Slogging through the Bogs

Rakiura Track, Lee Bay to Oban, Stewart Island.

Party: Me, Mark, Spike, Marion

8-10 October 2019

After an incredibly calm (for Foveaux Strait) crossing to Oban, Mark, Spike and I meandered up the road to the Oban DoC office to await our booked water taxi, while Marion and Hadyn jumped in a taxi to the start of the track. Our couple of hours at the DoC office passed smoothly, with the lovely ladies providing us a DVD to watch (a documentary on the Auckland Islands).

Our water taxi transfer was bought forward suddenly when the company rang to say they had a pickup to do further around, so could take us earlier if it suited (hell yes it did!) and all of a sudden we were at Port William Hut, having avoided the easy, pretty day of the track to save the 8km on little legs.

We settled in, picked our beds and had some afternoon tea. Port William hut was much more sheltered from the wind than Oban was, so it was super pleasant. We decided to wander down the track to find Hadyn and Marion, who were about 15 minutes away by the time we found them.

Port William hut wound up being busy but not packed, with one of the summer DoC rangers being in residence with his family on a familiarisation trip (and off to do some hunting). Late in the afternoon, a small white-tailed deer appeared in the clearing outside the hut, which was exciting. She was completely unconcerned by people (we were all fairly quiet so as not to disturb her) and she wandered in and out of the clearing all evening.

Wandering the beach late in the afternoon, we discovered that it glitters. It was impossible to get a good photo, but it was so gorgeous and entrancing!

After a good dinner (leftover Sweet & sour pork on rice, followed by s’mores for the boys), and some great conversation with the other kiwi family in residence, it was time for a reasonably early night.

Wednesday morning dawned cloudy and cool, with a threat of rain. We said farewell to Hadyn, who had decided he wasn’t up to the rest of the walk after all and was returning to Oban via water taxi, and headed off into the bush.

The walk from Port William to North Arm hut is really nothing to write home about. Some amazingly well constructed staircases, an old log hauler from the forestry days, and a small group of trampers met near the high point of the day. Loads and loads of mud. Eventually we got to a trio of bridges that were all marked “do not cross if water above boards of bridge” – there were only two streams marked on the map, so we presumed these were those.

This day just dragged. Other than the bridges there were no key markers as to where we were. There were no views to try and triangulate a position. You just had to keep moving and hope you were nearly there. I struggled massively. If you find a tree with a boating buoy hanging in it that says “Half way”, note that this is for the whole loop – there was a trail run on the circuit the weekend before we went, and this was up then, but we don’t know if it stays year-round – we only figured this out the next day, after consternation that “half way” for the day had seemed to take 4.5 hours of a forecast 5-5.5.

North Arm hut has lovely views into Patterson Inlet, but be warned that the toilet is back up the hill a bit, so you’ll want proper shoes and your raincoat if its wet. We didn’t actually go and explore the lovely views while we were there, because the weather was so bad. But it was a gorgeously peaceful spot and the Invercargill-based teenagers we shared the hut with were lovely, so I have really fond memories of being here too.

 

Our evening was peaceful and we all went to bed early, it had been a long day and we had an even longer day coming, with colder weather forecast.

Heading back up the 47 steps to the track junction was a great way to warm up into the tramp for our final day. From here, the track genuinely undulates along the coast of Patterson Inlet, with a few moderate uphills and descents. We made reasonable time, considering the track condition (loads more bogs again today), stopped briefly for a toilet break at Sawdust Bay, and missioned on to the Kaipipi Bay track junction, getting ever colder as we got closer to Oban.

We stopped here briefly to grab out lunches and extra warm layers. Mark and Marion whipped down the track to the bottom to have a look at Kaipipi Bay, which is described as “sheltered” to find the wind was in exactly the right quarter to render that description pointless. Spike and I got moving ahead of them to avoid getting too cold.

From here, the track climbs and has been re-located in a couple of places to make it smoother / less steep / drier. The climb is not short, but is also not sharp – its smooth and pretty easy. It becomes really clear when you’ve reached the top and it starts dropping, and doesn’t stop dropping until you get to the Ryans Creek track junction and the carpark.

By the time we got to the 4wd track from the carpark to the road (marked as tramping track on all the maps), we were all pretty shattered. The promise of real beds, showers and shelter from the wind was all that was keeping us moving at this stage. 

Stopping in at the DoC office to get a talking Tuatara for Spike (because I promised the day before that when he’d walked all the way around he could have one, and I think it was all that kept him moving), we regaled the lovely ladies there with the story of our adventure. From there we were blown in the door of the South Sea Hotel, where we desperately wanted a bowl of fries, but they didn’t have any available, so we settled for dry clothes and hot chocolates before checking in to our ferry at the wharf in between rain spells.

