The Kawekas

Text taken from the club newsletter.

THE KAWEKAS

– the best ever South Island Easter tramp!

by SPENCER CLUBB with DEBBIE BUCK, FIONA ELLIOT, SHARON BRANDFORD and PAUL CHRISTOFFEL

The day the South Island got trashed in a 100 year storm was the day we were supposed to be start- ing our tramp from Nelson Lakes to Lewis Pass. I called the visitor centre and they descried the weather out- side as “pretty epic”. DOC had closed a slew of great walks and tracks all around the South Island. There were tens of thousands of trees down that day, creating months of track clearing work and affecting many popular off-track routes for years to come.

Not only did Mother Nature intervene to change our plans but so did the Interislander, which cancelled all sail- ings. A sorry but common problem this year on all of my South Island trips. We decided to go for a beer instead, lick our wounds, and come up with a plan that didn’t involve crawling under and over logs for a week.

The weather map showed that the driest, calmest place in the country was going to be the Kaweka Range. A place I had never been to but that came highly recommended by a couple of people in the party. A place of pleasant beech forest, good tracks and great huts apparently. We decided to go for it. But not before scoffing a load of tea and cake while basking in the Wellington sunshine. What storm?

Debbie, as always, was chomping at the bit to get away, whereas Paul was planning on only doing tramps that didn’t require a rain jacket (big softy! He was perhaps still traumatised by his West Coast Christmas mission!). So I agreed to head off early with Debbie and get an extra day of tramping in – meeting the others at a designated time and place in the not too distant future.

We took Debbie’s car as we could both drive it and it is a fair way to Makahu Saddle road end. It’s a nice little car – with a little boot and little wheels. I don’t think it was designed for seriously steep, muddy, gravelly, nar- row, windy New Zealand road-ends though, and Makahu Saddle was turning into just such a road. I was coaxing it up the ever-steepening hill, getting seriously worried that we would run out of traction, meet another car or perhaps just slide right off the edge. “Come on car. Come on car. Come on car”. Eventually the road flattened out and all three of us (me, Debbie and the car) breathed a big sigh of relief.

There was still an hour before dark so we headed off towards Kaweka Flats Biv, with heavy packs. The biv was a gem and was a perfect place to eat pumpkin curry and listen to kiwi calling. The next morning I got some nice sunrise shots and we headed off in dubious conditions towards Middle Hill Hut.

I gotta say, it was tough going. Up and down steep spurs with eroded red mud and slippery shale. 300m climbs felt like 1000m. I was not used to eight day camp- ing missions! And, oh yeah, I forgot to mention I had a tripod strapped to the back of the pack too!

At lunch a friendly hunter warned us the rest of the day was “rough”. In return, we warned him to expect some rowdy WTMC trampers, as the rest of our party were due to stay there that night.

It was round about then that my water bladder decided to break. Day one of an eight day tramp. Thank you very much Murphy! Debbie attempted emergency field surgery and it seemed to hold together. I guess no-one carries a spare water bladder….?

The rest of the afternoon was seriously tough and relentless as we climbed up and down and up and down

Kaweka Flats Biv steep ravines. It was a relief to get to the final high point and look down over the Mohaka River to the northern wilderness.

Fifteen minutes later we reached Makino Hut. Al- though we hadn’t gained much height (we were 90m higher than we started the day!) we had ascended about 1140m. It felt like it. We celebrated with a Backcountry meal, which Debbie obviously decided would taste better as a soup, as she liberally interpreted my request for “a tiny bit more water” by drowning the poor thing. It was horrible.

Meanwhile, the second group were now at Middle Hill Hut where they were enjoying a hearty meal of freshly caught venison casserole cooked for them by the friendly hunter we had met earlier that day. Luckily I didn’t know this so was not jealous!

The next day was a “rest day” as we waited for the oth- ers to catch up. And what better way to spend it than a day trip to the Mangatainoka Hot Spring on the Mohaka River. It was a 500m descent then a lovely walk alongside the river to the almost deserted hot springs. Great ambi- ence and a lovely river to hop into and cool off made the visit highly enjoyable. The only drawback was the wasps that kept falling in the hot pools and swimming around threatening to sting you where you least wanted to be stung! After a bit of an unwanted grovel back up to the hut we met Fiona, then Paul and Sharon. They had found a dead possum on the verandah. It was sleeping there when we left so had a pretty bad day by possum standards.

The others had taken a high route to the hut, avoiding most of the grovelling, and were in good spirits. As far as I was concerned, the cavalry had arrived. The mountain radio was taken off me, food was reallocated and my pack felt a million miles better. There’s a fine line between a re- ally heavy pack and a really * heavy pack!

