Trip 1 - 2.15am 17 January to 2.36am,18 January.
Janet Wilson and Graham Peters
After hours of pleasurable pondering and planning, we we're finally off.
To overcome the problem of finishing at different roads ends, we took both our cars,leaving one at the end of Mangatarere Rd and taking the other to the Holdsworth Rd end. We got here just and dark and settled into the back of the station wagon for a few hours sleep. It was a beautiful clear starry evening. The alarm woke us around 1.30am and we emerged from the car to find the mist was right down. Hmm, we gave a few moments consideration to aborting the trip, which is a very hard thing to do, and decided quickly to carry on as planned. Had a quick feed – found that tinned peaches go down well at this time of the day - and headed off at the gentle pace, aware that we had a long day ahead of us. In five minutes we had our first points – Holdsworth Lodge! We arrived at Mountain House shelter at 3.54am, had a snack and found a previous hutbagger's sticker stuck to the wall here as there is no hut book. Not far above here, the mist turned to rain and we gave in to it and put our parkas on. Powell Hut emerged out to the cloud at 5am – we tiptoed into here (as well as you can in your boots), made a cup of tea using the gas and had a half hour break while we waited for the sky to lighten. Then it was on and up to Holdsworth Trig, where it was quite cold and there were no views,. Then is was down and up to Isabelle and then the long descent to Mid Wiohine Hut. From Holdsworth on, this was new territory for both of us.
We arrived at Mid Wiohine Hut at 8am, surprising a father and son who'd spent the night there. The cloud was almost down to the hut but the rain had stopped. We were travelling with a copy of “Tararua Footprints” which suggested using the river from here to the swing bridge but we think the sidle track is a better option. The nearly 1000m climb to Aokaparangi from here is quite efficient on a good track. We were glad to have filled up
with water at the stream near the bottom of a climb as there isn't any easy water above here for a long way. We wern't all that confident about finding Aokap Biv in the mist and did waste time here going too low before finding it where is should have been. “Any port in a storm” they say, but it would have to be pretty bad for me to choose to stay here – it's a shame some hunters leave such a mess, and it's location on the top of a bog isn't the best. No hut book here and we appeared to be first hutbagggers into here so we stuck the sticker to the sign on the door.
Its not a big climb back onto the well trodden and familiar track towards Maungahuka. There seemed to be more ups and downs than I remembered though. The hut appeared at 2.20pm, We had 20 -30m viz and still had had no views. The new hut looked OK, abit of builders mess still outside and the toilet seems very close to the hut – and tarn. We had around 40 minutes here and were still feeling quite good, although abit tired, at around the ½ way point.Then it was another long descent into unfamiliar country to Neil Forks Hut, via Concertina Knob. We reached here at 5.15pm and then, fairly slowly, climbed up to Cone Ridge and then followed a long easy track down to Totara Flats,arriving 8.30pm. The cloud had finally lifted some time late in the day and it was a nice evening and we had about an hour of daylight left. We got some advice from people at the hut on the location of Sayers Hut but somehow got our wires crossed abit and had trouble finding what isn't a difficult hut and wasted time here. However, we still had plenty of time to get out to our 2nd car and stopped here for a feed, at around 9.30pm. It was really dark by the time we left here and things started to go wrong. The track appeared to start at the back of the hut but certainly wasn't well marked and not that far along it, we realised that this was going to be difficult to follow at night – infact, we wern't sure we were really on the right track. This is the same track that, further up it, caused us grief on the Tararua 24 Rogaine and we are going to have to go back in the daylight sometime to sort out where it goes.
Anyway, there wasn't much time to make decisions, and we quickly decided, that although we would be late, the safest decision was to go back the long way via Totara Flats, Totara Creek and Mountain House to our start point. We had done this track in the dark during the Tararua 24 which is just as well as it's tricky at night at a couple of points. I must say that poor Graham, who is reluctant to go fast at any time, let alone after 20 hours on his feet, really extended himself on this section and I was really pleased, at the end of it all, to be only 21 minutes late! It was a big day out – if you add in all the ups and downs, there's over 4000m of up! It was good to travel new routes but some views would have been nice. My only advice would be to travel familiar routes at
Janet Wilson and Graham Peters
After hours of pleasurable pondering and planning, we we're finally off.
