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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.