The first hour or so was a gentle wander on a track nice and wide enough for us to walk alongside each other. We got to Brod Bay in good time, and paused here for a nibble and drink before racing off again to escape the resident sandfly population (Note: NEVER camp there!!), deciding to have lunch well up the hill. We targetted getting to the Limestone Bluffs that are mentioned in the guide book, and when we got to 1pm and still hadnt reached them, we gave up and had lunch where we were. Needless to say, we found them about 20 mins further up the track, and stopped for a second lunch stop at a nice seating area alongside them with an Australian Family.

Eventually we arrived at Luxmore Hut and found ourselves beds in the smaller bunkroom. I have to say that for a huge hut, it has a tiny, and poorly planned out, communual area. The kitchen is cramped, and to ensure they have seating for most people, there is a dining table in the middle of it! I guess they hoped that it would only be full in good weather when it was built, which would allow most people to sit outside. It does have quite a cool inside-outside feel to it though. "Cool" being the operative word - from the warm bunkrooms and kitchen, through the COLD hallway and toilet area... At least the loos are flush ones during the summer season!

Dinner was sweet and sour pork with pasta (since we were having pasta again the next night it saved also buying rice). Full of fresh veges and with fresh meat. Had a funny moment when I came out of the bunkroom with our dinner stuff laden in my arms, to see someone coming out of the other bunkroom with theirs - one pot and a packet of Rice Risotto. Would rather our dinner over theirs any day. In fact, I think we had the best dinner in the hut that night, and I have to say that the extra weight to carry it (and the bottle of wine to share over two nights) was SO worth it when we saw what others were eating... Lots of unhappy faces over the dehy there!

The smaller bunkroom has massive picture windows, which would be nice if it werent for the fact that daylight hours extend out to nearly midnight at that time of year down there! The photo below is of the view from the deck outside the bunkroom as we went to bed about 9.30pm... I wound up using a bandanner as a blindfold to get to sleep, while Mark hid himself deep into his sleeping bag (I would have been FAR too hot if I had too!)

Tuesday
We decided not to rush out the door for day two, as the weather was meant to stay reasonably fair all day, and only rain later in the afternoon. It was straight up hill to start with, and the wind was quite gusty at times (even though it was less windy than both the day before and the day after). We had both started the morning with walking poles, which soon got put back on the sides of our packs because they were getting blown around something wicked! Most depressing on this day were the bits of track where you could see what looked to be about the next two hours of track ahead of you - and there were lots of these bits!

We got to the turn-off to Mt Luxmore summit and decided that since we were here we should really go up to the top proper. The wind at the turn-off was freezing, so we rugged up in layers of warm clothes. Mark headed off like a mountain goat while I struggled up with sore Achilles tendons from the day before. I made it eventually, and was glad that I had when I saw the view from the top. We got one of the guys there to take a photo of the two of us and then headed back down to the main track.

From there it was a quick slog to the Forest Burn Shelter for lunch. The last bit down to the shelter is a steep and nasty zig zag, but the shelter has a toilet and on a nice day has a good deck to sit on and a picnic table. From there to Hanging Valley Shelter should take about 2 hours, but we were there in less than one.

We were going to take a longer break at Hanging Valley before attacking the downhill section of the track, but the spits of rain we started to feel put us off that idea, so off we went! The downhill from Hidden Valley Shelter to Iris Burn Hut has to be one of my most miserable memories from the entire trip, as after about 1.5 hours of straight downhill I was in considerable pain in both knees and could barely walk by the time we got to the hut. What was meant to take about 2 hours wound up taking us nearly 4 at my final pace. I do have to admit to being intensely grateful for my walking poles in this section though, as my knees would have gone sooner if it wasnt for them!