To overcome the problem of finishing at different roads ends, we took both our cars,leaving one at the end of Mangatarere Rd and taking the other to the Holdsworth Rd end. We got here just and dark and settled into the back of the station wagon for a few hours sleep. It was a beautiful clear starry evening. The alarm woke us around 1.30am and we emerged from the car to find the mist was right down. Hmm, we gave a few moments consideration to aborting the trip, which is a very hard thing to do, and decided quickly to carry on as planned. Had a quick feed – found that tinned peaches go down well at this time of the day - and headed off at the gentle pace, aware that we had a long day ahead of us. In five minutes we had our first points – Holdsworth Lodge! We arrived at Mountain House shelter at 3.54am, had a snack and found a previous hutbagger's sticker stuck to the wall here as there is no hut book. Not far above here, the mist turned to rain and we gave in to it and put our parkas on. Powell Hut emerged out to the cloud at 5am – we tiptoed into here (as well as you can in your boots), made a cup of tea using the gas and had a half hour break while we waited for the sky to lighten. Then it was on and up to Holdsworth Trig, where it was quite cold and there were no views,. Then is was down and up to Isabelle and then the long descent to Mid Wiohine Hut. From Holdsworth on, this was new territory for both of us.
We arrived at Mid Wiohine Hut at 8am, surprising a father and son who'd spent the night there. The cloud was almost down to the hut but the rain had stopped. We were travelling with a copy of “Tararua Footprints” which suggested using the river from here to the swing bridge but we think the sidle track is a better option. The nearly 1000m climb to Aokaparangi from here is quite efficient on a good track. We were glad to have filled up
with water at the stream near the bottom of a climb as there isn't any easy water above here for a long way. We wern't all that confident about finding Aokap Biv in the mist and did waste time here going too low before finding it where is should have been. “Any port in a storm” they say, but it would have to be pretty bad for me to choose to stay here – it's a shame some hunters leave such a mess, and it's location on the top of a bog isn't the best. No hut book here and we appeared to be first hutbagggers into here so we stuck the sticker to the sign on the door.
Its not a big climb back onto the well trodden and familiar track towards Maungahuka. There seemed to be more ups and downs than I remembered though. The hut appeared at 2.20pm, We had 20 -30m viz and still had had no views. The new hut looked OK, abit of builders mess still outside and the toilet seems very close to the hut – and tarn. We had around 40 minutes here and were still feeling quite good, although abit tired, at around the ½ way point.Then it was another long descent into unfamiliar country to Neil Forks Hut, via Concertina Knob. We reached here at 5.15pm and then, fairly slowly, climbed up to Cone Ridge and then followed a long easy track down to Totara Flats,arriving 8.30pm. The cloud had finally lifted some time late in the day and it was a nice evening and we had about an hour of daylight left. We got some advice from people at the hut on the location of Sayers Hut but somehow got our wires crossed abit and had trouble finding what isn't a difficult hut and wasted time here. However, we still had plenty of time to get out to our 2nd car and stopped here for a feed, at around 9.30pm. It was really dark by the time we left here and things started to go wrong. The track appeared to start at the back of the hut but certainly wasn't well marked and not that far along it, we realised that this was going to be difficult to follow at night – infact, we wern't sure we were really on the right track. This is the same track that, further up it, caused us grief on the Tararua 24 Rogaine and we are going to have to go back in the daylight sometime to sort out where it goes.
Anyway, there wasn't much time to make decisions, and we quickly decided, that although we would be late, the safest decision was to go back the long way via Totara Flats, Totara Creek and Mountain House to our start point. We had done this track in the dark during the Tararua 24 which is just as well as it's tricky at night at a couple of points. I must say that poor Graham, who is reluctant to go fast at any time, let alone after 20 hours on his feet, really extended himself on this section and I was really pleased, at the end of it all, to be only 21 minutes late! It was a big day out – if you add in all the ups and downs, there's over 4000m of up! It was good to travel new routes but some views would have been nice. My only advice would be to travel familiar routes at
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