Pouakai Circuit

 In a fit of uncharacteristic adulthood, I finally got around to getting my full license, opening up a much wider range of tramping opportunities. First on the list, the Pouakai Circuit in Egmont National Park. There was barely a cloud in the sky on the drive up, the conical form of Mt Taranaki coming into view well before we reached it. In fact it was so clear that Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe were visible from the North Egmont Visitor Centre.

There's a few ways of undertaking the Pouakai Circuit - due to a combination of time factors and expected hut occupancy, we opted to begin at the North Egmont Visitor Centre (as opposed to the Kaiauai carpark halfway up Egmont Road), heading to Holly Hut as our first stop. We also chose to do the tramp over 3 days to allow for a more leisurely pace.

The track begins from the visitor centre up a ridge intimidatingly named the Razorback. Near the start of the track is a monument for Arthur Ambury, a climber who died in a rescue attempt in 1918.
Despite the name, the Razorback isn't as punishing as you might expect. The track is well graded, cut deep into the ridge with many well built steps. 

 

Taranaki and Humphries Castle

 A number of breaks in the forest allow views over the adjacent landscapes. A short distance after the turn-off for the Veronica loop walk, a small clearing and view point with a considerate seat is reached. This point also marks the end of what I found so be the steepest part of the Holly Hut track. A notable feature from this part of the track is Humphrie's Castle, a large volcanic dyke the juts out from mountainside above the track. Initially it appears as a jagged column, but later looks like more of a fin from further around the mountain.

Humphries Castle, near the top of Razorback

After a short additional climb, the track then begins to sidle around the flanks of Taranaki Maunga. It's at about this point that the near-perfect cone of Taranaki is revealed for the lie it is, as the track crosses or passes a series of deep, scarring slips and ravines and towering cliffs and bluffs.
The track continues to gain altitude, eventually reaching almost 1400m shortly before a turnoff to a track across to Tahurangi lodge.
The track now passes under a series of dramatic and imposing rocky bluffs known as the Dieffenbach Cliffs (named for Ernst Dieffenbach, and early european explorer of Taranaki). A particularly large one of the bluffs is named Ambury Bluff, after Arthur Ambury. The cliffs are the eroded remnants of ancient lava flows.

 The track is generally well graded and stable underfoot, but is occasionally narrow and rocky, requiring the odd brief scramble, particularly when the track dips between ridges crossing rocky stream beds (not that any of them had water in them, and might not actually be streams).

Ambury Bluff

 

Dieffenbach Cliffs

Taranaki is a heavily eroded mountain, a fact that is thrown into sharp relief by the Boomerang slip, a permanent landslide that creates a large rocky scar in the landscape above the ochre-stained burnt orange streak of the Kokowai stream (kokowai being the Maori word for ochre). The slip is constantly moving, and a large movement a couple of years back closed the Holly Hut track for over a year, before the slip stabilised sufficiently for a timid track to edge its way across the loose volcanic soil and gravel.
Just past the junction with the Kokowai track another, less dramatic, slip is crossed. The land plateaus out slightly from here, and the flat tussocky expanse of the Ahukawakawa swamp comes into view. 

Ahukawakawa Swamp and the Pouakai Range

Camping at Holly Hut

From there, the track begins its descent to Holly Hut in earnest, winding gently down to the junction of the Ahukawakawa track and crossing a couple of almost non-existent streams before arriving at the hut. It was about 5:30pm by the time we arrived, and the hut was already over-capacity (not to mention the half-dozen or so people camping outside). Seating and cooking space was a sought after commodity and our late arrival meant we were relegated to sleeping on the unforgiving floor, alongside a few members of the Wanganui Tramping Club.

The next morning, a dense drizzly mist surrounded the hut, dashing any hopes for more clear views of the mountain. After shaking off the nights booze blanket (booze mattress?) and a slow breakfast, we headed into the clag on a side-trip to nearby Bell's Falls.
The track initially follows the around-the-mountain track around a striking volcanic feature aptly called "The Dome", before splitting off and heaping up the Stony River toward the falls. The marked track deposits you onto the stream bed some distance from the falls. In good weather, it would be a reasonable proposition to rock-hop further upstream. Lucky for us, shortly before the river bed, an unmarked but fairly clear trail heads upstream above the river allowing a dry approach to a closer view point. The trail is generally easy enough to follow, but gets a bit scrambly and indistinct in places.

The falls plummet energetically over the steep cliff face, through a small divot in the volcanic rock forms between the Dome and the Pouakai Range. The falls were created as a result of both the formation of the dome, and a lahar from Taranaki the effectively damned the area between Taranaki and Pouakai, also leading to the creation of the Ahukawakawa wetland. The waterway draining the area forced its way over the damn, creating the dramatic falls above Stony River.

Stony River is also home to a populatio of Whio/Blue Duck, a couple of whom were squeaking about in the rapids when we arrived.

 After retracing our steps back to Holly Hut, we had an early lunch, shouldered our packs and traipsed off toward the swamp. The track is damp underfoot, but is predominantly constructed from a sort of rudimentary boardwalk referred to as rafts.
Initially snaking through low scrub, the flora transitions to tussocks and mosses as the Ahukawakawa swamp is crossed. Whilst the weather was generally unpleasant, but the heavy mist did create a great atmosphere in the wetlands.

 Shortly before the edge of the swamp, an arched bridged crosses a stream that will go on to plummet over Bells Falls. Shortly afterwards, the track begins a muddy ascent up a spur to the Pouakai range.
The walk up is a slog, and although the track is fairly well graded and rafted in places, it is frequently a mess of deep mud.

