Take me to the river

Turere Lodge, Orongorongo Valley
28-29 January 2022
Party: Mark, Mr8, Me, other assorted WTMC Families Group people

Turere Lodge is so popular, that booking it for a weekend night is basically impossible. We did the next best thing and booked the entire lodge out for a Friday night - giving us capacity to take up to 28 people in for the night.

We wound up with about 20 people, half kids, a good balance between filling the space and allowing for a small amount of quiet.

The walk in was mostly wonderful, although we had had to leave without a couple of groups because they were running so late, and at least one of them was a bit grumpy when they eventually caught us. Whoops. 

The big kids raced on ahead, the little kids took their time, and all of a sudden we were at the banana bridge. The toilet at the bridge was clean and pleasant, which was nice. The river was full of algae and running at an extraordinarily low flow rate, which was not so nice.

After a short second afternoon tea break here, we continued on to the hut, arriving around 4pm. Bunkrooms were sorted, the baby was fed, and the kids were taken down the rope trail to the river while dinner was prepared. We had nachos from our freezer - nice and simple to reheat, made even easier by the provision of all cooking supplies at the hut.

Bedtime was a surprisingly smooth process, given the number of kids and their excitement levels, and the adults followed hard on the heels of the kids.

In the morning, we were all up and about at a reasonable time. Trying to get a group photo on the deckw was hard because the sun was shining straight in everyones faces. The weather was still amazing, the track was dry and quick, Jacobs Ladder UP was announced as more interesting than it had been DOWN the day before, Macs Hut was explored (it has a new lock on the door since the last time I was there), and we saw a lot more people walking in to the valley than we had seen the day before.

We were back in the carpark before lunch, ready to head home. Last time we did this trip, Mr8 was only Mr3.5, and he was asleep in the back of the car almost before we left the carpark. This time he was bouncy and enthusiastic and amped about his awesome tramp.

 

Lakes and Falls

Tama Lakes and Taranaki Falls
Whakapapa Village, Tongariro National Park

Saturday 23 October 2021

Who: WTMC Families - 6 adults, 5 kids

Finally, FINALLY, Mark got to go all the way to Tama Lakes. He's made a string of attempts over the years, but always ended up having the trip canned due to bad weather / lack of interest from others in the group.

We planned the entire weekend around the hope of making it, selling this to the Families Group as a tramping weekend at the lodge rather than a skiing one (which was a good call - the very upper mountain was open, but that was it), and I forced Mark to not bring his skis, especially since the forecast was for one good day.

We took the upper track to Taranaki Falls, where we waited a while for two members of our party to catch up after they had had to race back to the lodge to get a forgotten jacket (this is not an area where you can shrug that mistake off with a "she'll be right"). Not long after that, both LJ and I started having issues and lost our enthusiasm to continue on to the lakes.

We kept going until we found a decent downhill leg, where we stopped for lunch. One of the other parents pulled out her phone and advised us we were under 1.5km (about 25 minutes) from the lower lake, which was enough to keep both a tired LJ, and her exhausted 4.5 year old going. I wasn't surprised that LJ was tired, he'd woken at about 5:15am and so he and I had gone for a 3km walk to Meads Wall for sunrise.

Lower Tama lake was brutally cold. The wind was extreme and completely freezing. Everyone put on additional layers for our stop. Four of the adults continued on to Upper Tama, while the other two of us wrangled all the kids into starting the walk back after a bit of a break. The Upper Tama parents came into sight behind us just beyond our lunch spot, and caught the front of our group about 15 minutes shy of Taranaki Falls.

We clambered down the steps to the waterfall and had another extended break, where the kids clambered around the back of the falls and the edge of the pool at the bottom, before chilling out with more food.

From here, we took ourselves along the lower track back to the village, which was a brilliant idea as it was largely in shade and next to a river for a large portion of the walk. All of a sudden it had gotten exceptionally hot. The last chunk of the walk back to the village in the sunshine was sweltering.

