Further Wanderings

I’ve noticed that my descriptions of hiking/tramping/trekking trips in the past have been, depending on your perspective, exhaustive or exhausting. I’ll see what I can do about limiting this one, but it doesn’t promise to be easy, as quite a bit of note really did happen on this trip.

I worried a bit that, it being Labour Day weekend, the trails and huts would be full of fellow trampers. With this in mind, I arranged to leave work early, and caught the 13:00 train to headed up the Wairarapa line from Wellington central station. On boarding I could hardly believe that I was aboard the commuter rail service of New Zealand’s capital city in 2006. The cars looked antique, perhaps 50 or 60 years old, and, though it’s been a while, I don’t think it would be incorrect to say that I’ve travelled in passenger carriages in Malaysia and Thailand that looked in better shape than these. And the surly staff, who chastised me for bringing my pack aboard (when there was no indication that a luggage car even existed) didn’t help create any more positive an impression. For all that I really shouldn’t complain, as the trip wasn’t actually uncomfortable, and was a short one of just over an hour.

My “vintage” train on the Wairarapa Line sitting at Wellington station

At 14:05 I hopped off the train at Woodside station which was… nowhere in particular. It was a few kilometres away from Greytown, which it nominally serves. I suppose the rural surroundings should’ve been no surprise given that I’d specifically picked this station for its proximity to an entrance of the Tararua Forest Park. I followed a gravel road for 3.5km past farms and pasture, up the Waiohine river valley before taking a sharp left into a farm, under a fence, through a cattle paddock, under another fence and into the park. (For those who are wondering [and I’m sure several of you will be {if, indeed, there are actually even several people reading this}] this was the way one was SUPPOSED to access the trailhead.)

The Waiohine River Valley alongside the road

I’d planned my walk to be significantly more challenging than my first trip through the Tararuas which, save for a couple of climbs over low mountain saddles, followed river valleys for most of its length. And the different nature of this trip was in evidence right from the beginning. My first afternoon’s walk took me up and over mount Reeves. It was a small peak at only 899m high, but with the trailhead sitting at around 100m it was still a good strenuous climb to start the trip.

The Waiohine Valley seen from near the Mount Reeves trailhead

The bush on the way up to the summit wasn’t particularly pretty, being mostly gorse, bracken and other introduced species that tend to be the first growing in previously burned or cleared areas. The walk wasn’t all unrewarding exertion, however. Some prettier native bush appeared as I neared the peak, and despite a bit of haze in the air the views out over the Wairarapa from the summit were very pretty.

A view out over the Wairarapa from the summit of Mt. Reeves (the Wairarapa is one of New Zealand’s lesser known, but still [so I've been told] quality wine regions)

I didn’t sit around long to admire them though, since my first priority had to be getting in to the Tutuwai hut before dark. My last stay at Tutuwai included a young German woman arriving 3 hours past dark after following the same trail I was on, and I didn’t want to be in the same position myself.

As it turned out, there was no need to worry. It was a steep, knee pounding descent from the summit into the Tauherenikau Valley where Tutuwai sat, but I made it well before sunset. And I even found a nice walking stick, which is not an easy task given the gnarly nature of most of the trees in the Tararuas. (Carrying on from my last trip I wanted to give this stick a name. Having run out of figures from the invading side at the battle of Stamford bridge I decided to allow the use of any major Viking leader who invaded England, opening up a whole new realm of possibilities. My new stick is named Sweyn Forkbeard.)

My arrival at the Tutuwai hut brought a couple of surprises as well… Apparently the “small city/small world” nature of Wellington doesn’t stop at the city borders. I was sitting on the porch of the hut enjoying the last of the sun as it sunk towards the mountaintops when a familiar figure appeared. Lo and behold, it was John, the hunter who I’d shared the Tutuwai hut with some eight weeks previous. And that wasn’t the only familiar surprise… When I went inside the hut I discovered that the bottoms of my convertible travel pants, which I’d given up for lost, were sitting folded neatly on a shelf. If I didn’t know better I would even had thought they’d been freshly laundered. After a quick nibble and a chat with John, I decided that I’d actually carry on a bit upstream to the nearby Cone Hut. It was another hour away, but was desirable for a couple of reasons. First, walking there that night would cut a bit off what promised to be a tough (if short-ish) walk the next day. Second, the Cone hut was constructed in 1946, and remains almost unchanged from it’s original state, so staying there would be a fun and novel experience.

