February 29 - March 02, 2008
Rangiwahia Hut, Ruhaine Forest Park
Team: Me (leader), Paul, Karl, David
Rangiwahia is a hut I am going to have to go back to for the simple reason that I forgot to take a camera with me on this trip! Somehow I left both my SLR and pocket cameras at home, and only had my cellphone with me. Needless to say, I was already disgruntled by this as soon as we got up in the morning and saw the views across the plateau to Ruapehu!
We had all slept badly – the carpark was the only flat area around, and was gravel. We had set up the tent fly on the edge of the carpark where there was a small amount of grass and hunted down some larger rocks to use as pegs (as our pegs wouldn’t go in at all). We shouldn’t have bothered! It was a warm and breezy night and most of us were woken multiple times by the wind blowing through the tent making a LOT of noise!
Saturday mornings weather was sunny and fine. We packed ourselves up and headed off. Part way along the track was a massive slip that the track had to go up and around. At the top of the climb was a sign proudly proclaiming that “the worst is over, track undulates from here” (which is bollocks by the way. The track levels out for a few minutes then drops precipitously down the other side of the slip). This slowed us down a bit as one member of the party had a bung leg and found the clambering difficult.
Soon enough we were on the gorgeous old bridge over the very steep gully. Very cool! Further up the track and we crossed a waterfall, then suddenly we had arrived! The weather had started to pack up a little on our way up the hill and on arrival at the hut it was misty and windy. We had lunch and then most people went for a wander up on to the ridge, into the teeth of the wind. I went part way and then left the rest of the team in Pauls capable hands (he was my co-leader since this was my first trip leading with the club), while I returned to the hut for a nap.
Dinner was sweet & sour pork, followed by chocolate self-saucing pudding and was divine. Many hands of 500 were played (my first introduction to the game), and a hunter arrived after dusk for the night. The weather cleared briefly, allowing us to look out to the lights of the nearby towns for all of 10 minutes. Still not sure which towns they are!
Overnight the rain set in. Our visiting hunter snuck out early to see what he could see up on the ridge and came back wet and empty handed, but still in a good mood while we were getting organised. We knew that we needed to wait for people to make it out to another road end, and that this was likely to happen about lunchtime, so we decided to delay our departure from the hut by about 30 minutes.
This ended up being fortuitous timing! It stopped raining (was misty wet instead) by the time we left the hut, and the sun was out when we arrived at the road end. We changed into warm, dry clothes and spread out our damp jackets to dry for a while. Just as we were starting to wonder when we would hear from the other party, a vehicle stopped just down the road, and they climbed out! Turned out they had tried to text me to tell me they were out, but my phone hadn’t received it which was frustrating!
As we climbed into the van, it started to rain again, so we headed off and stopped for coffee / beer etc in Kimbolton – as far into the back of beyond as you get! Then it was simply a case of keeping on trucking home. It felt like a long drive both ways – which is the main reason I haven’t yet gone back to the hut, its too far to drive for such a short walk, and its MUCH further on to the next hut from there…
To see photos of the area, check out my friend Mikes photos from his trip in 2006
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Hook Grass Hut
18 - 20 February 2011
Trains Hut. Kapanui Conservation Area, Wanganui.
Team: Me (leader), Clinton, Ian, Karl, Danniel, Jono
If you ask any member of this weekends party what the two abiding memories of the trip are, all of them will respond with “Hook Grass” and “Amelia falling off the track”. All in all, it was both an interesting and a mind-blowingly dull weekend.
We left Wellington Friday evening on time, but in heavy traffic, and after stopping to pick Karl up on Mana Esplanade, we decided to have a slightly early dinner in Levin instead of Bulls, since we were only going as far as Wanganui for the night anyway. Noodle Canteen was over-filling as always, thank goodness Karl and I shared a bowl of dinner so he could also help Ian finish his! Our original plan was to stay at the Top 10 in Wanganui, but they weren’t cheap and we discovered that we could get a bed at a BBH hostel for only $5 per person more, so we went with that.
Tamara lodge wasn’t bad, but I would only ever stay there for one night. The beds were packed into the rooms, there was no shelving in the room so you couldn’t unpack except for onto or under your bed, and there appeared to be only three toilets for the entire hostel – two of which were in rooms shared with showers!
We would have left earlier in the morning, but reception didn’t open until 8am, which kinda sucked when we had had to pay key deposits the night before. By the time we had driven on to the road end, parked the van and organised ourselves, it was 10am and getting very warm already. Thankfully though, the sky was cloudy, although we didn’t fully appreciate this in our first two hours on exposed 4wd track until we walked out without it on Sunday. We had taken the advice of people who had been before and ensured we had all filled our water bladders before we left the backpackers, which was just as well, as there was no access to any suitable water for pretty much the whole track to the hut.