Iris Burn Hut has three bunkrooms. One massive one, with lots of dark hidey holes (great if you want to sleep in I guess), one tiny one with just four beds, which I suspect used to be the rangers room, and a large airy one with about 20 bunks upstairs. Yes. Upstairs. Guess which bunkroom we ended up in?? Can I just say how glad I was that I didnt need to get up and go the toilet in the middle of the night?? The only problem with the upstairs bunkroom is that the only windows directly above the platform bunks, which also have a low, sloping roof above them. At least the bunks werent full, so I could spread out a little and not have to kick a rafter all night!

Dinner was pasta and veges with pesto sauce and got some very envous glances from the dehy-dinner brigade, especially when we pulled out fudge for dessert!

Wednesday
Tramping out was wet. The aim for most of the day was simply to keep moving, and this was about all I managed to do. There are some very cool parts to the track through here, and it is mostly flat for the entire day. We saw a kea alongside the river at one point, but my camera wouldnt zoom in close enough to get a good photo, plus the light was dim, so it wanted to take a longer exposure, making for a blurry picture. Damn having no dSLR!!

We stopped for lunch at Moturau Hut, where the warden had a nice fire going. For lunch we had planned to have sandwiches of some description, but being so wet, we decided to cook up some of our emergency food (chicken soup), and some of our leftover food (pasta) for lunch. It wound up being remarkably good, and we decided that adding some salami would make it a great super lightweight dinner on a future tramp.

We then missioned out to Rainbow Reach for an earlier shuttle to get us back to civilisation and hot showers. We had booked for 5pm, and if the weather had been nice, even with the pain in my knees, we probably would have taken more time and used that shuttle. Instead we made it out for a 3pm ride out with the same company. In fact, we arrived at the road end in good enough time to wait for 15 minutes for the shuttle... I contemplated changing into dry clothes, but my raincoat was soaked through and the rain was still pretty torrential, so I thought I would leave that for our accommodation.

We were returned to our car at Safer Parking, and Mark drove us around town looking for a place to stay. We abandoned our booked tent site in favour of a motel with a bed and private bathroom, (it was one of the only places we could see that had a vacancy sign!) meaning we could both get out of wet stuff straight away, rather than having to find and pitch a tent in the rain (it was also useful that the motel had towels, as ours were now wet from having been sat on for the journey from Safer Parking to the motel!). Having hot showers in our room and sleeping on a bed rather than an air mattress was great too, as was having ample room to put wet stuff and dry stuff without having to worry about whether they were going to get more wet from the rain!

Getting in and out of chairs and off the bed was a substantial problem for me all night (and to a lesser extent for the next couple of days), and I was so exhausted that I napped for about an hour before dinner (we took the car a whole 1km to the Moose for it. That place is still as good as I remember!), and then again from about 9pm, to be woken by and tap on the shoulder and "Happy New Years" from Mark at midnight (so much for the "we'll sit in the motel and have a couple of beers while we wait for the new year" plan from dinner time, and the "Te Anau goes off for New Years, so lets party till the small hours" plan from before we left home!).

The rain stopped briefly at midnight, so there were fireworks, which were nice. We watched them in our PJ's from the door of our motel unit. Would have been great to have had the energy to be out on the waterfront - bet there would have been some cool shots to get. They would have had a neat view from the ridge just east of Luxmore Hut too. Might have to remember that for another year...

The Ruahines Do It Better

2009-03-26T16:29:00.004+13:00

Sunrise Hut,
20-22 March 2009
Punters: Amelia (Leader), Mark, Chris, Jodi, Jordan, Brad, Jo, Karl, Megan, Lisa, Chad, Ian

Friday arrived with a promise of good weather for most of the weekend – only a vague possibility of rain on Sunday afternoon darkening the horizon. Friday lied as it turned out, but we can forgive that as this was only a small blip on the radar of an otherwise fantastic trip.

