Wednesday 9 April 2014

Holdsworth-Jumbo Circuit - 6th-8th February 2014

4 years after we did this trip for the first time, Cody and I decided we'd do it again. Because it's a great trip.

The Holdsworth-Jumbo circuit incorporates some great Tararuas forest, open tops travel, and river valley travel.

We set of at about noon from the Holdsworth carpark. The track initially passes through campsites, before reaching Donelly Flat. From there, the track heads up towards Mt Holdsworth and Powell Hut.

After about and hour, we'd reached rocky lookout. The track is metalled and well maintained due to it's high popularity. It was a blazing hot summer day, which made the modest gradient harder than it needed to be.

Obnoxiously even, wide, metalled track

Really close wood pidgeon

Rocky lookout
From Rocky lookout, the track climbs a gentle gradient to pig flat and Mountain House Shelter. Mountain House was a hut back in ye olde times.
By 2:10, we were at the Powell Hut/Totara Flats track junction We stopped there for 5-10 minutes to hydrate and film. 20 minutes of easy walking later, we were at mountain house.

Pig flat

Mountain House Shelter
We had a break for about 20 mins at mountain house. The next bit of track gets a bit tougher; the gradient isn't as friendly, and there's a lot of stairs. Some would say that the stairs are a helpful addition to the track. Not sure if I agree. The sign at the junction suggested 1/2 an hour to mountain house, and 2.5 hours to Powell. The sign was about right, as we got to Powell Hut at 4:40pm, 1 hour and 50 minutes after leaving Mountain House at 2:50pm.
Powell Hut is pretty large (sleeps 30), has plenty of space, a gas supply, and arguably the best toilets in the Tararuas. We shared the hut with 4 others.



Powell Hut



 We headed off up to Holdsworth Peak some time after 9:30 the next day. The track climbs up through the tussock up to the trig point on Mt Holdsworth. We got there at 11am and sat around for a bit.

Powell Hut

Track Junction

Holdsworth Trig
From the trig, the track follows the top of the ridge between Mt Holdsworth & Jumbo. There's some ups and downs, narrow track through tussock, patches of scree and mosses, and (when you're not surrounded by cloud), fantastic views of the Wairarapa on one side, and the ranges in front, behind, and on the other side. Unfortunately, the weather was not so great on this trip. Although Wednesday was hot and sunny, today we were surrounded by cloud.
Cloudy
We were in no hurry today, so plodded along slowly across the tops, soaking in the atmosphere. After Holdsworth (which was very windy), there wasn't that much wind (which is unusual for the tararuas), and when it died down it was eerily quiet.
We got to Jumbo Peak at about 1:30, and had pre-lunch snacks. After filming sitting around in the tussock, and taking a leak off the top of Jumbo (I used the GPS to find the exact point), we headed off down to Jumbo Hut.


Track junction near Jumbo Peak

Jumbo Hut in the clag


 We had a cooked lunch at Jumbo, and eventually headed off down Rain Gauge spur. As we descended, we came out of the cloud and into rain. Turns out the clag we'd been walking through was rain cloud. Rain gauge spur is steep and rough, which is a little annoying after a while. Part way down the spur is a clearing where the eponymous rain gauge once stood (apparently).

Typical Tararua Goblin Forest

Rain gauge clearing?


At 5:40 pm (an unnecessarily long day) we arrived at Atiwhakatu, surprised to see that the 5-year-old hut had doubled in size. The original hut building (which was almost identical to Roaring Stag Lodge), has been converted into a large communal cooking and dining area, with the new section containing 3 bunkrooms (1x 12 person room, 2x 8 people rooms).

Two of the people we shared Powell Hut with were at Atiwhakatu also. We had fun trying to light the fire, trying to make kindling with a log splitting axe, then trying to light it and realising I'd left all my firelighting stuff at Powell. Thankfully, we found a bottle of white spirits (turps maybe?) along with an ancient white spirits cooker someone had left there and managed to get the fire going with that (but not before trying to blow up the fire box and burn my face off).

The next morning, we left Atiwhakatu at about 11:30. The track back to Donnely Flat is an easy, pretty much flat track that sidles along the Atiwhakatu Stream. All stream crossing are bridged, with the exception of 1 or 2 where the bridges were washed out in recent flooding.
A mammoth new suspension bridge has been constructed over one stream but was not opened when we were there (we used it anyway). It must have been one hell of  flood, as the stream was tiny but the gap the bridge covered as about 4 times as wide.