The track was… interesting. Much of it was simply a goat track on a ledge. All of it was well above the river, and good chunks of it were very narrow. The new slips we found were challenging to get across even for those comfortable with such things, and some of us were far less than confident! It was also, in places, completely covered in hook grass. Most of us were too hot to put on gaiters, so we just dealt with it, and plucked them off every time we stopped.
After 7 and a half hours walking and resting (because we were simply shattered, and demoralized because we thought we were further ahead than we were), we finally reached the hut. Out in the middle of a field that had been soaking up sunshine all afternoon, the hut was exceedingly hot on arrival. Contemplation was given to pitching the tent fly off the side of the hut by the door to create some extra shade, but everyone was just too tired!
We had all been looking forward to a hut that was nice and close to the river so it would be easy to swim. Nope. The boys went scouting and managed to find clambering access to the river that would enable a splash wash, but the gorgeous looking swimming hole just down stream remained elusively out of reach beyond a 5m or so waterfall. We had seen stairs down to the river at another swimming hole on our way in to the hut, but it had taken 20 minutes to get from there to the hut, so no-one wanted to go that far (it took us about 10 minutes to get back to that spot on Sunday morning…).
The open valley the hut was situated in got sunshine forever it seemed, so we relaxed, read, slept or enjoyed the river for what seemed like a long time before starting dinner. Well, we also ate a lot – trying to eat as much as possible of our snack food to avoid carrying it back out the next morning! A dinner of what would have been a risotto (but it didn’t quite work right with brown rice!) with veges was demolished, followed closely by freshly made cheesecake.
After that, it was finally dark and about 9pm. It was still so warm outside that several of us spent about an hour star gazing and waiting for the moon to come up. Eventually I gave up about 10pm and went to bed because we were planning an early start. Apparently the moon came up behind clouds and took ages to be seen. It was still so warm we left all the windows open and most of us slept in just our bag liners.
Sunday morning 6.30am, the alarm went off. Ouch. That’s an exceedingly early start for a trip I am on! But we knew the cycle group we were meeting in Wanganui would be there by lunchtime, so we wanted to be out as early as possible, and we wanted to start early to try and beat the heat.
The moon was still up as we took our bags outside at about 7.45am, having done a quick tidy-up of the hut before we left. It was already warm, and by the time we were 20 minutes down the track, the heat was starting to radiate back at us from the ground! However, we were making much better time than we had on Saturday and all felt pretty good. We were very glad of the fact that the track was pretty much flat – gently undulating, only one good climb, and that only took us about a minute!
Eventually, however, fatigue started to kick in and I lost concentration for a moment on the narrow track and suddenly found myself off balance, falling off the side of the track. I barely had time to let out a yell of shock before I had managed to dig my toes in and grab the grass at the rack edge to stop myself. Thank goodness I only fell about the same distance as my own height – it was a long way down to the river if I had fallen further! I scraped my knee, twisted my ankle and pulled something in both shoulders, but I was more shocked than anything. I managed to extricate myself from my pack, which was pulled up and out of the way, and then two of the guys sat down hard up against the back of the ledge to help pull me up.
After a short rest to let me calm down a little, we decided to move on again. I was a little sore, but wanted to give it a bit of time before taking any painkillers or strapping my ankle. In the end I needed a couple of neurofen to get me to the end of the track, but that was it. Thank goodness! That was all we had by way of incidents, and we made it to the road end at 1.30.
From there, it was time to get changed into less sweaty clothing before heading back down the road that never ends to get petrol and icecream, then into Wanganui to collect the cycle tour group who had been waiting nearly 4 hours by this stage and then back home!
Photos to come soon - when I get them edited later in the week!
Trains Hut. Kapanui Conservation Area, Wanganui.
Team: Me (leader), Clinton, Ian, Karl, Danniel, Jono
If you ask any member of this weekends party what the two abiding memories of the trip are, all of them will respond with “Hook Grass” and “Amelia falling off the track”. All in all, it was both an interesting and a mind-blowingly dull weekend.
We left Wellington Friday evening on time, but in heavy traffic, and after stopping to pick Karl up on Mana Esplanade, we decided to have a slightly early dinner in Levin instead of Bulls, since we were only going as far as Wanganui for the night anyway. Noodle Canteen was over-filling as always, thank goodness Karl and I shared a bowl of dinner so he could also help Ian finish his! Our original plan was to stay at the Top 10 in Wanganui, but they weren’t cheap and we discovered that we could get a bed at a BBH hostel for only $5 per person more, so we went with that.