The ferry home was super rough and several people were very ill, which was unpleasant for the rest of us (not as unpleasant as for them, obviously), and we were all glad to get back to Invercargill to unpack, dry off some gear, shower, dinner and early to bed.

Like a mountain goat

Castle Rock, 28 July 2019

Party: Pop, Spike, Granma, Me.

Mark was away somewhere for the weekend, so when Granma offered Spike and I the weekend at the beach house, we jumped at the opportunity. After stopping for a bike ride at Avalon in the early evening twilight and a late dinner in Masterton, it was well dark and after bed time before we arrived at the beach.

Saturday dawned amazingly fine and warm, with light breezes, so we all went for a walk along the beach, watching the incredible waves being driven in my storm conditions well out to sea. 

On Sunday, another fine and warm day, we opted to go for a walk in the morning around the Discovery Cove track. Thankfully the track sides had been thoroughly cleared since our last visit, and this track was pleasant to walk up, rather than an effort to avoid too many scratches. Once we were most of the way around the ridge, I jokingly suggested to Spike that maybe we could go all the way up the rock this time, rather than heading straight back.

To my eternal surprise, he agreed willingly, and after leaving our walking bag with Granma at the track junction, we headed off up the hill, Pop and I nearly running to keep up with Spike, who it turns out is an absolute mountain goat.

 

He loved the climb, had a great time, kept a reasonable distance back from the edges at most points and posed nicely for some photos. After a bit of a play on the near-flat area near the top, it was time to head back down and find Granma.

Nearing the beach, we were warned by people coming up to look out for a seal just around the corner. We had to scramble down a bank to get around it as it was chilling out on the track, right in our way.

Having warmed up nicely with the walk, we took our shoes off and paddled in the lagoon on our walk back to the car. A really lovely walk in awesome conditions.

The Tide Waits for no Man (or Kayak)

Abel Tasman Kayaks, Onetahuti to Marahau
23 – 25 April 2019
Amelia & Mark

This part of our April adventure came about in a rush at short notice. We didn’t get the Kaiteriteri Holiday House we wanted in the ballot, so had to come up with an alternative plan. In the end, we flew Spike to Christchurch to stay with his grandparents and cousins for the week, and we grabbed a rare opportunity to have an adventure together that was a bit different.

Ready to launch

In December last year, we were down to co-lead a kayak trip for the tramping club in Kenepuru Sound. We had to cancel that trip when Mark broke his collarbone at the end of September and we couldn’t find a replacement co-leader without paying the hire company.

With a week to play with, we looked at a host of options – walking some or all of the Heaphy Track (booked out at the huts, only awkwardly placed campsites available), walking the north end of the Abel Tasman from Bark Bay (same thing, especially awkward with tides) – and eventually settled on hiring a kayak. We considered doing a multi-day guided kayak, but in the end our cheap sides won out and we went with freedom rental instead.

Mosquito Bay, mid-tide

Our freedom rental involved a drop-off at Onetahuti beach and two nights camping accommodation at any site we wanted to (which Abel Tasman Kayaks would book on our behalf). Going this way works with the prevailing winds and tides in the area, but what we didn’t realise was that this meant we didn’t get to load our kayaks until we were at the beach, so had to guesstimate whether what we had would fit.

Looking at our rather large pile of stuff, we were a little worried. It looked like an absolute mass of gear and food, and the spaces in the kayak just didn’t seem that large.

Our water taxi ride out to Onetahuti was uneventful. It started raining a little as we hit the beach, so we packed up reasonably quickly and headed off onto the water, rather than going for a walk or much of an explore. It turned out that our gear fit easily into the kayak, with space to spare. So now we know for any future trips.

Mosquito Bay, low tide

The tides had turned right around since we had been walking the week before, and now low tide was closer to dawn and dusk rather than mid-day. So we made our way directly around and over the reefs to our nights campsite at Mosquito Bay (only accessible by water), and unpacked our kayak, pitched our tent and stowed our stuff. Then we jumped back in the kayak and headed out to go for a paddle in the Bark Bay estuary, just because we could. We bottomed out a couple of times as the tide was receding rapidly, but got back out before we had to portage.

By the time we got back to Mosquito Bay, the tide had gone a LOOONG way out and we had to portage the (thankfully largely empty) kayak quite some distance. Not so far as some of the other groups who arrived later did though, as the tide continued to drop. We racked our kayaks, cooked up some dinner and chilled out to watch the sunset, catching up in the meantime with a solo kayaker who had been in the OUTC with me back in the day.