In places the track was diverted, because the old track has subsided. In other places, parts of the current, recently re-routed track are subsiding due to the slips that instigated the re-routing getting even bigger. 

Snazzy new boardwalk near the nut

track diversion

Swish new swing bridge


tiny stream, massive new flood-generated stream bed

Another washed out bridge

Re-routed track subsiding

 When the track gets to Donnely flat, it eventually meets the Powell Hut track, and the track to the carpark. We got back to the carpark after an easy 2 hours 20 minutes.

Despite the weather, this was still a great trip, and it was great to experience the tops in completely different conditions than the first time we did this trip.

Map:



Monday 7 April 2014

Roaring Stag Lodge - 22nd-23rd January

ON Wednesday morning we headed out to the Putara roadend, starting at some time after 11:30. By 11:50 we were at the 1st swing bridge. The first part of the trip follows the same track as when we went to Herepai. It's a fairly pleasant track along the true left of the Mangatainoka river, with a fairly unique densely forested river valley atmosphere.

Although the weather was crap, the misty rain did make for some groovy scenery and gives this track a fascinating atmosphere.
We arrived at the 2nd swing bridge after about 40 minutes, where we had a quick food & filming break.

This time around, the vigorous climb up to the track junction was much easier, and felt like it took way less time than last time we'd done it.
 In fact, we left the junction at about 2:25 pm, which made our time so far about 2hours 45 mins including breaks and photography - much quicker than when we went to Herepai.
Track Junction!

Turning left at the junction, the track follows the ridge and drops down , and emerges behind the hut. The part of the track closest to the Ruamahanga River follows a stream for a while, and also crosses a few unbridged others, but nothing particularly large. The track was often boggy in places, and had one or two random water-filled holes.

We experienced bermuda triangle-like effect for this section of the tramp - with freshly charged GPS batteries giving up the ghost and my camera refusing to function (the latter is probably due to moisture in the camera body). This meant no photo's, and faking some Vaguely Dangerous Wilderness scenes the next day (if you watch closely in the video, Cody's clothes change part way through 'day one').

We reached the hut roughly 4 hours after we started. We promptly put on dry clothes, hung up the damp ones, and got the fire going.
Roaring Stag Lodge (why is it called a lodge?), is a tidy and relatively new 10 bunk, standard-class hut. It was built in 2005, and it's design was repeated in the new Atiwhakatu Hut built in 2009 (although Atiwhakatu has now been significantly extended).
The hunters who frequent this hut have a large supply of frying pans and pots stored there.
The hut is situated on a terrace above the Ruamahanga river, and a nearby swingbridge crosses the river, heading towards Cattle Ridge.

 

The next day, we set after a very cruisey morning just after 11am. The time for the return trip was extended due to all the filming we did.
Also the weather was better. Woo. This made the day much more enjoyable.

Climbing back up the ridge to the track junction wasn't overly taxing, and the fantastic weather had us in high spirits.
Ruamahanga River


A Stream





Swingy


Victory
 We reached the roadend at about 4pm. All in all, a great little overnight tramp.

Map:

Sunday 6 April 2014

Cow Creek - Mitre Flats trip (29th-31st August 2013)

After the Herepai tramp, Cody and I decided that during the next uni holidays, we would do a 3 day trip.
Originally, we were planning to tramp to Cattle Ridge hut via Roaring Stag, 1 night at Cattle Ridge, head across cattle ridge and down to Cow Creek for the 2nd night, then out via the Ruamahanga River track.

However, due to a combination of our laziness, un-fitness, and rubbish weather, we decided to go to Cow Creek for night one, then head down the Waingawa river track, night 2 at Mitre Flats hut, then out along the Barra Track.

The day we were due to start, we changed plans again, and decided to head over Blue Range to Cow Creek, as we weren't sure about the quality and condition of the Ruamahanga River track, as well as river levels.

We ended up leaving the Kiriwhakapapa car park/camp ground at about 9:50am.
It took us a bit longer to get to Blue Range hut than expected, simply due to a combination of our fitness (or lack thereof), and the steepness of the track.