Tamara lodge wasn’t bad, but I would only ever stay there for one night. The beds were packed into the rooms, there was no shelving in the room so you couldn’t unpack except for onto or under your bed, and there appeared to be only three toilets for the entire hostel – two of which were in rooms shared with showers!
We would have left earlier in the morning, but reception didn’t open until 8am, which kinda sucked when we had had to pay key deposits the night before. By the time we had driven on to the road end, parked the van and organised ourselves, it was 10am and getting very warm already. Thankfully though, the sky was cloudy, although we didn’t fully appreciate this in our first two hours on exposed 4wd track until we walked out without it on Sunday. We had taken the advice of people who had been before and ensured we had all filled our water bladders before we left the backpackers, which was just as well, as there was no access to any suitable water for pretty much the whole track to the hut.
The track was… interesting. Much of it was simply a goat track on a ledge. All of it was well above the river, and good chunks of it were very narrow. The new slips we found were challenging to get across even for those comfortable with such things, and some of us were far less than confident! It was also, in places, completely covered in hook grass. Most of us were too hot to put on gaiters, so we just dealt with it, and plucked them off every time we stopped.
After 7 and a half hours walking and resting (because we were simply shattered, and demoralized because we thought we were further ahead than we were), we finally reached the hut. Out in the middle of a field that had been soaking up sunshine all afternoon, the hut was exceedingly hot on arrival. Contemplation was given to pitching the tent fly off the side of the hut by the door to create some extra shade, but everyone was just too tired!
We had all been looking forward to a hut that was nice and close to the river so it would be easy to swim. Nope. The boys went scouting and managed to find clambering access to the river that would enable a splash wash, but the gorgeous looking swimming hole just down stream remained elusively out of reach beyond a 5m or so waterfall. We had seen stairs down to the river at another swimming hole on our way in to the hut, but it had taken 20 minutes to get from there to the hut, so no-one wanted to go that far (it took us about 10 minutes to get back to that spot on Sunday morning…).
The open valley the hut was situated in got sunshine forever it seemed, so we relaxed, read, slept or enjoyed the river for what seemed like a long time before starting dinner. Well, we also ate a lot – trying to eat as much as possible of our snack food to avoid carrying it back out the next morning! A dinner of what would have been a risotto (but it didn’t quite work right with brown rice!) with veges was demolished, followed closely by freshly made cheesecake.
After that, it was finally dark and about 9pm. It was still so warm outside that several of us spent about an hour star gazing and waiting for the moon to come up. Eventually I gave up about 10pm and went to bed because we were planning an early start. Apparently the moon came up behind clouds and took ages to be seen. It was still so warm we left all the windows open and most of us slept in just our bag liners.
Sunday morning 6.30am, the alarm went off. Ouch. That’s an exceedingly early start for a trip I am on! But we knew the cycle group we were meeting in Wanganui would be there by lunchtime, so we wanted to be out as early as possible, and we wanted to start early to try and beat the heat.
The moon was still up as we took our bags outside at about 7.45am, having done a quick tidy-up of the hut before we left. It was already warm, and by the time we were 20 minutes down the track, the heat was starting to radiate back at us from the ground! However, we were making much better time than we had on Saturday and all felt pretty good. We were very glad of the fact that the track was pretty much flat – gently undulating, only one good climb, and that only took us about a minute!
Eventually, however, fatigue started to kick in and I lost concentration for a moment on the narrow track and suddenly found myself off balance, falling off the side of the track. I barely had time to let out a yell of shock before I had managed to dig my toes in and grab the grass at the rack edge to stop myself. Thank goodness I only fell about the same distance as my own height – it was a long way down to the river if I had fallen further! I scraped my knee, twisted my ankle and pulled something in both shoulders, but I was more shocked than anything. I managed to extricate myself from my pack, which was pulled up and out of the way, and then two of the guys sat down hard up against the back of the ledge to help pull me up.
After a short rest to let me calm down a little, we decided to move on again. I was a little sore, but wanted to give it a bit of time before taking any painkillers or strapping my ankle. In the end I needed a couple of neurofen to get me to the end of the track, but that was it. Thank goodness! That was all we had by way of incidents, and we made it to the road end at 1.30.
From there, it was time to get changed into less sweaty clothing before heading back down the road that never ends to get petrol and icecream, then into Wanganui to collect the cycle tour group who had been waiting nearly 4 hours by this stage and then back home!
Photos to come soon - when I get them edited later in the week!
