Janet and Graham's 3rd trip

Hutbagging Trip 3 – 1.11am to 11.22pm 22 February 07
Janet Wilson and Graham Peters


We were off again, only 1 week after the last trip. The weather seemed good and settled and the conditions underfoot in the Tararuas ideal and anyway, I was going to be pretty busy over the next few weeks with the rogaine champs and the TMR.

Back to the eastern side, where we left a car at the Kiriwhakapapa Rd end and started, after takeaways in Eketahuna, at the Putara Rd end at 1.11am. Another lovely but dark night.

Fortunately there was no one at Herepai Hut when we arrived at 2.55am but back down the hill at Roaring Stag (4.40am) the place was crowded with sleeping bodies all over the veranda. We crept around and found the hut book, but judging by the amount of wine bottles on the table, the group there should have been soundly asleep.

Over the river, we spent a few minutes hunting around for the Cattle Ridge track, but we'd done this before and it wasn't too difficult. We reached Cattle Ridge Hut just on dawn (6.31 am) and stopped for photographs. Then it was on towards Dundas – we hadn't done this part of the trip before but it wasn't hard to find the route down to the Ruamahunga – just remember to go down the gut, not long after you start to sidle – look for the marker some way down. Down down down to the river, then up up up to Dundas Hut. We were out in the sun part way up and it felt like it was going to be a hot day. However, as we approached the hut (10am), cloud started blowing over from the west through the saddles and by the time we were on the tops of the ridge it was starting to obscure our route.



Cattle Ridge Hut at dawn



Dundas Hut - left of centre


Cloud on the Dundas Range

Getting to Logan and Dundas isn' t a problem, although the ground trail on this part of the tops isn't quite as well worn as in some other areas. The cloud was coming and going as we dropped off Dundas, following the line of cairns that leads to towards Arete. However, at a critical point where the ridge split, we lost visibility altogether, and chose a slightly wrong spur to the west. We realised our mistake and came back up to retrace our steps, found a line of cairns again and set off. After dropping for a while in the cloud,we checked the altimeter and realised something was wrong – about 100m lower than we needed to go. Checked the compass and realised that we were going 90 degrees wrong towards the west – indeed, this turned out to be the marked route towards Triangle Spur which leads to the Mangahao. Bad,bad, bad navigation. We headed back up and before the top of Dundas, the mist cleared enough to pick the correct route.

The weather was deteriorating with more cloud and the wind picking up. We reached Arete Biv at 1.40pm. This wasn't hard to find as we had been there via the Bannister crossing last summer. On that trip, after 3 awful windy nights stuck in the biv in a storm, we baled out to Arete forks via Arete Stream – not a trip I really want to repeat. So we went along to Pinnacle spur which wasn't very pleasant in the wind, and the spur with all its little up and downs made us rather grumpy. It was good to reach the bush again and Arete Forks Hut at 4.14pm.

After a short rest, on good advice from Tony Gates we went down the river to Cow Creek. This was the best part of the day and was really pleasant – it's abit sporty with plenty of bouldery bits but no deep pools. Saw quite a few trout. We didn't rush and it must have taken about 2 hours. We got into Cow Creek Hut just after 6pm. Tony had also given us good route directions for the next bit to pick up the track to Blue Range. This went well, and we were nearly on the ridge before it got completely dark. Into Blue Range Hut at 9.38pm – the little drop into the hut felt just abit too far at this stage - as did the trip out which is all down hill and not at all hard to follow. Back to the car at 11.22pm -our shortest trip. Good to bag another 8 huts.