Mitre Flats

Memory is a fickle and unreliable thing, perhaps even more so when it comes to tramping. The hut is always "just around the next bend, I'm sure of it," and "I swear this hill wasn't so high last time." Memories of tramping always seem to paint over any of the less pleasant aspects of the trip, and so it turned out to be with Mitre Flats.

 The sun was high and the sky more or less clear as the car pulled up at the deceptively named Pines carpark on Upper Waingawa Rd near Masterton - the carpark being a slightly wider patch of road lined with gum trees.
For the first 2km, a farm track winds it's way across open farmland, quickly reaching the park boundary.

Shortly after, the track begins to climb above the Waingawa River. The track is slippery and narrow, at times rocky, covered in roots, or seemingly about to fall off the side of the hill.
Initially, the track is fairly open as it wends its way around the hill sides, often allowing views down to the river or further in to the ranges.

It was at about this point that the differences between reality and over-5-year-old memories began to become apparent. What I remembered as a fairly straight forward hillside sidle was somewhat more technical.
The going was slow, with much attention needed for foot placement. Short climbs and descents (often in and out of creek beds) are common and steep, and there was much scrambling on hands and knees.

One of the tamer sections of track.

There were, mercifully, easy going sections between having to use tree roots as ladders.
Perhaps the most insidious thing was not the narrow, slippery track or steep scrambles, but the annoying hook grass. Incidentally, I had also opted not to wear gaiters on this trip. This was a poor decision.

Eventually, the track drops steeply and spits you out in patch of tussocky grass by a suspension bridge over the Waingawa River. After crossing the bridge, it's a quick jaunt over to Mitre Flats Hut. We reached the hut after 5 hours, a time that turned out to be fairly consistent across most of the other hut occupants I spoke to.

Mitre Flat from the hut verandah.

Mitre Flats Hut sits on the edge of a small grassy flat. The serviced hut is somehow small but open and airy at the same time. The hut was almost full when we arrived, and we claimed the remaining two of the huts fourteen matresses. By the time people stopped showing up there ended up being two sleeping on the verandah and 6 (ish) in tents.
Needless to say, the hut's cooking and dining area was crowded, so we opted to relax, cook and eat on the spacious verandah.

Tasty

Following a tasty stew eaten out of a hollowed out bread loaf, it was time for a well earned sleep. Luckily, everyone else was pretty quiet and considerate, so I managed to get a pretty decent nights sleep.

The next morning, a heavy fog sat over the flats as I sipped a hot beverage and contemplated the meaning of life and other such things.
After a bacon-based breakfast that was over all to soon, it was time to pack up and roll out.

The walk out was, unsurprisingly, much the same as the walk in, albeit slightly drier and thus less slippery. No shortage of scrambles and hook grass though.

Mitre, possibly

There were plenty of birds out and about, the squeaks of fantails and song of the grey warbler a near constant companion, interspersed with what might have been tui and/or bellbirds. The fantails, and a lone kereru made themselves visible. The rest of the bird life kept out of view.

About 5 hours later we were back at the carpark. Scratched, mildly bruised, a tad achey but satisfied and happy. And if that's not the sign of a great tramp, I don't know what is.

GPS Data: (inbound)
Distance: 8.47km
Overall average speed (including stops): 1.6km/h

Map:

 GPS Altitude Profile:

 

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: