Tramping the Tararuas: Field Hut

Overview: a quick overnighter from Otaki Forks to the oldest surviving tramping hut in the Tararua FP.

Years of road closures meant I'd never before made the trip up to Otaki Forks to do any tramping there. Around the middle of the year, the Kapiti Coast District Council finally reopened Otaki Gorge road... which then promptly closed again after stormy weather in October, on the exact weekend I'd planned to head out there. Fast-forward to late November, and I was finally on the trail to Field Hut.

Starting from the signposted "overnight carpark", there's a short walk through the bush to Boielle Flat and the suspension bridge over the Waiotauru River. Across the river, the track begins to climb almost immediately, passing turn-offs to other destinations on the way up the ridge.

The first two or so kilometres are pretty exposed, traversing a landscape of low manuka and kanuka scrub. If I had to guess, regenerating forest from attempts at farming in colonial times. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, so the lack of tree cover made for a hot, sweaty ascent before the welcome relief of reaching the forest and its nice shady canopy.

The track is never especially steep, but it nevertheless climbs unrelentingly up from Otaki Forks. Thus far, it is well graded and benched track that makes for a walk that would be pleasant amble, if not for the incline. There is much minute zigging and zagging, obscured by the scale of Topo50 maps, so by the time the trip odometer trips over to 3 km I wasn't nearly as far up the ridge as a quick glance over the map had lead me to expect.

However, from about this point (near spot height Pt 455), the track mostly follows the ridgeline to the hut. Along the ridge, the track also becomes a bit more rugged. Pretty decent all the same, but the typical muddy patches, roots and unformed track surface expected of a standard tramping track. The incline remains, but there is plenty of flat stretches and the proper dense forest that make this section more enjoyable.

The bright red monolith of Field Hut was a welcome sight, nestled in a small clearing just past Pt 866. Common tramping lore maintains that Field Hut is the oldest surviving tramping hut in the Tararua Range, built by noted bushman Joe Gibbs and the Tararua Tramping Club in 1924. Unsurprisingly for a hut of this age, it has plenty of rustic quirks but it's charm is undeniable. Plenty of others had made the journey for the night, and clear weather at sunset meant almost everyone, without any co-ordinating efforts, ended up on the helicopter clearing above the hut to watch the sun go down.

The next morning was crisp and sunny, so I elected for breakfast and a brew out on the helicopter clearing, overlooking the valleys now filled with thick white cloud.

The one advantage to the incessant incline of the inbound trip means that the return journey is almost exclusively downhill - and not the kind that's so steep it crushes your knees. So it was an easy non-stop 2 hours back to the carpark, with a quick digression to bag Parawai Lodge on the way.