The outside of the Cone Hut. The Cone is one of the oldest surviving purpose-built tramping huts in NZ (Many older huts exist, but virtually all of them were constructed for hunting or forestry purposes)

I arrived at the cone hut just as the last light was disappearing from the sky. To my surprise, there was another tramper already inside, just getting ready for bed. Broc was a university student from Wellington, and he and I made ourselves acquainted as I ate dinner and he planned out his next day’s route.

The interior of the Cone Hut. Note the dirt floor on the lefthand side, and the local totara wood beams that, along with totara slabs on the outside, form the hut’s structural elements

The next morning was windy but sunny. Good things, since we (Broc and I were following the same route at least for a while) had to cross the Tauherenikau river almost immediately. I’d crossed it once before under similar conditions, but further downstream, so this wade was a piece of cake (tall Broc barely even got his knees wet.)

If the sun and wind weren’t enough to dry us off and warm us up, the walk after the river crossing certainly was. It was about 2.5km, straight up the side of a mountain (over 700m vertical.) It was a very tough climb, and before long young Broc had left me behind. Thankfully the forest that began to appear around me as I neared the top was pretty enough that I didn’t grudge the climb. As I climbed higher and higher to the bushline, the trees became thinner and smaller, eventually disappearing entirely as I emerged onto the open top of Bull Mound.

Some of the taller, straighter (but still very pretty) trees on the way up to Bull Mound

Me atop Bull Mound (note the ominous looking clouds in the background)

Throughout the climb the wind, already a stiff breeze when we’d left for the morning had been strengthing. By the time I found Broc sitting having a rest and a drink it was probably as strong as any I’d yet felt in Wellington, providing us with ample reason to keep moving and get out of the open and into the bush as quickly as possible. The continued increase of the wind’s power made this a trying task. By the time we’d covered 500m or so in the open the wind was howling, each gust literally buffeting us. Especially with our large packs acting as sails, it had become utterly impossible to walk in a straight line. I could lean into the wind (at, with no hint of exaggeration, perhaps 15 or 20 degrees to the vertical) but every so often an extra-powerful gust would come along and blow me two meters or more off track. It was very, very fortunate that the ridge we were walking atop was relatively broad.

A photo of my trekking partner Broc being tossed around by the wind on the open tops. This is a bit fuzzy since he was so far away when I took the picture, but I really wanted to include one athat illustrated just HOW WINDY it was up there.

Finally we made it into the bush again, and before long reached our parting point. Broc had to get to work the next day and was taking the tree-covered Marchant Ridge route back to civilization. I, meanwhile, was anxious to get out of the ever-worsening weather as quickly as possible.

This meant another hour’s walk to the nearby Alpha hut. After a steep descent and equally steep ascent of Hell’s Gate (an aptly named saddle, if one’s coming to it at the end of a tough walk) I had almost reached my destination. Though it was on a ridge top, conditions were much better than on Bull Mound. The wind had slackened, and the whole of the walk was through the bush. And what bush! The forest on approach to the Alpha hut may have been the prettiest I’ve seen in New Zealand (perhaps anywhere!) It’s known as the “goblin forest” because of the extraordinary stunted and twisted nature of the trees, and because of the moss growing EVERYWHERE (on dead trees, on live trees, on the dirt, on the rocks…)

Just a little bit of the moss-covered goblin forest surrounding the Alpha Hut

Having stopped to take many photos, it seemed as though I arrived at the hut just in time. Almost the moment I arrived, the wind’s temporary calming ended, and it began seriously to rain. Throughout the afternoon I sat alone inside the hut, originally designed to house up to 24, listening to the howling… No… Screaming of the wind outside and, when the gusts dropped in intensity for a moment, the beating of the rain on the hut roof.

It was under these conditions that I began thinking about what to do with my next two days in the Tararuas. Completing the famous “Southern Crossing” was now completely out of the question. It included a full day’s walking over open tops, and if the weather weren’t enough to convince me, the fact that my map had blown away certainly did.

By the next morning the wind had calmed, but it was still raining, and had grown colder. Though I could definitely have done some walking that day I decided that the way to ensure I enjoyed my tramp as much as possible would be to stay safely tucked inside the Alpha hut in hopes that the weather would improve a bit more. I had a good book, lots of food, and a warm sleeping bag. There was no reason to venture back into the unpleasant outdoors just yet.