After much map-gazing and weather-wondering we made a plan of how to spend the rest of the week. We would head quite far west, then dip down south, then back east over the main Kaweka Range. It looked remote and exciting.

The next day we headed to Te Puke Hut via Mangatu- rutu Hut. We headed downhill to the Makino River and across the walkwire. Strangely, Debbie decided to wade the river as she had an apparent fear of three wire bridges. It was a long, sloshy, climb for her up the other side to a wonderful scenic lunch spot on the tops. There really isn’t much flat ground in the Kawekas!

The rest of the day was, however, superb tops travel on a broad heathy plateau. It was getting quite late when we arrived at Te Puke Hut and there were some initially un- friendly hunters in residence in the fairly small hut. Deb- bie and I decided to camp – a common choice as it turned out as we would be encountering many more full huts and many more hunters. And boy could these hunters snore!!!

It was the roar, after all. Hunters “book” huts in ad- vance and fly into them with all their gear for the week. Many of them come from Australia and hunt the same mountains every year. A few of them were a bit feral, but on the whole, a highly skilled and gregarious bunch. Many of them did wonder why trampers like us would pick this

Debbie descending off the tops

Cooking dinner week, of all the weeks in the year, to be wandering around and taking up space in “their” huts. I guess the weather forecast was the answer!

Day five dawned fine and we set off on our way towards Ngaawaparua Hut via Harkness Hut. And what a start to the day! Wonderful views from the nearby trig, lovely subalpine plants and great craggy scenery. It was a shame to leave the tops and head back down to the valleys. Harkness Hut was in a big clearing and would have made for a good place to rest up, but we headed on down and criss-crossed streams until we arrived in the early after- noon at our destination. Here, things turned a bit for the worse….

We met some very nice hunters at the hut who seemed surprised to see us, given that the hut was at a dead end. Say that again? Given that the hut was a dead end. Uh, what about the bridge? Bridge was removed by DOC years ago. And the track up to the tops that is on our map? Land is private. No track. Oh, and the river is up too so you might not get across.

This was a pivotal moment for the trip. We had two choices: retrace all our steps exactly, right back to Makino Hut, or take a major punt that we could cross the river, find the old track and get to the tops (without getting shot). The river was indeed up and was definitely not a sure thing. I managed to befriend a couple of people rafting the river that were camped near the hut, but they didn’t quite offer to ferry us across. Nevertheless, they probably would rescue us if we fell in!

I was in no mood for going back, and nor were the others, so we decided to take the more risky option and go for it. We linked up and got in slowly, shuffling across the river in textbook manner. It was a bit scrappy for a while in the middle, but we made it, with great relief! This relief was doubled when we found the old track, which offered pretty good travel right the way to the tops. We had done it! And nobody got shot!!! We relished the wonderful tops scenery before descending to Rocks Ahead Biv, and “zipping” (labouring!) across the flying fox to the hut.

Rocks Ahead Hut was pretty civi- lised and we were back within striking distance of the main range. A couple of hunters were happily boiling a stag skull on the fire (see what I mean by civilised?) and a Frenchman even turned up (quelle surprise!). I whiled away an hour or so taking photos, then Fiona took some star photos. An added bonus was that she offered to carry my tripod for the rest of the trip in return!

Day seven and we climbed up towards the main Kaweka Range. I was totally enchanted by Back Ridge – with lovely forest and magical glades. It was a really special place. This was in stark contrast to Back Ridge Biv – a windy, desolate place occupied by a hermit/hunter. We quickly left and headed on our way to our resting place for the night – Back Ridge Hut. Strangely, many huts in the Kawekas including Back Ridge are made out of what looks like Meccano. Most peculiar! We took over the hut and Paul negotiated skillfully with another group for them to continue on down to the more spacious camping around Rocks Ahead Hut, rather than cram in with us for the night.

Our final day dawned fine and a quick climb saw us basking in sunshine and light winds, as mist lapped at our backs from the gentle easterly. I was happy resting and enjoying the view, but some of the others went off to summit the other peaks on the Kaweka Range. Eventually I was enticed off my backside by talk of the “Elixir of Life” – a natural spring just down from where we were sitting. It was indeed well guarded, being in a little gully and sur- rounded by spiky Spaniards. It was cold, refreshing water, and I instantly grew younger by at least two minutes!

The trip finished with an easy descent back to the car. A fabulous trip through lovely, uncharted (for me) scen- ery, great tracks, even better huts, and a fabulous bunch of people. Paul even got his wish of no rain!!!!!!!! Take that huey!!!!!!