Tararua ranges
The trail notes for this section are brief and prefaced by a 60 word warning in bold type.
I eased (or should I say greased) my way in from the Shannon end of Mangahao-Makahika Track. My advice us, don't waste a valuable day of your life in there, ever. The only entertainment was wondering what these red vegetable orang utans are
and I am musing it is an epiphytic moss but don't really have a clue.
The track is so formless I even turned myself 180° and walked the wrong way for an hour without noticing. So two hours I will never get back donated to one of Nature's rejected children.
I took a wrong turn once I found a road too, and it was late when I reached Makahika Outdoor Centre where hikers camp for free. Who should be there but two couples who started on the same day as me. We passed the half-way point of Te Araroa only one day apart!
Early next morning I found a Greek Orthodox church in the middle of nowhere as I trekked to the start of Gable End Ridge track.
The track starts at the back of a farm
and climbs between the headwaters of Ohau River and Blackwater Stream.
Kidney fern was common and will have dessicated to a crisp by Christmas
and the phylloclades of Mountain Toatoa were a standout.
When I last walked up here (gulp, forty years ago) my thighs were grated to weeping sores by leatherwood (Olearia colensoi, the bluey grey leaves)
but the track was decently open this time.
It took nine and a half hours to reach Te Matawai Hut and I hit the bunk knowing I had to get up this feature in the morning.
Somehow my brain does a deep cleanse in the night and I always feel ready to go at dawn. Luckily.
Other creatures were treating the track as a short cut, and whilst I saw the hind and yearling later I still don't feel sure about this one (bad fail for wildlife scientist, ret'd).
[cat, but no hairs apparent; possum, but should all be pelleted, not just oldest part. On balance, possum but really atypical].
Anyway, the sun rose as I rose and the hut was just being lit up at the centre of this picture as I reached Pukematawai (1432m) and looked west.
Flowers peeked out in the rocky steep places above the bushline as I climbed. Here is Tararua speargrass,
and Lobe-leaved Buttercup,
and Creeping Eyebright,
and the only Celmisia flower I saw.
The route tracks along over Butchers Knob,
and drops back into beech forest. A bit further south-east I stopped for lunch at a wee hut strapped hard to prevent it flying away!
The climb to Puketoro (1152m) took me back into the open,
where I met an alpine grasshopper and realised the ominous clouds to the north were approaching rapidly. No time to waste on entomology - I scrambled around Kelleher (1142m) and found the most definitely not "marked by a cairn" way downhill and back into trees just as the rain sluiced down (forecast was "cloudy periods in afternoon").
It is astonishing how big raindrops are in the mountains.
The trees weren't much protection but at least there was something to grab if needed. By the time I climbed Mt Nichols (1242m), the rain had stopped and the clag was rolling in. I just had time to see my goal, Nichols Hut!
Oh boy. That was the best cup of coffee of my life.
Day 4 dawned clear so I climbed Mt Crawford (1462m) where the view was, I admit, stupendous.
At Junction Knob (1375m) I met, first, a tramper and, then, a ranger who trundled up doing a track inspection.
(that's me, taking the photo. Who says I never do selfies?). Both gentlemen told me the walk from Waitewaewae Hut to Otaki Forks was bigger than advertised, ("hard grind","long slog") so I decided to stop for the day when I reached the hut.
But first I had to reach the hut. More knobs in the way, this time Shoulder Knob,
and then a steep descent,
during which I fell and hit my tailbone on a gnarly tree root and encountered a not very sympathetic carabid beetle.
I had to have recourse to the Cow of Wisdom tucked in my waist belt pocket
(peppermints for emergencies, a great gift), and another restorative coffee at Waitewaewae hut on the Otaki River before my sense of humour recovered.
In the morning I tackled the hard grind slash long slog and nobody had fibbed. I even had to get out my all-other-contingencies-yellow-cord for the first time to pull my pack up through supplejack at a treefall,
which about summarises six hours work.
Just when I had resolved never ever to pop into the Tararuas again, I found orchids! I had been looking for them all trip, and they turned up on a sunny cutting near the end of the track.
It's a greenhood, I think Pterostylis cardiostigma because the leaves stick out at an angle from the stem.
All toil forgotten, I grinned along in the direction of Otaki Forks. And then, joy in the form of a six month old vizsla named Tawny materialised.
Her helicopter pilot human offered me a lift to Otaki. All vizsla people are excellent people.
Wellington next, but not before the next belt of bad weather. I have to box and post supplies to myself at some South Island stops and really really study maps. And eat.