Missioning our way north, with the group split between two vans to make maximum use of available space, we arrived in Levin for dinner at 7pm. Traffic had been astoundingly good to us! Most of us headed for fish’n’chips from the Chinese place across from KFC, and then proceeded to sit on the picnic tables on KFC’s front lawn to eat. Not bad food at a darn good price with substantial portions seemed to be the general consensus. Through the back roads to avoid Palmerston North, we whizzed past the club van in Woodville, only to be overtaken again when we had stopped for ice-creams in Dannevirke.

Eventually arriving at the road end, we somehow had managed to arrive last, which was ok apart from the fact it meant that the hut was full with everyone else before we got there, and somewhere just out of Dannevirke it had started RAINING (remember I told you that Friday lied? Well, that was its biggest one). Of course, this did lead to a vague concern as to what the weather would do for the rest of the weekend, as well as how some easy trampers would cope with sleeping under a tent fly for the first time given the conditions. In the end there was no real need to worry. We spread out everywhere – some on the floor in the kitchen, some on the floor in the bunkrooms (one enterprising group member managed to be in the right place at the right time to get an offer of an ACTUAL bunk!!), two in the woodshed and the rest happily cocooned under the very middle of the two flys we had put up.

We needn’t have worried about the weather either, as the rain stopped quite early in the night (early being the operative word, given we didn’t arrive and get to bed till nearly 1am!). Saturday morning dawned with massive clear blue skies and the promise of quite a bit of warmth to come. We hung about the hut for a while, letting the tents dry as much as possible before packing them, and eventually headed off up the hill about 9.30am.

The pace was slow to the point of being snail-like at times, but this also provided some great opportunities for conversation, and the rare chance to see a Morepork perched in a tree, sleepily watching us watch it.

Morning tea was had at the track junction, where a large seat makes for a fantastic rest spot. Chocolate duly came out of packs and was shared around, with Chris reminding Jodi that the chocolate she was sharing was half his (her reply was that that was the half she was sharing out!). Continuing up the hill with anticipations of lunch in the sunshine, we came across a whole series of cool signs that Norsewear had erected with information about the flora and fauna of the area, as well as some of its history. Very neat, and rather useful “pause” stops!

Before too long we had arrived at the top of the hill and the hut. Its fantastic how the hut really hides from you until you are basically right on top of it – no teasing sightings from a distance making you think it might be closer than it is! With a generous deck area and multiple entranceways, this hut would be a welcome haven in bad weather from any direction.

Packs and boots came off, bunks were chosen, a brew went on and lunches came out. The tent flies were ingeniously attached to the deck of the hut to continue drying.

Some members of the group headed off towards where Craigs group were spending the night and got about an hour along the track before deciding to come back. The rest of us made do with exploring the area immediately around the hut, including the short scramble behind the hut to an awesome vista of the inner ranges. Eventually someone decided it was afternoon tea, and Chris and Jodi pulled out crackers with nice cheese and dip to eat them with. Needless to say, they are welcome on any easy trip any of us take again in the future.

It was, however, starting to cloud over a little, and get somewhat cold. Having said goodbye to John, who had driven in to join us for a daywalk, we moved inside and pulled out a couple of decks of cards to play last card. Fresh camp cooked bread was produced (and devoured) as a precursor to dinner, which was prepared and demolished in pretty quick succession (for the record, it was Sweet & Sour Pork on Rice). Having cooked, I managed to avoid doing dishes (Bonus!), and so instead got a half hour reprieve before starting to prepare dessert. People were still quite full from dinner, so the chocolate “self-caking sauce” (cheers Chris) that we didn’t manage to consume was wrapped back up in anticipation of possibly being someones breakfast in the morning (it duly was).

Stargazers went for a wander outside before bed, and were rewarded with one of THE most stunning views of the Southern Cross and Milky Way I have ever seen. There were no clouds anywhere to ruin the view (at least to begin with) and it was simply awe-inspiring.