The view from the porch of the Alpha Hut. Though there are some huts truly above the bushline that have lovely mountain views, they’ll be hard pressed to eclipse Alpha in the “pretty hut vista” competition

At about 20:30 that night, just before bed I stepped outside to get some more water and was relieved to think that I hadn’t just been imagining that it was cold. Though it was dark already my headlamp clearly illuminated the wet snow that was falling from the sky, and not even melting when it hit the ground.

The following morning I woke up very early (by my personal standards… About 06:00) in anticipation of a long day’s walk. The placard in the hut indicated that my planned route down Marchant Ridge to the Kaitoke roadend would take 7-9 hours, and after that I still needed to find my way back into the city. Thankfully the weather had improved. Though it was still cloudy (misty even) out, the rain had stopped, and a northwesterly change sometime late in the night had started to warm the air.

Though it was already melting rapidly, the previous night’s snow was still very much in evidence for the first few hours of my walk. It made the already pretty goblin forest seem even more magical. Like many such places, I thought that the goblin forest was almost prettier for being seen under wet and grey conditions. Upon reflection, I decided that it would have been just as beautiful in bright sunshine, though then it would have been the Fairy Forest, or something.

The remnants of Sunday night’s snow on the ground in the goblin forest near Alpha Hut

I’d already heard many complaints about the walk down Marchant Ridge… That it was long, it was boring, it was “uphill both ways.” As it turned out, I didn’t see any basis for these criticisms during my walk. Sure, there were a few uphill sections, but the climb back through Hell’s Gate before I even reached the ridge was by far the toughest on the day. And while most of the walk was through forest, it was pretty forest, and its changing nature as the altitude decreased meant that there was some dynamism to it as well. Up near the top of the ridge at Omega (the sister peak to nearby Alpha, whose summit I’d thought the weather too poor to try for) it was the familiar gnarled and twisted mossy glades. Further down, the moss had been replaced by ferns, and the short, contorted stumps of the highlands had been replaced by towering beech and Rimu trees similar to what I’d walked through for most of my first Tararua tramp. Every now and then, the bush would ever so briefly disappear from around me, and I’d catch a glimpse of cloud-shrouded ridges and peaks off in the distance.

Lest you get the idea that it was all sunshine and light on the walk down Marchant Ridge, it WAS still pretty damp. My boots were squelching by the time I reached the bottom, and mist often shrouded the forest, even lower down

One of the few open-air sections of the hike down Marchant Ridge (also illustrating the pleasant, but less-than-totally-dry nature of the hike down)

If it wasn’t boring, neither was the walk long. Clearly someone had been extraordinarily pessimistic when preparing the placard in the hut, as I arrived at the roadend at 12:30, a scant 5.5 hours after starting down. Which left just a bit more walking, down Marchant road to State Highway 2, where I would attempt to hitch a ride back into town.

I’d had a difficult time finding a ride on this section of road before, and as I sat waiting I started to analyze the reasons. For one thing, there aren’t really any good spots for hitching there. The shoulders tend to be narrow, and the road rolls and turns just enough to make for poor sightlines, while not encouraging traffic to drop below 90km/h or so. Also, it falls just past the Rimutaka Hill road, a steep and twisting section of road, after which most drivers are anxious to speed up and get where they’re going. Finally, the hill road also means that cars tend to pile up in long convoys behind a few slow individuals, meaning that it’s tough for individuals to pull out of the train and stop.

Despite all these disadvantages I did eventually get picked up. My driver’s name was Andrew, and he was going to help his sister-in-law move. I felt that offering a bit of a hand in return for the ride into town was a more than fair exchange, especially since the S-I-L in question, Michelle, gave me a ride right to my front door after we’d shifted her few possessions into her new home.

And there you have it. By 15:30 I was back in the comparative luxury of my flat in Wellington, happily baking pizzas and looking forward to a long hot bath. My long weekend tramping had been about as pleasant as it could have given the conditions. Indeed, I felt fortunate to have experienced (under fairly safe and comfortable conditions) just a bit of the extremes that the Tararua tops can throw at those who venture amongst them.

Before departing:

Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, it must be emphasized that no one has counted the failed attempts. –Edward Tryon

The clock in our lounge, which matches the character of the rest of the decor, if not its actual colours

Tags: Llew Bardecki, New Zealand, North Island, Tramping

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 8:55 pm and is filed under New Zealand, North Island. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.