Getting a Roasting

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

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?

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.

Hot Days Peddling

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.

Finally, Good news!

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

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

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!

Sunny days and Snow

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

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.