Bed ensued not long after, and I think a lot of people fell asleep very quickly and very deeply after what had probably been an average to poor Friday nights sleep. It rained overnight (quite heavily some have reported), but cleared beautifully for everyone to get up at 6.15 to watch the developing sunrise. Most people went back to bed as the sun came fully up for another couple of hours sleep. It was great and a very nice treat.

Once we all finally started getting up and organized, there wasn’t a lot of time wasted. Making our way down the hill at our own pace, with nice long stops for the back markers to catch up, we were still back at Triplex Hut for lunch at noon. After a break in the sunshine eating as much as possible of what was left of our food, it was back to the van so we didn’t miss other groups to steal spare spaces in their vans, and after a bit of a wait, we all headed home. Our van seemed to be on a sugar high, as we made a decent attempt at eating all of Karl’s lollies (which he had cunningly hidden until after dessert on Saturday night), and played multiple rounds of twenty questions (“Am I bigger than the van?” “Did we see one this weekend?”) before arriving back in Wellington and going our own ways again. All in all, not a bad trip, and much better weather than the last one I went on (into the Tararuas!)

EIGHT GET WET

2009-03-26T13:47:00.005+13:00

(AKA: TOTARA FLATS THAT WASN’T)

Powell Hut, Tararua Forest Park
Date: 27 February – 1 March 2009
People: Amelia (Leader), Joel, Lilian, Anna, Victoria, Mark, Barbara, Deborah.

Friday night at the railway station there were some concerned faces (in the other group at least) during discussion of the weather report for the weekend – wet, windy and generally not very nice. Being hardy souls, we all decided that the weather report had changed so many times in the last 8 hours that it was pretty much irrelevant, so we piled into the GUTLESS WONDER (aka the diesel, automatic, rental van) and headed off to the Wairarapa.

Arriving in Carterton at a respectable 7pm (having left Wellington ON TIME for once), an announcement was made that good kebabs were here, fish n chips down the road, each to their own, see you in about half an hour… Half an hour later we had barely managed to all order at Istanbul, and by the time we had all eaten and were looking at heading off, it was nearly 8. Sent Victoria and Mark off to find Joel who was watching the cricket at the pub and got back on the road.

But it was OK, since it was only a short drive on to the road end, and after running in to the caretaker who informed us that it actually costs money to sleep at the Holdsworth road end, some people headed off to Donnelly flat and others camped out in the shelter at the road end anyway, deciding that staying dry in the morning was more important. It wasn’t a bad choice, as it started raining at about 6.15am and it was lovely to continue lying in bed, listening to the rain, knowing that there were flush toilets just there, and we didn’t have to get wet getting organized to go.

Pulling out the map as we worked through breakfast, a discussion was held on likely issues on our intended route – including unbridged streams and the fact that if the weather cleared (which was looking more unlikely) there wasn’t anything to go look at from Totara Flats. So we decided to head up the hill to Powell for the night instead, hoping for the weather to clear to allow us a short stroll up to the trig. Talking to another group at the lodge, we found that it was probably the right decision, as one of their group had gone in to Totara Flats in bad weather and been stuck at the hut because of uncrossable streams in the past.

So up the hill we trudged, into ever worsening weather. The wind was blowing DIRECTLY in the door of Mountain House, meaning it really provided no shelter at all. So, we had a really quick stop for food and water and got moving again. Up towards Powell it got challenging at times with the wind trying to blow us all off the hill, and the clouds making sure we couldn’t see where we would fall if we did. Eventually the hut appeared in front of us, lashed by rain and the verandah offering no shelter for taking off wet gear, so all the wet gear went inside instead, where it dripped into huge puddles in the doorway.