Monday, 3 January 2011
Hell and Blisters
29-30 December 2010
Jumbo - Powell Loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park
Party: Mark, Myself
Tuesday and the weather was awful, but predicted to clear for Wednesday and Thursday, so we thought "why not"... And suddenly we had decided that this years summer tramp would be the Jumbo-Powell loop, since Mark was due back on call on the 3rd, and we didnt want to have to go away per se.
Tuesday night we had Mike and Stacey over for dinner while they were both around before dissappearing off to Melbourne for the forseeable future. So after a couple of drinks each and tidying away the dishes, we decided to just go to bed and see how we felt in the morning before we packed.
Wednesday dawned bright and breezy with a few clouds and a continuing good weather forecast online. So we packed up and headed out the door about 10am. Meals had been planned from whatever was in the pantry and lightweight so that we could avoid having to stop at the supermarket. Minimum required gear had been taken. Packs still felt like they weighed a lot.
Arriving at a very busy Holdsworth campsite, and absolutely packed road-end, we were a bit nervous. We were made even more so when we arrived at (the now very different looking) Holdsworth Lodge to discover in the hut book about 14 people indicating they were headed towards Jumbo, possibly for the night. We jotted down our plans anyway and made our way along the Atiwhakatu Valley. At the worst, Mark had a inflatable mat, and I knew there were a few spare mattresses at Jumbo to put on the floor.
Although its not a long walk, the hike along the valley seemed oddly interminable. It just never wanted to fricken end. By the time we got to the hut, I was all for the idea of actually just staying there for the night and not bothering with the rest of the loop. Mark was having none of it, since the weather was meant to be actually nice the next day and it might be the only chance either of us had of doing the crossing with a view.
A short way up the spur and I felt a tearing on both my ankles. Oh dear, that felt like blisters. Even more Oh Dear, my heavy-duty, stick-like-anything strapping tape was on the computer table, where it had been deposited after finishing its duty as tape for the injury Mark did to his hand 3 weeks before our wedding. The only thing for it then was to harden up and keep going, which I did.
With no small amount of grumbling, by the time the heat and general tiredness made it take us three hours to get to Jumbo Hut, half our precious supply of chocolate was already gone (as were half the cornchips), and we had belatedly realised we had bought no rehydrating powder with us to make up for this distinct lack of sugar.
Dinner was an unusual concoction: Rice cooked in Chicken soup mix with carrot and zuchini, served with cheerios. Yes. That is what we had in the pantry, so thats what we made for dinner. It was actually surprisingly edible. We then finished off the pineapple lumps and snagged a piece of carrot, apple and walnut cake off a fellow tramper who had bought half of said cake with her.
The weather being good, at 8.30pm it was still light, but all 14 people in the hut were obviously used to the idea of having dinner and going to bed soon after, so well before dark everyone was asleep. This led to an interesting occurance of about half the hut residents taking turn about to the bathroom at about 1am.
7am came along with sun shining into my eyes through the hut window. I had slept through sunrise and to be honest didnt really care. The weather report that came at 8 via the warden indicated the weather would be "fine", so packs were shouldered and off up the hill we meandered.
The tops are a lot of up, then down, then up then down, then up then up then up then down. Mark wandered off to the summit of Mt Holdsworth, but I just didnt care by that stage, I was starving for lunch at Powell Hut. Our time across the tops had seen some interesting moments - some boggy areas that didnt have clear paths through them, a freezing cold wind above 1400m and eating most of the last of our snack food - but we made it up, across and down to Powell in 3hours40minutes, which is about the time we expected to take.
After a 45-odd minute stop at Powell for lunch, we struck off back down the track towards Mountain House, the road end and home.We were both tired and hungry (completely out of food and sugar by this stage, bar an emergency packet of two minute noodles), and I was very sore, so the trip was slower than usual. We stopped at Mountain House for nearly 25 minutes, just to rest, and snagged a half biscuit off a lovely couple who stopped there for lunch with their dog.
The track down from here was some of the worst hell I have ever experienced. My blisters hurt, my knees were sore (always are, going downhill), I only had one walking pole (so that slowed me down more than having none, as I couldnt use it the way I wanted - as my downhill brakes) and the bottoms of my feet ached. I am ashamed to admit that it took me nearly 2 hours to get down from Mountain House.
Eventually, though, we made it to the road end. We dumped our packs in the shelter and Mark went and moved the car to it so we could both use the toilet there and get changed at the same time without having to shoulder packs again. Our first stop on the way home was the dairy in Carterton for icecreams and powerade. Next stop was immediately to my parents place for dinner. I was so thrilled to not have to cook.