The tops, such as they are, were not what I was expecting - consisting largely of stunted sub-alpine scrub, rather than the gravelly tussock tops I'm used to. Now I'm no botanist, but the forest is also notably different to similar altitudes in the Tararuas, in part because Egmont National Park is devoid of the multiple species of beech that are so ubiquitous in many of the other mountain ranges of the North Island.
When the top of the range is reached, a track branches off to the west. This track can be followed for a side trip to the Pouakai trig, which might have been worth the effort if the weather was clear enough to get any views. Given that views were non-existent, we elected to continue east toward Pouakai hut. Closer to the hut, the track passes through open patches, devoid of scrub, instead populated by tussocks and strikingly coloured mossed (again, quite different to the tops I'm used to). It may not seem like much, but the landscape seemed like something out of a fantasy film.

The range is also home to some large boulders, many of which congregate in a field of slightly muddy scoria gravel at the junction with the Mangorei track. The hut is a short distance down the Mangorei track. 

We arrived at the hut to find the members of the Wanganui Tramping Club in residence. Lucky for us, they already had the fire going and only occupied 7 of the huts 16 bunks. Only two more trampers showed up later in the afternoon, meaning we had plenty of space to unwind for the evening.

The next day brought no respite from the weather. If anything it was more wet than yesterday. Sure enough, when we reached the instagram-famous Pouakai Tarns, there was no chance of getting the iconic photo of Mt Taranaki reflected in mirror-like waters. Not that is didn't look cool anyway, but still, missed opportunities. The track is almost entirely raft boardwalk, to protect the ecologically fragile environs from hoards of trampers and tourists.

As the track continues toward the end of the range, it sidles around the peak of Maude on more rafts, before making the steep climb up a series of stairs and ladders (or at least, staircases so steep they may as well be ladders) to the top of Henry. An information sign along the way tells of how the track was a deep, muddy nightmare before substantial track building work made it much more pleasant for hikers as well as protecting the environment from erosion by tramper.

 At the top of Henry, a lookout point provides views of, well, nothing, but at least there was a sign telling us what we would have seen were it not for the unrelenting clag. From here, we descend down more rafting and stairs (which were a bit slippery in the soggy conditions), through the bushline toward Kaiauai shelter. 

Parts of the track are muddy and rooty in a way reminiscent of many Tararua tracks. At one point, a small clearing afforded views over a heavily forested gorge, and the broad expanse of forest covering the lower reaches of Egmont National Park. In the distance, the shadows of other ravines remind you of how deeply erosion has scarred this landscape.

Kaiauai shelter provided a welcome respite from the weather to stop for a lunch break (although the rain was only coming in patchy showers at this point). After the shelter, we descended a steep staircase/ladder thing, followed by zig-zagging stairs and slopes to a swing bridge crossing the Kai Auahi river. The track then climbs back out of the river valley (gorge? Ravine?), passes by the site of the former Kaiauai Hut, then follows a path of gentle gradient back toward Egmont Road. The only considerable changes in gradient and altitude occur when crossing the streams that have carved there way deeply into the land. Many of the streams are both rocky, mossy and highly photogenic. All substantial streams are bridged, in spite of the lack of bridge icons on the map.

Kaiauai swing bridge

Eventually we reached a small clearing at a bend in the Waiwhakaiho river, an excellent spot for a quick stop. The milky blue waters churn amongst the rounded boulders, fuelled no doubt by snow melt.

Waiwhakaiho River

The river is crossed a very short distance down stream by a classic forest service style swingbridge, before gaining altitude as it heads closer to Egmont Road. The Kokowai track junction is passed shortly after the bridge, and further along another junction with the Ram Track is reached.

The Kaiauai track continues a short distance to a carpark on Egmont Road, which might be your endpoint depending on how you choose to do this tramp. Our endpoint was still some distance away, at the visitor centre. There are two options to reach the visitor centre, either continue on the Kaiauai track to the carpark, then walk up the road (apparently the quickest option), or take the Ram Track (the option we picked).
From the junction, its a steep descent to cross a small creek, followed immediately by a steep demoralising ascent back up to the ridge. Once on the ridge, its a mercifully gentle climb back up to the North Egmont Visitor Centre. Occasional gaps in the trees reveal the steep drop down to the Ram Stream below.
By this point, fatigue was setting in and both of us we more than ready to be finished, which made the track seem more tiresome than it really was.

Eventually, a junction with the Veronica loop track is reached, and its a short (if somewhat tedious) zig-zaggy, uppy-downy walk back to the carpark.

The rain was properly coming down was we unloaded our soggy, muddy gear unceremoniously into the boot of my car, putting a literal damper onto the moment. Never the less, we were thankful to have missed the worst of the rain while on the track.
If there was a single word to describe the Pouakai Circuit, I think it would be "dramatic." Dramatic volcanic formations, dramatic scenery, dramatic weather, dramatic erosion.
Dramatic in a good way though. Dramatic in a very good way. And easily one of my favourite tramps thus far.

Map:

Trip Data:
Day 1 - North Egmont Visitor Centre to Holly Hut: 8.51 km, 4 hours 22 minutes.
Day 2 - Holly Hut to Bells Falls & Return: 3.77 km, 1 hour 40 minutes (about 1:10 of actual walking). Holly Hut to Pouakai Hut: 4.82 km, 2 hours 18 minutes.
Day 3 - Pouakai Hut to Kaiauai Shelter: 5.51 km, 2 hours 21 minutes. Kaiauai Shelter to North Egmont: 6.60 km, 3 hours 55 minutes.