Thankfully the old gas heater that had been broken on my last overnight visit to Powell had been replaced by a coal fire and plenty of coal to burn, so once we were all in dry clothes, it was time to get the fire lit and a billy of water on for hot drinks to go with lunch. We were all still vaguely hopeful that the weather would improve – mainly so we didn’t have to go down to the toilets in wet gear and nasty weather – but it steadfastly refused to get any better, so we were confined to the hut all afternoon. Naps and reading ensued before dinner at a reasonable time and dessert as the light faded. At some stage a report came in that the door had half come off one toilet, meaning there was only ONE toilet available - which caused a couple of short queues during the evening of people waiting inside for the person ahead to come back. Everyone wandered off to bed, only to be woken at about 2am by a member of another party loudly complaining about the members of a third playing with the fire and quietly talking. None of us had heard any of the noise though, so we don’t know what she was going on about!

Sunday morning was a lazy affair for everyone in the hut. The larger other group had originally planned to head over to Jumbo, but the weather had changed that plan on Saturday, when the plan had been changed to East Holdsworth if the weather cleared, which it didn’t. The couple who had still (apparently) been up at 2am had consumed rather a large amount of wine, and were still only just stirring from their bunks at about 8.30. We had a relaxed breakfast, pack up and clean up and headed out of the hut about 9.30am. With only about three hours walking ahead, followed by lunch in Carterton, we were in no hurry. Most of us had put back on at least some wet gear from Saturday before leaving, so the cold wind and slow pace down hill was a tad miserable. Once we got to Mountain House (out of the wind and into improving weather) we all went at our own pace, stopping a couple of times along the way to make sure everyone was still there. The further down the hill we got the warmer it was, and the less clothes people coming in the opposite direction were wearing. We started to feel a bit silly and overdressed!

Back to the van, changed into dry clothes and off to Carterton for yummy lunch and a beer at the White Swan, collecting an extra from the other group along the way, follwed by a stop at Schoc chocolates before leaving town and we were back in what was actually quite a sunny, warm Wellington (well, comparably) early enough to get the van back to the rental company before it closed!

MSC Snowcraft Course

2007-08-20T15:01:00.003+12:00

17-19 August 2007.
Levin / Waiopehu Tramping Club Ski Lodge, Whakapapa Skifield

Friday

Friday was a rush of an afternoon - race home from work, unpack and repack my pack to try and cut down how much I was taking, and then wait for my ride to arrive. Quickly enough we were on our way towards the north, battling a very full car and Friday afternoon traffic on State 1. We stopped once in Paraparaumu to pick up our last passenger, and then sat in traffic for most of the next hour through to Waikanae (about 30km, if that). We stopped in Bulls for dinner at the the Kebab shop. It was good Kebab... This photo is some of the sauce options they had.

We then stopped briefly in Waiouru for batteries and to text the people we were meeting so they knew where we were and it was off to Whakapapa village. The Bruce Rd was open all the way to the top with no chains required, which was good, but the cloud was dense like fog and we could only see about 20m ahead of the car as we were driving. Thankfully the Bruce Rd doesnt hang off the side of the mountain like some other ski field access roads.

By the time we got to the lodge and got unpacked and into our pits, it was nigh on midnight and time for bed...

Saturday

Saturday was a not too early start because the weather wasnt that great. We had a good cooked breakfast, got our stuff for the day together then spent a couple of hours sitting in the nice warm TV room to talk about weather, map reading and general safety precautions. Eventually we headed out into the gloom to learn about walking on snow.

It was bitter cold, as you can tell by the photo below - I was wearing a beanie AND a balaclava, polypro and ski gloves, 2 or 3 thermal tops and my gore-tex raincoat and was still only just warm! We practiced pigeon holing, walking in general and then self-arrest on a nice slope with a good run out at the bottom. We had lunch in the shelter of the Wanganui Lodge (I think).

About 4pm we headed back to the lodge to relax and warm up for the afternoon. Most of us napped before dinner and I was incredibly sore considering we had only been out on the snow for about 5 hours and had only walked about 2km! After a really nice tea of Lasagne and something (I had at least 2nds), we watched a DVD about avalanche and weather and then went to bed - about 9pm!