We reached the track junction after almost 3 hours of crappy uphill track, and all parts of us not covered by rain coats were drenched. Thankfully, the track to blue range hut is nice and mostly flat.
At the track junction

Track to Blue Range Hut

Whilst on the track to Blue Range hut, we realised it was (very lightly) snowing, which was pretty awesome. Although snow had been forecast for the Tararua's, we didn't expect it at this altitude.

We reached Blue Range hut at 1:08pm, about 3hours and 20 mins after leaving the car park. Blue Range hut is a cosy, quirky little hut, adorned with humourous signs and old topographic maps. For some reason, we decided it was worth lighting the fire. We ended spending over an hour at Blue Range, not leaving until approximately 2:30pm.

We expected a fairly short, easy trip down to Cow Creek hut. We were wrong. Very wrong.
From the track junction, the track climbs gently to the top of the ridge. This was the nice part of the track, plus the snow made things look cool.
Once we started heading down the ridge, things got bad. The track started off nice, and we were making good time. It wasn't that long before we reached the turn-off to the old track, which is marked with pink flagging tape (I think the old tracks heads along the top of the ridge and down to cow saddle, and then follows the maintained track from Cattle ridge & the ruamahanga river south to Cow Creek hut).

 Not knowing the state of the old track, and assuming that a new track must have been cut because the old one was rubbish and/or longer than it needed to be, we stayed on the new track.
The track drops fairly steeply down to the Waingawa River, and took an incredibly long amount of time, because the gradient and track condition made for very slow going. In fact, it was dark by the time we reached the river. From there, the track dips and rises, crosses some streams, and a slip. Whilst this wouldn't normally be a problem, it was dark and we were tired, so we found it pretty shitty. We almost lost the track a few times, particularly on the slip, where we couldn't see the track, and there was no markers.

After what felt like a very long time, we finally reached the suspension bridge across the river to the hut. Crossing it was an interesting experience at night time.

We arrived at the hut at about 6:30pm, approx. 4 hours after leaving Blue Range hut, and almost an hour more than we'd predicted. In hindsight, 4 hours (for us) isn't an unreasonable time to cover that distance, considering that steep down-hill slows us down, as did not being able to see much in the dark. Additionally, the track (whilst not great), was not as bad as it seemed at the time (and as I just described it) - just goes to show how your mind affects you in the bush.

Cow Creek hut is a standard 8 bunk NZFS hut from the deer culling days in the 60s, but has been refurbished at some point and has a standard-issue DOC firebox (which heats the hut pretty damn well). Thankfully, there was plenty of wood, so we got the fire going, cooked dinner, swigged some cheap bourbon, and had a good sleep.




It looks different at day time

We awoke the next morning to a drizzly, misty rain, which was an improvement on the day before.
We headed of at about 10:50am, following the Waingawa River track to Mitre Flats hut.










The track had a few more ups and downs than we expected, and (according to the GPS) deviated significantly from the mapped track. The track crossed multiple unbridged streams, and a couple of slips (one of which is quite large). The biggest slip is (according to the GPS) ~8km from Cow Creek hut, and not too far from Mitre Flats.
Just over 1km later, we reached Mitre Flats hut at about 4:55pm (5 hours and 5 minutes after we left Cow Creek).

Mitre flats is a nice spacious hut, which we shared with 2 other trampers (some guy and his daughter). Being a serviced hut, Mitre Flats is meant to have wood supplied, but there was none when we were there, only coal. This seems like a good opportunity to remind people to start the fire with wood, then - once it's nice and hot - start burning coal.
Dinner was followed by some more swigs of bourbon, which, um, lightened the mood, shall we say. Good times were had by all. That is, until we had to settle down when the afore-mentioned guy and his daughter turned up.

The next morning, us and the guy milled some firewood. Later on, him and his daughter left to hike up to Mitre Peak, and we left to go home. We left at about 11:45am.

We took the Barra Track (which follows the Waingawa River) out to the roadend. The track's not bad, but the usual ups and downs that river-sidling tracks have were more uppy and downy than usual, which was not pleasant given how physically worn out we were. The final section of track is through farm land, and is on a metalled road thing. We reached the roadend at about 4:30pm






Map: