Thursday 6 December 2012

Glam Tramping

02 - 04 November 2012

Queen Charlotte Track (Ship Cove - Endeavour Inlet)

Team: Mark, Me

Yes, this is the first post I have written here in a -VERY- long time and I am sorry! To be brutally honest, I've only done two tramps since January, what with going to Europe for six weeks and then coming home pregnant.

I decided I wanted to do something a little different for our 2nd wedding anniversary, and given the hellish time we had been having in the preceeding weeks, Mark took very little convincing, since it was something I was (for once) enthusiastic about.

Roll on Friday night and a ferry sailing for the first time since January. It was reasonably calm and quite quiet. The only bad thing was I went to get dinner too early and wound up with less options, but at least I found something to eat! The ferry ran a little late, and by the time we had collected our bags and walked to the Mercure (oddly actually about the cheapest place in town that offered private rooms), their front door was locked as reception was closed. Thankfully the staff hadn't left yet, so they let us in and got us checked in.

Splashback

Saturday morning, and unusually for a tramping trip, we dressed in "normal" clothes so we could head down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was ok, but we were both left wishing there was something more akin to a McDonalds in town to get a second breakfast at. We headed back up to our room to get changed and finish packing before checking out and walking the two minutes to our water taxi.

A bit over an hour later, after a water taxi ride that more accurately impersonated an extended rollercoaster, we are delivered to Ship Cove in damp, breezy conditions. Leaving our overnight gear on the boat to be delivered to the nights accommodation seems almost sinful, but so good at the same time. We figure there is no point in rushing out of Ship Cove, so take our time using the toilets and making sure my pack is well adjusted before starting the grunt up the hill.

Starters orders

Once we got to the top of that first climb (Lookout Point), things got markedly easier. Apart from moving very slowly down some wet clay-based steep bits, we made really good time all the way to Tawa Saddle, including having stopped for lunch. We were in and out of raincoats all day till Tawa Saddle when it started really raining, and turned southerly with a vengeance.

Lookout Point

Cnoc Na Lear guesthouse was further along Endeavour Inlet than we had expected, and so getting to it seemed to take a *really* long time, especially since I had started to get sore / tired hips coming down from the saddle. But we made it, our hosts were wonderfully welcoming and the room was immaculately presented. I threw myself straight in a nice warm shower before getting dressed again and lying down on the bed for a nap. We had opted to have dinner provided, and it was lovely - both the food, and because it meant we didn't have to cook (but there were 4 hotplates, a toaster, jug and microwave in the room, so you could cook if you wanted). The owners cat came to visit several times, and earned the nickname "unimpressed cat" when we put it back outside, as it sat there staring at us for a while.

After an evening wander down to the wharf, we had an early night. It was amazing how dark it was. I guess thats what happens when there are no street lights. I know its something I'm used to from tramping, but it was so surreal to experience when staying in a hotel-like setting!

Man Alone Our Wharf

In the morning, we had a relaxed breakfast, paid our hosts, packed up and went for a cruisy wander around to Furneaux Lodge for a drink before our scheduled pick-up. We had planned originally to walk around to Punga Cove, but the afternoon pick-up risked us missing our ferry home, so we settled for a morning pick-up instead, deciding to see if we could get on an earlier ferry.

Curl Lots of little droplets  Sun bathed wharf

The walk was just what I needed to ease the muscles from the day before, and it was lovely walking in the sunshine with close to no breeze. Sitting on the deck of the restaurant at Furneaux with a nice glass of OJ was a treat too. Once back at the guest house, we changed back into town clothes, and our wonderful host put our packs on his 4x4 to take down to the wharf for us. Our water taxi was a little late, but at least conditions were smooth this time!

Seal Wave

We made it to Picton with just enough time to ring the Bluebridge and ask whether we were likely to be able to get on to their earlier ferry. Thankfully we could, and even better, the shuttle over to it was due to arrive at the water taxi berth within about 5 minutes. Just on an hour later, we were on the ferry, heading home (and I have vowed to do everything I can to avoid the Santa Regina in the future. The vibrations, for over 3 hours! I wound up having to put my head on Marks knee and sleep to fend of the migraine-strength headache that was trying to arrive).

So, final thoughts on "glam tramping"? I love it. Seriously. And I think Mark quite enjoyed carrying a lot less stuff than normal too. Now to find some money and persuade him that the Milford Track as a guided walk IS a good idea. I'm working on that one for about our 5th wedding anniversary, when perhaps our new adventurer is old enough to stay with its grandparents for a week.