Bark Bay

Wednesday morning dawned clear, with a damp tent and what looked like a long wait for the sun to come around to the campsite. The size of the tide movement in the area was really clear when we were preparing to portage our kayak. This day, the high tide was at 3.9m, with the low tide at 0.3m – a 3.6m difference. We clambered over some rocks on the island in the middle of the bay to explore and then set off, aiming to hit the Torrent Bay estuary some time around high tide (11:42am).

Before getting there though, there was Frenchmans Bay estuary to explore. Sadly, we hit this one WAY too early, and there was barely depth to get us anywhere. It was gorgeous and so peaceful though, just as we expected having looked into it on our walk the week before.

Torrent Bay

To avoid doubling back (we wanted lunch at Anchorage hut), we wound up in Torrent Bay estuary a little early. This was great for getting in, as the water pushed us through the gap and we barely needed to paddle. We managed to kayak nearly all the way to the back of the estuary, where we had walked the week before to do Cleopatras pool. Coming back out was a slightly different challenge – the tide was still pushing in with some force, and we had to work hard to avoid being pushed around too much.


After lunch and refilling of water bottles at Anchorage Hut (the place felt like home after two nights there the week before), we chilled out for a bit in the sunshine. We’d done the bulk of our days paddle by now, but the most exposed bit of the day was still to come, and the advice we had was that this section tended to be most sketchy later in the afternoon.

We were the first boat to arrive at Observation Beach. On the brochures, its marked as being boat access only, but at some point in the last couple of years, a track has been built and its now accessible from the coastal track. We set up our tent, tidied away our kayak and went for a walk up the hill – I gave up about 2/3 up the hill because that was far enough!

Another lovely night, including watching the ISS fly over, and suddenly it was our last day. We warmed up in the morning by wandering around to the next cove (accessible via the beach at lower tides) where the sun was, then paddled straight out to Adele Island to see the seals.

Lunch at Apple Tree bay included a long walk to the far end of the beach and back to waste some time, and we were still back at Marahau about 2pm, having abandoned plans to go around to Split Apple Rock because we were tired and the weather was packing in.

We timed this perfectly, as there was a couple of staff from the kayak firm hanging around at the boat ramp when we arrived, so our kayak was on the trailer and we were back at the depot to unpack, clean up and have showers within a few minutes.

This trip was AMAZING. Can’t wait till Spike is 12 so we can go and do it again as a family – albeit maybe taking a bit longer.

Making New Friends

Abel Tasman Coastal Track, Bark Bay to Marahau
17 – 20 April 2019
Party: Mark, Spike, Me
 
A few weeks prior to departure, I got the devastating email from Lisa that her boss wasn’t allowing her leave to bring her two boys up and walk with us. Given the short notice, we weren’t able to find anyone to take her place either, leaving us a little anxious that Spike would be hard work with no other kids to walk with.

Obviously, we still went anyway.

Our ferry sailing and drive through to Motueka both went smoothly. The Motueka Top10 has changed a bit since Mark and I were last there (in about the summer of 2011), but not massively so. The large, park-like gardens were basically empty, opening up masses of space to run around in on our day off.

When we arrived at our water taxi depot in Marahau on the Wednesday morning, we discovered that they actually did offer gear portage – but we had packed in such a way that this wasn’t feasible for us to arrange with super short notice. Looking later at their website, to figure out how we had missed this essential piece of planning information, we could not find a single reference to it. It seems that if you don’t pick up one of their printed brochures while doing your planning, you’ll never know.

The ride out to Bark Bay was somewhat bumpy, but not massively so. We arrived as the tide was well into its drop to low tide, so had to be dropped at the far end of the beach, leading to about 10 minutes of slog through the soft, grainy sand, to the hut itself. Wandering inside, we found we were among the first to arrive for the night, so nabbed a trio of mattresses before enjoying lunch on the deck.

To fill in our afternoon, we went for a walk to a swing bridge and waterfall, and explored the estuary.
After a scrummy dinner (eaten under the watchful eye of a couple of weka), Spike had an early-ish night, and Mark and I got to know some of the others in the hut with us. There were a lot of kiwis in residence, which was lovely.

Thursday dawned fine, and after watching some of the others having a swim in the estuary, we headed off, allowing ourselves as much time as possible for our 8.5km day. We opted to stop and explore Sandfly Bay on our way through, and took our time heading up the hill from the swingbridge just past there.

We timed things nicely, arriving in Torrent Bay about half an hour before full low tide. We sat by the wharf and ate a relaxed lunch before making our way across the estuary. The last up and over the hill to Anchorage was easier than I remembered, and we were among the first 10 or so people to arrive at Anchorage Hut for the night, getting awesome bunks.