Back to the car and up to the lodge for afternoon tea and a rest.

Sunrise at the top of the Bruce Rd

Family-Friendly Adventure

Atiwhakatu Hut track
Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park 

18-19 September 2021

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Beating the weather

Cannibal Gorge Hut, St James Walkway. Lewis Pass return.
Party: Me, Jane, Anne, Anna, Ed, Sophie (WTMC Trip)
16 – 18 November 2018
 
This was easily the furthest I have ever travelled for a simple weekend tramp. While I had a great crew, I think I’d only go that far for a long weekend in the future.

Friday afternoon we all met at the railway station, jumped in the van and whipped down the road to check in to our ferry. The sailing was smooth and we all enjoyed a good dinner in each others company. Arriving in Picton, it was not yet dark, which was nice, and with a lot of driving ahead of us, we powered off into the night.

We had not made any bookings for camping Friday night, deciding to just find somewhere when we got there. It was decided that St Arnaud was too far from our Saturday morning start points, and all agreed that Kawatiri Junction campsite should be closed down – its impossible to sleep when it sounds like cars and trucks are about to drive straight into your tent all night.

All of a sudden, our next option was Marble Hill – and it was already nearly midnight. Eventually, around 1am, we were at Marble Hill and managed to find somewhere to set up our handful of small tents. It wasn’t an official camp site, as those were all full.

Saturday morning dawned full of sandflies and with spits of rain. We all scoffed some breakfast, packed up our tents and packs, topped up our water, and loaded in to the van, ready to drop off the other party we were sharing it with. Then we hit a small snag – one of their party had a dodgy knee, and was suddenly scared of the length of walk that they had planned.

My party was full to my limit I was comfortable leading, and despite not liking to rock the boat, I stood up for myself (this was my first non-families group lead in several years) and said that unfortunately we couldn’t take any more people. Thankfully, Maruia Springs resort was nearby and the quitting camper was happy to pay for themselves to stay there for a night.

After all that, the tramp itself was uneventful. Everyone got along well, the track was well formed for the most part (although it had some interesting unbridged stream crossings) and we made it to Cannibal Gorge Hut in time for a late lunch. Having run into a solid 15 people walking out from there (on a Saturday morning?!) who had said the hut was overflowing on the Friday night, we opted to crash here instead of pushing on to Ada Pass – enabling us to cruise back on Sunday morning and hit up the hot pools at Maruia before our scheduled pick up of the other group.

About half of the group grabbed their water bottles and raincoats and continued up the valley to Ada Pass Hut as a daywalk. The rest of us chilled out at the hut with books, tending to the fire, and wandering the small field the hut is situated in. We ended up having the hut entirely to ourselves, after the packed night the night before.

Sunday morning we ventured off early, aiming to beat the rain back to the van. Despite me slowing the group down (my pack was unaccountably heavy considering what was in it), we arrived at the van just as it started drizzling.

A swim and lunch at Maruia Springs was enjoyed by all. We found the other group bang on the time agreed to pick them up and started heading north again.

As a group we all stopped for ice creams and fizz at Murchison, enjoying the warm sunshine on our backs and getting mildly sunburnt. By the time we got to Picton, the temperature at Murchison had dropped to 3 degrees! We arrived in good enough time to allow us all to wander into town and grab dinner makings and snacks, and enjoyed the last of the afternoon sun.

The next afternoon, pictures flooded in from a cold snap that had stormed up the country overnight and in the morning – including snow having fallen exactly where the van had been parked for the weekend! Talk about beating the weather!

Family Camping

17-18 January 2015

Battle Hill Farm Forest Park Campground, Paekakariki

Team: Mark, Spike, Myself. Assorted other tramping club families to total 27-odd adults and children

Saturday lunchtime, and Spike went down for his nap. It started raining. Mark and I spent the whole time he was asleep debating as to whether we should still go the half an hours drive up the coast to go camping as planned. Because of this dithering, when he woke at 3, I had just put a cake in the oven that needed to cook for an hour and a half, and the car wasn't packed - half our stuff wasn't even organised.