Saturday 1 December 2012

Blue Range Hut

Cute as a button

4-5 August 2012
Party: Myself, David, Sandra, Kath, Michael
Kiriwhakapapa Road, Tararua Forest Park


An early start at the railway station as we were sharing a van with others was mitigated by a lot of fun on the drive over the hill. And as an added bonus for a winter weekend, we didn’t camp out Friday night. Amanda and her group missioned off up the track ahead of us while we finished getting sorted and locked up.

This tramp was a little different for me. I was six weeks pregnant and completely unsure how my body was going to cope. While classed as an easy tramp, and only involving one nights worth of gear and food, I was still nervous and had considered pulling out, if not for the fact I had had a full trip list my first Wednesday back at club after our trip to Europe and my week at Photography Camp.

I probably should have listened to my gut. The climb to Blue Range hut is neither long nor steep, but it took forever. Thankfully we had good weather, because the walk I was expecting to take about 2 hours instead took 4 – although I wasn’t the only person taking it slow, thankfully. I was super puffed and simply not really up for the strain.

Arriving at the hut it was cold. This place gets no sunshine in winter. There was basically no dry wood and it had rained recently, so it took a very long time to get the fire going and heating the hut with any impact. David had bought along a travel coffee grinder and percolator and spent hours and hours in the afternoon making coffee. Most of us chilled out on the bunks in every warm item we had (thankfully we arrived dry, so didn’t have to also dry clothes), hoping no-one else turned up, as we were already 5 people in a 4 bunk hut – thankfully, we remained the only people for the night.

Blue Range Hut (217:366)  Tow Away  Exciting Fire

I spent my afternoon lying on the bunk, worrying, as I had started bleeding. Thankfully this turned out to be nothing once we got back to town, but the guys both took some of the weight out of my pack for the trip home and one of the girls gave me her walking poles to reduce my impact on the way down the hill. We started late in the morning and were caught not long before the carpark by members of Amanda’s party, and after changing into non-sweaty clothes, headed home.

Moss (218:366)

Saturday 5 May 2012

A Full Crossing

November 13, 2011

Rimutaka Rail Trail - Kaitoke to Cross Creek

Team - Mark, David, Snaiet, David, Myself

We hit the ultimate in weather - enough sunshine to be lovely, and enough cloud to not overheat. Seriously, how did we pull this off when we set the date so many weeks in advance?

A good crew of 5 arrived within 5 minutes of the allotted time at the Kaitoke carpark, and we were off pretty quickly. We cruised our way up the hill, with the odd complaint of the ride feeling like hard work, and a few slightly sore bums (mainly mine). Mark and I had done this half of the ride before, when we had been really keen to get across to Cross Creek, but hadn't arranged transport back (and weren't keen on riding back up to Summit from the other side).

Summit Station

We arrived at Summit just nicely at lunchtime, where we chilled out for half an hour or so, watching other walkers and cyclists go past. Many went through the tunnel and straight back (which Mark and I hadn't done last time as we had no torch). Riding through, even with a torch, was an interesting experience as it was a LOOOOOOOOONG tunnel.

Slow Zone (317:365)

The ride down into Siberia Gully was... interesting. A bit technically challenging if you were to ride it, and difficult to keep your footing and hold of your bike if you walked (which I did). Very steep! And then the ride from there down to Cross Creek was markedly steeper than the ride up to Summit, enough to make me a bit uncomfortable at times - I spent a lot of time on the brakes. (yes, I'm a scaredy cat!)

Siberia Gully

A quick detour to the old rail yards near the end and we all made it, with only a small fall or two going into Siberia, and had a good half an hour to spare before our shuttle collected us to return to Kaitoke. A good day, and one I'm somewhat surprised to have not gotten around to repeating (although, that said, it was probably more interesting on the Wellington side than the other)

Yards
Waiting at the (former) station

Wednesday 28 March 2012

There and back again to see how long we can take

21-22 January 2012


Field Hut, Otaki Forks road end, Tararua Forest Park

Team: Me, Clinton (co-lead), Mark, Jo, Anita, Maarten, Maren, Debbie, Shannon

Originally scheduled to be a 3-day weekend Southern Crossing trip, things went a little differently, which wasn't overly surprising given that it was my first attempt at a Southern Crossing, and it took about 6 attempts to get the Jumbo-Holdsworth completed after similarly many years of wanting to!

