Trip 1, 7 to 9 September: Fortune Hunters – submitted by Stu
Our team is called the Fortune Hunters; you can forget checking your star sign in the paper, the real fortune is found in a little cookie which a famous proverb states must be opened in the wilderness amongst good company and freeze-dried food.
Our first trip on 7-9 September was the result of a substantial planning session, many emails, and some quite extraordinary computer modelling. The final route was a work of art, modelled on computer maps for distance, height gain, and terrain. Our route started at Kaitoke Waterworks, headed up the river to Eastern Hutt Hut, continued on to Alpha, Kime, Maungahuka, Neill Forks, and then Totara Flats, with options for Cone hut and one or two others if time allowed. The trip would take almost 30 hours of walking out of our available 48 hours.
We kicked off at 6.40pm from the Kaitoke Waterworks in balmy spring weather, stopping an hour later to set up for the first mountain radio sked at 8pm. Sadly they informed us that the next day we’d be getting snow showers coming in at midday, in contrast to the fine weekend we’d expected.
The first hut we were aiming for was the Eastern Hutt Hut. Unfortunately, what seemed like a good day-time route took about five hours of difficult travel up the river, sometimes on the sides, but often straight through. The dark made a huge difference, making it difficult to find the best options for travel.
At the hut we started our new tradition of opening the fortune cookies, with Matt’s rule that they had to be read out with the words “in bed” added at the end. The first cookie then gave us “Confucius say: When anger rises, think of the consequences in bed.” Very wise, but not useful to us at the time.
We revised our plan to continue on up the river since the going was tough, deciding it was more reliable to head up a spur onto the much loathed Marchant ridge. It was a 700m uphill bush-bash, manageable, but pretty tiring. We found the Marchant ridge track at 2.15am, about the time we’d hoped to be arriving at Alpha. Instead, after the usual dreary walk along the ridge track, we arrived at Alpha at 6.40am as the sun was coming up. A fairly long twelve hours after we’d started on Friday night, and about the time we’d intended to get up and leave.
With all of us being a bit shattered, we jumped straight into our sleeping bags. We woke again at 11.30am when another tramper arrived, and started the painful process of getting ready to depart. The plan for that day was Kime, Maungahuka, Neill Forks, Totara Flats. A good twelve hours or so.
We left Alpha at 1pm in the rain. In a few minutes we were up onto the tops, where the rain turned to horizontal sleet, and then snow. The biting shards blew under our jacket hoods and into our faces, making the trip to Kime pretty unpleasant going. We only stopped for a minute at Hector to take a photo of the cross for the points.
By the time we arrived at Kime we’d all individually given up on the idea of pushing on to Maungahuka, so not much discussion was needed. The wind was continuing to pick up, and crossing the Tararua Peaks in a snowy gale wasn’t worth the risk. That, plus the ache in our knees and muscles made for a sound and sensible decision to stay at Kime for the night.
Before tucking ourselves in for our first real night of sleep, we had to do the 8pm radio sked. Simon and I drew the short straws and headed outside into the snow to set up the aerial, while Matt directed from out the hut window. That job done, we had dinner, and opened our fortune cookies. There were three to catch up on for Alpha, Hector and Kime, giving us the sage words of:
“People may not always believe what you say, but they will believe what you do in bed.”
“Bide your time, for success is near in bed.”
“A smile will gain you ten more years of life in bed.”
Bearing those lessons in mind, Matt texted his wife to ask her to pick us up from Otaki Forks the next day instead of our planned exit point back at Kaitoke.
As usual, having shortened our trip due to bad weather, we woke up on Sunday morning to a beautiful, warm, sunny day. We gave ourselves a bit of a sleep in, then put all our gear outside to thaw out. With the temperature at minus 3 when we went to bed, and no doubt dropped further overnight, all our wet clothes and gear from the day before had frozen solid over-night, making getting our feet into our boots especially difficult. My socks could have been used to club a man to death they were so solid with frozen mud and water, Matt had to peel his pack off the floor, and Simon resorted to beating his boots with a stick to try and get his feet in.
The trip out to Otaki Forks took us past Field Hut, where we found Matt’s dog waiting patiently for us with sandwiches and a thermos of hot chocolate. His wife was also there, and the two of them accompanied us out to Otaki Forks. We almost forgot to stop at Parawai hut, which would have lost us a valuable ten points, but we bagged it to make the most of our truncated trip.