Jumbo - Powell Loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park
Party: Mark, Myself
Tuesday and the weather was awful, but predicted to clear for Wednesday and Thursday, so we thought "why not"... And suddenly we had decided that this years summer tramp would be the Jumbo-Powell loop, since Mark was due back on call on the 3rd, and we didnt want to have to go away per se.
Tuesday night we had Mike and Stacey over for dinner while they were both around before dissappearing off to Melbourne for the forseeable future. So after a couple of drinks each and tidying away the dishes, we decided to just go to bed and see how we felt in the morning before we packed.
Wednesday dawned bright and breezy with a few clouds and a continuing good weather forecast online. So we packed up and headed out the door about 10am. Meals had been planned from whatever was in the pantry and lightweight so that we could avoid having to stop at the supermarket. Minimum required gear had been taken. Packs still felt like they weighed a lot.
Arriving at a very busy Holdsworth campsite, and absolutely packed road-end, we were a bit nervous. We were made even more so when we arrived at (the now very different looking) Holdsworth Lodge to discover in the hut book about 14 people indicating they were headed towards Jumbo, possibly for the night. We jotted down our plans anyway and made our way along the Atiwhakatu Valley. At the worst, Mark had a inflatable mat, and I knew there were a few spare mattresses at Jumbo to put on the floor.
Although its not a long walk, the hike along the valley seemed oddly interminable. It just never wanted to fricken end. By the time we got to the hut, I was all for the idea of actually just staying there for the night and not bothering with the rest of the loop. Mark was having none of it, since the weather was meant to be actually nice the next day and it might be the only chance either of us had of doing the crossing with a view.
A short way up the spur and I felt a tearing on both my ankles. Oh dear, that felt like blisters. Even more Oh Dear, my heavy-duty, stick-like-anything strapping tape was on the computer table, where it had been deposited after finishing its duty as tape for the injury Mark did to his hand 3 weeks before our wedding. The only thing for it then was to harden up and keep going, which I did.
With no small amount of grumbling, by the time the heat and general tiredness made it take us three hours to get to Jumbo Hut, half our precious supply of chocolate was already gone (as were half the cornchips), and we had belatedly realised we had bought no rehydrating powder with us to make up for this distinct lack of sugar.
Dinner was an unusual concoction: Rice cooked in Chicken soup mix with carrot and zuchini, served with cheerios. Yes. That is what we had in the pantry, so thats what we made for dinner. It was actually surprisingly edible. We then finished off the pineapple lumps and snagged a piece of carrot, apple and walnut cake off a fellow tramper who had bought half of said cake with her.
The weather being good, at 8.30pm it was still light, but all 14 people in the hut were obviously used to the idea of having dinner and going to bed soon after, so well before dark everyone was asleep. This led to an interesting occurance of about half the hut residents taking turn about to the bathroom at about 1am.
7am came along with sun shining into my eyes through the hut window. I had slept through sunrise and to be honest didnt really care. The weather report that came at 8 via the warden indicated the weather would be "fine", so packs were shouldered and off up the hill we meandered.
The tops are a lot of up, then down, then up then down, then up then up then up then down. Mark wandered off to the summit of Mt Holdsworth, but I just didnt care by that stage, I was starving for lunch at Powell Hut. Our time across the tops had seen some interesting moments - some boggy areas that didnt have clear paths through them, a freezing cold wind above 1400m and eating most of the last of our snack food - but we made it up, across and down to Powell in 3hours40minutes, which is about the time we expected to take.
After a 45-odd minute stop at Powell for lunch, we struck off back down the track towards Mountain House, the road end and home.We were both tired and hungry (completely out of food and sugar by this stage, bar an emergency packet of two minute noodles), and I was very sore, so the trip was slower than usual. We stopped at Mountain House for nearly 25 minutes, just to rest, and snagged a half biscuit off a lovely couple who stopped there for lunch with their dog.
The track down from here was some of the worst hell I have ever experienced. My blisters hurt, my knees were sore (always are, going downhill), I only had one walking pole (so that slowed me down more than having none, as I couldnt use it the way I wanted - as my downhill brakes) and the bottoms of my feet ached. I am ashamed to admit that it took me nearly 2 hours to get down from Mountain House.
Eventually, though, we made it to the road end. We dumped our packs in the shelter and Mark went and moved the car to it so we could both use the toilet there and get changed at the same time without having to shoulder packs again. Our first stop on the way home was the dairy in Carterton for icecreams and powerade. Next stop was immediately to my parents place for dinner. I was so thrilled to not have to cook.
Monday, 1 November 2010
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
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
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
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...
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...
Thursday, 12 August 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
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.
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.
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