Another relaxing afternoon stretched before us. We watched guided walkers wander in and out, and a group of canyoners do the same. The hut filled up, and the lights came on as the sunset dropped.

Watching everyone leave on Friday, knowing we had a full day up our sleeves to do whatever we wanted was an unusual sensation. But the peace at the hut between departure time and the arrival of the first day walkers was gorgeous. We wound up doing two walks – in the morning out to Pitt Head (don’t bother, the views aren’t that amazing), and in the afternoon out to Cleopatras Pool, via the high tide track there, and the estuary back.

The climb out of Anchorage on Saturday morning was unrelenting. We were glad to have made a reasonably early start as it was exposed and very warm on our way up the hill. The going was super slow (not helped by how much walking we had inadvertently done on our “day off”). Spike super hit the wall all day, and it was just hard going.

We stopped at several of the bays along the way for toilets and rest, enjoying being watched by weka. Thankfully this day had regularly spaced markers for trapping boxes that counted down to the end of the track at Marahau – finding these was all that kept Spike putting one foot in front of the other. To be honest, by the end of the day, I felt about the same.

The last couple of km from Tinline Bay campsite to the Marahau road end were just depressing. We should have dropped out on to the beach and taken the low-tide route, but we weren’t confident of it. Instead we ducked and weaved, climbed and dropped, never seemed to get any closer till we were on the bridges.
 

We grabbed our car, changed into more comfortable shoes, and headed off back to Kaiteriteri, where we were staying for the night. Hot showers, clean clothes, dinner cooked for us, and real beds. Exactly what was needed to wrap up this trip. We were super proud of how Spike had done over our four days on the track. We’re keen at some point to go back as a family and walk the northern end of the track – Bark Bay to Whariwharangi Hut, but that’s maybe a few years away yet.

Up the side of a volcano

16-17 March 2019
Party: Mark, Spike, Me
Whakapapa Skifield, Tongariro National Park
 
As part of my volunteer role with the club ski lodge, I urgently needed to do a detailed stock take of the dry food stores in the pantry in time to sort out the bulk food delivery for mid-May. So, despite the barely-recovered jetlag from the previous weekends trip to Melbourne, we loaded up the car and drudged our way north on a Friday afternoon.
To help keep spirits up, we tried starting with a walk via the river to Taranaki Falls in the morning. This was a complete failure as Spike just did not want to walk anywhere. We headed back to the lodge and promised we'd try going out again after I'd finished the stock take instead.

Thankfully, the stocktake didn’t take long and the weather was pretty reasonable. So once I had the bulk of the stocktake completed, and after we had spent some time admiring the work of the helicopter that was dropping off roofing iron on the neighbouring lodge, we headed off to explore.

We started at the carpark at the Top of the Bruce, where we had the first opportunity to see the construction of the base station for the new gondola. The massive red crane that was in place was impressive to everyone. The carpark area was busy – it appeared we had stumbled upon a work party weekend for multiple other lodges – with cars, people, and loads of stuff hanging around in piles.

After watching a large tractor with a trailer head through the cordon and start making its way up the Rock Garden, we wandered off to the large map that told us how we could still access the upper sections of the mountain. Normally at this time of year, such a walk would literally go straight up the graded track from behind the café, and continue up to Knoll Ridge. This summer, the track instead was a series of poled plot points, winding its way up and over the rocks to the side of the ski field.

Astoundingly, Spike was excited about climbing over rocks and hunting out the next flagged pole for us to walk to. We meandered our way over the rocks and up the hill for a while, making it up and around the Tongariro Ski Club lodge, then up and across a waterfall that marks the exit of the Tennants Valley Run. In the end, we made it to well within sight of the Tararua Tramping Club lodge before we persuaded Spike that it was time to head back down to the our lodge for a drink and some afternoon tea.

We largely returned the same way, although instead of dropping back down to the carpark then climbing back up our track, we scrambled over and around another couple of lodges and dropped onto the old 4WD track that runs along our ridge (which comes out down by Carpark 5).

Since the weather was fine on Sunday morning, we repeated our escapade. This time we started by going up the 4WD track for a short distance, before rock hopping our way back up to the waterfall again. Now that we knew where we were going, this took a chunk less time than it did on Saturday.

Returning via a non-route through a gully that is popular for sledding in the winter, we picked up an ice cream container that had been dropped, and filled it with rubbish we found alongside the stream. We stopped in at the rubbish depot to drop this off before returning to the lodge to lock up and head home.

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!