All up it would count as a solid warm-up trip, leaving us a little fitter, a little wiser, and feeling about 15 years older than when we’d set out.
Trip 2, 28 to 30 October: Fortune Hunters – submitted by Matt
The hunt is on again…the Fortune Hunters are seeking the ultimate fortune and are searching every hut in the Tararua’s to find it!
This hunt began on Friday night with a radio sched at 8pm after which we departed from The Pines roadend in light cloud and warm temperatures. The trip by torchlight seemed to fly by and before long we were waking the only occupant at Mitre Flats hut, and wondering what fortune lay in store for us here? We all learnt a lesson in patience with the advice “All good things come to those that wait in bed” so decided heading to the sleeping bags was most appropriate.
After the morning sched we packed up and got the blood flowing on the climb to Mitre, anxious to get on with the plan of Mid-King biv via Tarn Ridge hut before the forecast “thundery showers” hit. The overcast weather never seemed to worsen though and arriving at Tarn Ridge it was still just drifting cloud affecting visibility. Our Mitre Flats hut mate was now at tarn Ridge for the night having followed the same route ahead of us, and he had a nice fire going to have lunch next to. Now this has got to be indicative of good fortune we thought, but drew an interesting “Better to be alone than in bad company in bed”, so it may be best to get back on the route to the biv and continue the hunt.
I hadn’t been over the Kings before, always having turned off at Girdlestone or South King, and was pleasantly surprised. Rolling tops, awesome rocky outcrops to navigate, beautiful valley-heads and even some extremely fresh deer sign.
We eventually arrived at Middle King and began down the track to the biv. I had been to the biv twice before and both times departed from South King – if you’re thinking of doing this – don’t! It has a nasty scrub sidle at the bottom, and the track from the Middle King was great. As we were heading down we saw two people outlined on South King. They stopped and watched us for some time so we figured they would have been bound for the biv but were now reviewing their plan after seeing us heading down. Getting on for 5pm though we saw them head down and into the basin between South and Middle Kings which contains loads of bluffs and waterfalls – where we lost sight of them. We never did manage to figure out where they may be headed.
The biv has been renovated somewhat and is very pleasant now, even with the extensive mould inside due to the installation of the worlds tiniest air vents. We managed to squeeze in for the night, and considering Simon left his jacket outside overnight, found discovering the fortune “Clothes don’t make the man in bed” very appropriate – but probably not the ultimate fortune, and therefore we must rest up as we had a duty to continue our hunt in the morning.
The wind got up in the night, leaving Simon delighted to find his jacket still there, but the thundery showers never hit and we had a fairly fine and sunny day albeit we could hear a fair amount of wind. Beginning what we thought would be a slippery and annoying climb back to the tops, we found that it passed quickly and we were soon on Middle King adopting the Tararua’s standard “crouch, touch, pause, engage” stance along the windy tops to South King. At South King we decided the gusty wind would make the pinnacles far too dangerous to try and balance on and navigate, so we headed down over Baldy and into the valley, where of course the next challenge was not overheating in the sun!
Arriving at Atiwhakatu a quick discussion resulted in a begrudging agreement to nip up to Jumbo hut to nab some extra points since we couldn’t get McGregor biv on the way past the pinnacles. Discovering the fortune of “Good and quick seldom meet in bed” at Atiwhakatu we couldn’t disagree but wondered what Jumbo would hold…after a very warm climb and the skin leaking profusely, we arrived at Jumbo and stuck our heads under the tap to cool down and rehydrate. Would this be “the one”? Does our ultimate fortune reside in Jumbo hut? We found “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid 100 days of sorrow in bed” – we were beginning to sense we were being delivered a certain lesson in patience!
After heading back down to the valley at “Stu’ssain Bolt’s” fast pace, we found the time flew heading back to Holdsworth due to the extensive boardwalking DOC has installed, resulting in the trip only taking less than two hours. Arriving at Holdsworth Lodge we were lost in the realisation that this was our final fortune to uncover on this hunt, and this could be “it”, “the one”, the ultimate fortune. With trembling hands we uncovered “Hunger is a good sauce in bed”. Hmmm probably not the ultimate, and so the hunt must go on, and we began talking about where the next hunt will take us…