We threw everything together, and organised for my Mum to come over and get the cake out of the oven, and dashed off just on 4pm. When we arrived, we discovered the campground was "full" for the weekend, and there were several large groups set up in the different parts of the campground. Having come from a summer-holiday stay at Pounawea, where the tents and caravans were packed in like sardines, this was a breath of fresh air. The open space was fantastic.



We pitched the tent, set up the beds inside, and sat down to chill out with the other families near the fire (which was only needed because most groups needed it for cooking dinner). We did some exploring, over to the toilet block and down to the river, then sat down to our cold bacon and egg pie for dinner (yum!). At some stage, Spike made friends with a mother from another group (by vanishing across the campground), enabling him to "borrow" their ride-on bike for the late afternoon / early evening.



Eventually we tried to put Spike to sleep, which he was not keen on. Not surprising, given how light it still was outside, and the noise of all the other kids still running around outside, and enjoying the jumbo swing immediately behind our tent. We finally got him to sleep at about 10pm, after several attempts. He tended to stay quiet in the tent (happy to be closed in on his own), mainly because he was figuring out how to escape his portacot!

Sunday morning we were awake stupid early - sometime around 6am, since thats when it was light - with Spike demanding to get up and dressed and do stuff. Thankfully we weren't the only ones awake early, and Spike managed to stay fairly quiet for a while, mainly by riding around the campsite on the bike he had "borrowed" the night before. We passed the morning with a moderately long walk with Spike in the Tula, where we found a fantastic stash of drop wood for the fire for those who were staying Sunday night, and participating in a water fight.




At some point while we were wandering around the campsite, a random gust of wind came around the side of the trees and blew away the gazebo we had up - a big 6x3m thing. Picked it clear up, pulling up the guy ropes, twisted it around and threw it towards another group of tents - which we knew had people inside. We were far enough away at the time that there was nothing we could do about it except pick up the pieces afterwards and check no-one was hurt (thankfully the answer was no).



When Spike refused a nap, we opted to drop camp and head home for Sunday night, rather than trying to stay again with an over tired toddler.Other than that, the weather was perfect, the lightest of breezes, lovely and warm. Fantastic camping, fantastic company, and even the long days weren't enough to put us off the idea of doing it again.

Mums go wild

Hut #45

20-21 September 2014

Team: Me, Sarah, Denise, Karen, Romana

Herepai Hut, Puatara Road end, Tararua Forest Park

What a weekend! I would say 4 seasons in two days, but really, it was a spring blast of winter for most of the weekend. This trip was a special one - my first overnight away without Spike. Sure, he had spent nights at Granma and Pops before, but I had not gone away overnight without him. As such, it was my first overnight tramp in just over two years, with the previous being a road end south at Blue Range while 7 weeks pregnant.

Friday afternoon there was a flurry of emails - the weather forecast for the weekend was ominous. Foul weather any which way you read it. Lovely. After one punter pulling out earlier in the week because they were unwell, another pulled out because of the weather forecast, and I was briefly concerned we were going to all decide not to go. The question was put to the chief guide and club prez as to whether perhaps we should be going - a party where every member had either not tramped in multiple years, or had only done one tramp - into the teeth of such a storm. "Dont worry", they said, "Its sheltered, a fantastic all-weather tramp".
So off we went.

Saturday morning. It rained most of the way north, stopping literally only while we were at Mitre 10 Masterton using their bathroom and buying a biscuit or two on our way north. It started hailing as we headed north out of town, and the Putara Road was not far off starting to flood as we got nearer to the road end. The hail stopped long enough to get our packs on, and then started again as soon as we stepped onto the boggy, muddy trail.