Sunday

Sunday dawned clear after snow the night before, which meant sunshine and a hard layer of frost on the top of the snow. That meant crampons (which I hate using) for at least the first part of the day. As much as I hate crampons, there was no way to move on the snow without them that morning, because without them you just slid about!

We headed back up to the slope we had practiced self-arrest on the day before and did some more self-arrest and practiced cutting steps as well. By this stage the crampons were off because the snow was softening up a little.

We carried on up the hill and around the edges of the ski-field boundary, practicing walking some more. Then we buried some avalanche transievers and took turns looking for them. Eventually it was time to head back to the lodge for a late lunch and pack up to head home. On the way home we finally got a glimpse of Ngaruhoe from about half way back down.

Back home we headed, I went in a different car this time though to have more room. We stopped in Taihape at the Exchange cafe for hot drinks and some food, then got stuck in nasty traffic north of Otaki from an accident south of Paraparaumu. Traffic cleared somewhere south of Otaki, then backed up again at Mackays Crossing, so we took the Paekakariki Hill rd over to Petone to drop off Rebecca and then finally home to my flat at about 7.30 then to Mum and Dads for a decent shower and nice dinner.

Tongariro Crossing

2007-08-13T15:35:00.004+12:00

April 21-22 2007.
Team: Emily, Nick, Kate, Amelia

This was almost a disaster of a trip. Adam was supposed to come and then couldnt, Emily, Kate and Nick were all supposed to car pool and then couldnt. In all honesty, I was amazed that this trip ever even happened at all. Anyway, into the car I eventually got, off on the road north out of Wellington on a Friday night at rush hour. 2 hours later I finally got to Levin, where I had the WORST McD's ever. It was a long drive and a dark night, but eventually I got to Whakapapa Village, where we were all meeting. Nick and Kate were already in their pits in the DoC Centre, Emily was still at the bar. By midnight we were all in bed, sleeping as best we could on small mats, on a cold wooden floor with no insulation (cant complain too much, the accomodation was free and the toilets were nice).

Then comes about 1.30am. The local volunteer fire brigade alarm goes off - RIGHT behind the shelter we were staying in. It woke up every single person staying in the village I would say at a guess, by the number of people out roaming the streets after that. Of course, everyones first concern was that it was the emergency evacuation alarm... At least, thats the first thing that ran through my mind...

Saturday morning dawned COLD and a little overcast, but a quick chat with a local shuttle driver informed us that things should clear during the day, which cheered us up no end. We took all three cars around to the other road end, had some breakfast while the shuttles came in to pick up people leaving their cars at that end, and then took my car back to the start of the track. Spending just enough time dawdling around, getting organised, meant that we were right near the back of the people starting the track when we finally got on it at just before 9am. We managed to time it perfectly - hitting just a nice quiet spot and avoiding most of the huge crowds that tend to ruin the track for many other people.

Nick and Kate powered off away down the track so that they would have time to climb Ngaruhoe and still make it out in time to drive home to Auckland that evening. Emily and I continued at a more leisurely pace, stopping every few minutes to take photos and bemoan our large, overnight packs, which were carrying more food than most others, and also sleeping bags, eating and cooking gear. We stopped near the toilets at Soda Springs for our first "meal" of the day - a good size snack to give us energy to really attack the hill ahead of us.

Once we were at the top of that hill, it was time to take a break, have some more food (it had now been well over an hour since we last ate), admire the view and take some photos. Then it was off across the crater to the next climb, passing the turnoff for Ngaruhoe (we decided we were carrying too much stuff for a summit attempt) and wombling onwards.

Once we got to the summit of the track, there was an option of a side-track to the summit of Tongariro, which we decided to take. Emily and I were both feeling the effects of carrying overnight gear and food, as well as being a long way above sea level (1700-odd metres feels like a lot when you usually live right near sea level). So we dumped our packs, each put something warm to wear on (the clouds were rolling in somewhat, making it misty and cold), grabbed our cameras and wandered off. The photo above is Emily from halfway to Tongariro, looking over blue lake.