We left Wellington early on a Saturday, to an interesting weather report, and one punter down at short notice. We spent a while trying to repack Clintons gear at the road end, to see if he could leave any behind, failed and started walking. It was hot and muggy and we knew we had a solid slog up the hill ahead of us to get to our target for the night - Kime Hut.

Take a moment

Jo and I quickly fell to the back, finding both the climb and the heat strenuous. After a while, we gave most of the others their head and I left Clinton in charge of them while Mark, Jo and I wandered up at our own pace to meet them at Field Hut.


Recognising my weakness, and unwilling to drag the rest of the party down, I decided to tell the others that I was not continuing on the crossing, and would instead return to Otaki Forks the next day before collecting them on Monday afternoon at the Kaitoke end. Given Marks lack of excitement over the trip, I assumed he would want to join me (which he did), and after a good discussion sitting around at Field Hut in the sunshine, Anita and Jo also decided to stay.

Field Hut (21:366)  Rest

We shuffled some gear around to ensure those heading off had essentials such as first aid kits, cooking gear and food, plus the locator beacon and then saw them off. Thank goodness for a group that included no-one new to tramping, because Clinton realised about 35 minutes further along that he couldn't make it either, and so 5 of us stayed at Field Hut that Saturday night.

Line up

There is nothing quite like chilling out in the sunshine at a tramping hut. The peace, the excuse to do absolutely nothing, its all fantastic. We shared the hut with about 6 others, which meant that there was enough body warmth to not need to light the fire. Dinner was great, we threw everything we had into it to avoid carrying it out, and gave the leftovers to one of the blokes in the other party.

Field Hut Fog

Sunday morning we woke wrapped in misty fog, with the wind gusts throwing occasional shots of rain at the hut. A great morning for a long sleep-in. Up late by club standards (we ate breakfast about 8.30am), we dallied in the hut until lunchtime so that we could be back at the road end as close to 5.30pm as possible for our pick up.

Morning  Drying off

The walk back down was hard in its own way - the bottom half of it a lot like coming down from Powell Hut, smooth and reasonably steep, it seemed easier to run, which we didn't want to do. We all got down in good time, and with about an hour to spare before Pete was due to return to collect us, so we turned left before the bridge and went in to Parawai Lodge, so we could have a brew and sit down to a couple of games of cards while we waited.

As soon as we got there, it poured with rain. Seriously bucketed down. It had started trying to rain on our last bit of the walk (we had studiously ignored it, heads down, follow the track, get to shelter), but wow, that was some epic rain!

Rain web   And then, at last, the rain set in (22:366)

Pete was waiting at the carpark when we wandered out at 5.30pm, and we were all home in good time. On Monday I took the van back out to Kaitoke to collect the others, who had made it all the way across without any issues, and who had seen snow at Alpha hut that morning.

Field hut

Southern Crossing

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Thwarted Effort

Turere Lodge (351:365)


17 December 2011
Party: Mark, Myself, Paul A (leader), Karl, Nic, Jose
Turere Lodge (meant to be Paua Hut), Orongorongo Valley, Wainuiomata


Coming so close to the end of the year, this trip was unsurprisingly late to be properly organised, with emails going out on Friday morning to confirm Saturday’s planned departure – “regardless of the weather”. The weather had been awful, and was forecast to remain so for the entire weekend, but we were intrepid proper trampers, so tramping we would go, regardless of the weather.

I don’t recall the weather being massively abhorrent while we were walking, but we got to the bridge at the Orongorongo River to discover a nasty, brown, fast-flowing and VERY high river in front of us. That had our destination on the other side of it.

A quick conflab was held and the easy decision made – no way were we going to try and cross that river and get the hour-or-so down the valley to the hut. Instead, we opted to trudge up the valley a short distance and head for the newly opened Turere Lodge for a lunch break before heading back to the van and home.

We found Turere Lodge booked by a set of Ranger Units, with the units tramping in over the course of the day, so only a couple of leaders were in residence when we got there. They obligingly let us look around (Turere is a locked, bookable hut normally) and allowed us to warm up in front of their fire while we ate, which was a huge improvement over the intended plan to eat out on the deck.

Given Karl had his traditional multiple-kg bag of lollies with him, we ate what we could and gave a pile to the leaders to lighten his pack before heading back along the track towards the carpark.
Good practice at carrying an overnight bag again after a while away from tramping, even if we only got halfway to where we had wanted to be. And a good team to have an unusual day with!