It was a very wet walk - the track was marked by the fact it was a fast-running stream. Side-streams that would usually go unnoticed were running fast enough that some party members required assistance to get across them. As we started climbing, the hail started to settle on the ground, anywhere there wasn't running water. When we got to the top of the hill, the decision was made that there was no way we were going to try and get down the hill to Roaring Stag as originally planned - we were all too cold, and soaked through. The pouring rain and cold weather had meant no-one had stopped for a proper lunch either, we had all been surviving our slow plod up the hill with whatever snacks we had shoved in our raincoats at the van.



Plus it had now started snowing. Snow was settling on top of any flat patches of water. The ridgeline was exposed to the wind, and it bit straight through our wet gear. On we moved. The walk through to Herepai seemed to take a really long time as the weather continued to get colder (not aided by the fact I had no watch!). The snow was settling quite thickly under the trees, and was hiding traps. In one section, I stood on a submerged tree stump, and promptly slipped, landing on hands and kees in just under 10cm of icy water, with both knees landing on other submerged rocks / stumps / something. Agony.

Nothing for it though - I wasn't going to sit around in the cold and cry. At some stage here I thought I saw the hut, but was mistaken. I even looked two or three times to be sure before I told Karen and Denise. But I was wrong. The smell of woodsmoke 5 minutes later was fantastic. We had arrived. The fire was going, we could get inside!

I dont know whether it was the fact we were all so cold to start with, or what, but the fire just seemed to take forever to actually do its job of warming the place up. Probably not helped by the wind driven snow on uninsulated double-metal walls (inside and out) that literally ran with condensation - absolutely nothing dried overnight, including the floor.

That said, we had an awesome time chatting with a group from the Rangitikei Tramping Club who we were sharing the hut with. They were the best kind of people to share a hut with - welcoming, friendly, inclusive. They made hot drinks for everyone, kept the fire going, told stories, shared the rest of their dinner when some of ours didn't work so well, and volunteered to clean the hut in the morning.

Sunday dawned fine. Sunshine! It had stopped snowing about an hour after we arrived at the hut Saturday night, and the difference in the track on the way down was incredible - almost no standing water, and no streams running down the hill. The barely crossable side streams were back to barely noticeable, and the river had dropped substantially. I would say we made it back to the van "dry", but given we had all put wet clothes back on before we left the hut, it would be more correct to say we didn't get rained on, although it did spit a bit as we were getting sorted to go.

 

A quick stop at the bakery in Kirupuni for a pie, and at Schoc for a treat, and we headed off home. It eventually turned out that my sore knee was an impact sprain. A month later and I'm still in physio, and its still tender to touch in the wrong spots. But at least I can walk again!

Hut Bagged: Herepai Hut (1 night). First visit.

Family "camping"

29-30 March 2014

Matiu-Somes Island, Wellington Harbour

Crew: Mark, Spike, Myself, 15 others from the WTMC Families group



Saturday morning and we were running for the train, trying to get Spike in his carrier plus a daybag and two overnight bags from the carpark to the platform so we didn't miss the ferry to Somes Island. We made it with moments to spare, and the lovely train attendant even helped us load the bags onto the carriage.

Figuring out how we were carrying all this luggage from the train to the ferry was an entertaining game at the other end, but we got it sorted and missioned our way down the waterfront to meet with everyone else nicely in time for our pre-booked and pre-paid (thankfully) ferry across the harbour.

Our arrival at Somes Island was too early for getting in to the houses we had booked (should have checked that before arranging ferry times around Spikes nap), so we had to leave our bags at the wharf and go exploring for a while before the houses came available and we could try and get Spike to have his nap, since he was refusing to do it in the carrier.



Once we eventually got into the houses and got Spike down for a sleep, it was time for a bit of chilling out, watching the weather, which was a bit average. We got a short walk of about 45 minutes in during the late afternoon before it was time to retire to the house for dinner and chilling out before it was Spikes bedtime. The entire party, who were spread over two houses for sleeping, enjoyed dinner together in the house we were established in, and the kitchens were much better equipped than I had expected.