Summiting was a neat feeling, as this was the highest I had ever been. We took the obligatory summit photos, spent a few minutes hanging around, played in the crusty snow that was there and wandered back to the main track. Once we got back to our packs, it was decided that 1.30 was a great time to finally have lunch (a real meal, not like those massive snacks we had been eating). We looked over to the main track and thought we saw Nick and Kate at the junction, also stopped to have some food, so we wandered over and (lo and behold) it was them indeed. Nick promptly dropped the crackers all over the ground, while Kate packed up the transiever and headed towards where Emily and I had just come from. Nick decided that one summit in a day was enough and came with Emily and I towards the hut.

It was a good walk to the hut, with a nice steep patch of scree to negotiate alongside the emerald lakes and red crater. We had some fun conversations, and eventually made it to Ketetahi hut, only about an hour before Kate joined us. We had hot drinks, chocolate, corn chips with salsa dip, and crackers and cheese for a couple of hours, playing tennis on the deck with others who were there. Eventually there was a great sunset, through the steam of the ketetahi springs, and we all decided it was time to eat. Emily and I had nachos, while Kate and Nick had a thai green curry and rice. Kate and Nick then headed off, and after another couple of hours of crazy games Emily and I went to bed.

My alarm went off at some rediculous hour the next morning (I think about 6.30). I stumbled about in my sleeping bag and managed to get outside without having to get out of the bag, and was rewarded with the most stunning dawn:

Soon enough it was time to tape yesterdays blisters, re-pack the pack (it still seemed to have as much stuff as the day before... and it turns out the raincoat and overtrou were completely unnecesary). Off down the track we headed, me storming off ahead for a few minutes at a time, then waiting so Emily could catch up. With her much shorter legs, Emily was a much slower tramper than me, and trying to walk at her pace caused a huge amount of pain in my knees going downhill.

All of a sudden, we were at the end...

And it was time to clamber into Emilys car and head back around to the track start and my car, get changed and head home. I stopped on the way for food in Ohakune, which was average, and then to take a look at the recently re-damaged Tangiwai memorial...

All in all it was a great trip and I am now looking forward to doing it again - but this time in Winter!

My brief History

2007-05-05T22:30:00.001+12:00

So, this is all about what tramping huts I have been to and when, and will include a LOT of photos, trip descriptions and discussions on huts. My other tramping friends will be invited to join and post to this blog as well.
So, where have i been before???

Powell Hut, Tararua Ranges. Many, Many times
Old Mountain House, Tararua Ranges, again Many times. (not the really old Mountain House, but the one that was knocked down only a couple of years ago)
Smith Creek Shelter, Tararua Ranges. At least twice -photo to come
Tutuwai Hut, Tararua Ranges. October 2005 with my Dad. What a mare of a trip that was.
Clinton Hut, Milford Track, November 2003. I didnt actually do the whole track, just the first day, which I suppose means I can count Glade House as well, although we couldnt stop there because we werent staying there. At least I used the toilets at Clinton!
Aspiring Hut, Mt Aspiring National Park. 3 different occasions, and so drunk I couldnt hold a camera for two of them...
Atiwhakatu Hut, Tararua Ranges. We actually stayed at this poor excuse for a hut for a night once when I was in high school.
Some random old shearers hut in the high country near Lake Heron, June 2005.
Mangatepopo Hut, Tongariro Crossing. 21 April 2007. Passed through and got some water on my way to the rest of the track.
Ketetahi Hut, Tongariro Crossing, 21 April 2007. Overnighted here and it was the best damned night I've spent in a hut since Bushball...

There are others, I am sure. But do you think I can remember them at the moment??!?

So, later on (when its not 11pm) I will write up some trip reports and get some photos up here for people to look at... Later all!!!