While the bigger kids and parents wandered off on a nocturnal walk, we settled Spike to bed, and were joined back in the lounge later by the intrepid explorers, where books were read, games were played and the heat pump was thoroughly enjoyed until it was time to turn it off.

Sunday morning was a chilled affair. A quick breakfast, clean up and pack up and then off for another walk. Because we knew we had stuff on at home in the afternoon (and Spike needed his naps, which seemed to be a dominating exercise the whole weekend), we had booked an earlier ferry home than many of the others. Back to Queens Wharf, a walk back to the train station and a train home to our car and our weekend was done.



It was very neat staying in the houses on the island, as I have previously camped there twice. Looking back from over a year later, I do wish we had just pushed on with doing stuff rather than making ourselves slaves to Spikes naps. And I definitely intend for us all to do it again sometime.

Gourmet Lodge Weekend

9 - 11 August 2013

Whakapapa Village, Tongariro National Park

Team: Mark, Spike, Me, and 29 others

This was a highly unusual trip to the lodgefor us. For starters, Mark and I had a 4 month old with us, second, we were going on a weekend full of other children.

Also, there was the awesome fact of it being a gourmet weekend.

We left Wellington as Spike was due his nap, just on lunchtime. After stopping at Z Mana, and debating McDonalds for lunch there, we decided to keep heading up the road instead since Spike had just fallen asleep.


Eventually we had lunch in Levin, followed by afternoon tea in Taihape, and a very brief stop just south of Waiouru with the sun setting over the mountain looking glorious. The drive west from Waiouru was challenging - straight in to the setting sun at times. We arrived at the lodge about 6pm, just after sunset.



Feed and bed for Spike, then dinner for us before the rest of the families arrived by van at about 9pm.

Saturday morning dawned clear. Dammit. I was in charge of the cooking for dinner during the day, and that was going to take most of the day and I was hoping to have plenty of help - especially with Spike having a cold that was bad enough we considered not going away.

By the time we had finished breakfrast, cloud was coming over the top of Pinnacle Ridge. The snow cover was already awful, and the weather report was average, so Mark agreed to stay in the lodge rather than waste a whole days pass on what looked to be a half days skiing.

Cooking started. By lunchtime we had much of the preparation done. The casserole (Beef, Onion & Guiness) was in the oven already, the pumpkin soup in a pot on the stove, cheesecakes were setting in the fridge and one set of bread was also in the breadmaker for turning into pull-apart garlic breads.

People started to arrive back in the lodge, having given up on skiing because of the weather. Spike was the centre of attention for some of the other kids, with his portacot setup in the lounge for his naps. More people started also helping with the last bits of dinner prep, as I abandoned plans to do potato dumplings and scones, instead simplifying the 5-course dinner ever so slightly.

We started dinner with standard lodge nibbles at about 4pm, followed by pull-apart garlic breads (BAM, and the bread was gone), before serving mains at just on 6pm, and dessert just after 7pm. The food went down a treat, and it was lovely to get so many positive comments.



Mark and I joined a few others for a few rounds of 5-handed 500 (no scoring) once Spike was in bed, before heading off for an early night ourselves. Breakfast in the morning was awesome, mini mushroom and egg pastries, apple danishes, loads of bacon. Even better, it was all cooked before we got up!

The weather was awful, however. So we packed up, and as Spike was due to go down for his nap, we loaded him down to the car and headed home, via After Hours for Spikes wheezy cold.

Menu:
Finger food: As usual for lodge. Carrot and celery sticks, dip, crackers, cheese and pickles.
Entree: Pull apart mini garlic breads
Starter: Curried Pumpkin & Kumara soup with Sourdough bread
Main: Beef, Onion & Guiness casserole with mashed potato and veges
Dessert: White chocolate & berry cheesecake with ice-cream

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).



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.



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!)



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)