A love letter to an old road

Text taken from the club newsletter.

A love letter to an old road

Sam Harrison | 8 Jul 2025 Matemateāonga Track, Whanganui National Park

In June 2024 I joined Regan on a trip that was to become infamous for our colossal underestimation of how long it would take for us to travel between Ōmaru Hut and Puteore Hut in Whanganui National Park (15.5 hours as it turned out). It might seem odd then that I voluntarily agreed to join him in June 2025 on another Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club (WTMC) trip to the national park. His plan was to walk the Matemateāonga Track. With just a month to go, Regan let me know he had been offered a chance to go trapping in Fiordland so would be bailing on the trip. Was this a bad omen? Yet to be seen. Daniel Madley stepped up as leader of the group. He had decided that he had spent too many weekends in the company of ladies so had split the party in two by gender. The lads would go to Ōmaru Hut on Friday night, leaving a gluten-free dessert at Pōuri Hut on Saturday before bunking down at Ngapurua Hut. On Friday we would walk past Puketōtara Hut before getting a 1pm jetboat down the Whanganui to Pipiriki. The ladies would do the reverse, jetboating up the river on Saturday, leaving us a dessert, swapping keys and walking out to my car on Kohi Saddle.

1. The bridge to somewhere we shouldn’t be

Escapades along our way to Ōmaru Hut I picked the party up from Platform 10 of Wellington Station. With Regan’s departure there were four of us — Daniel, James Hancock, James Wood and myself. We cruised up the Kāpiti Coast and before long we were getting our fill at the Hāwera Maccas (well three of us did, James W packed his own sushi which he ate shamefully inside). Soon we were bouncing down winding roads in the pitch black, my headlights cutting a narrow path through the trees, scaring the odd possum. Daniel and Hancock are even more toxic hutbaggers than I am (hard to believe I know) and insisted we continue over Kohi Saddle to the Bridge to Somewhere and Aotuhia Hut. The only flaw in their plan was that the hut sat on private land. After arriving at the bridge in the rain we re-evaluated our health and safety plan and decided to turn around before we took on any farmers in the dark (for their safety, not ours).

Fifteen minutes later we parked up at Kohi Saddle. It was all too familiar. Headtorches came out and we began our march down the muddy Matemateāonga Track. The highlight of the walk was the massive kōura (freshwater crayfish) we spotted in one of the streams. The lowlight was almost being impaled by Daniel after jumping at him out of the bushes. We were at the hut after an hour and a bit, and in our sleeping bags not long after that.

The Matemateāonga Track traverses the range of the same name. Māori used the range as a route between Ramanui on the Whanganui River and Taranaki. The Crown began purchasing land in the area off Ngā Rauru Kiitahi and Te Iwi o Whanganui in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The land proved rougher than expected, with thin soils making farming difficult. Access was also an issue, leading to the cutting of a pilot track known as “Whakaihuwaka Road” along the Matemateāonga Range in 1911. This was intended to link Stratford to Raetihi (and the Main Trunk Railway) via a planned bridge over the Whanganui at Parinui. This was never developed as the First World War intervened followed by the collapse of settler farming interests along the river in the 1920s. The milling of the forests was considered but was judged to be uneconomic. Instead most of the land become state forest reserves before being incorporated into Whanganui National Park in 1986 as the Government dismantled the Forest Service to create the Department of Conservation in 1987 [lazily copied mostly from Hinterland Hijinks]. The track we know today was established as a walkway under the New Zealand Walkways Act 1975 but was never officially gazetted as it crossed no private land. It was included in the AA guide to walkways (North Island) in 1987. A few orange walkways signs can still be spotted along the way. It was later considered for mountain biking but again this never eventuated. Despite the easy grade of the track, usage has always been relatively low and declined into the 2000s. Following the 2004 Recreation Opportunity Review undertaken by DOC, the Matemateāonga

Track became one of the last tracks standing in the remote western side of the national park, with the removal of the Maungarau Track and the Puteore link track. The track was given a new lease of life by the Government’s COVID-19 recovery Jobs for Nature Programme, which enabled the Backcountry Trust, in collaboration with DOC, to engage a team from Ruapehu WorX to do substantial renovations to the track in 2021.

2. Brownie and apple crumble

Ōmaru Hut to Ngapurua Hut Werose to the dulcet tones of Guten Morgen Sonnenschein. By 8.08am we were venturing out of the hut, ready for whatever the track might throw at us.

I remember feeling equally spritely and naive last time I was here. I kept my guard up. Into the crisp winter air we went. We made good progress, despite the many trees to bond with.

It took us about three hours to reach the turn-off to Whakaihuwaka / Mt Humphries. The junction provided a perfect opportunity for a sour squirm. We left packs here before boosting up the steep slope along the summit track. I made sure to point out all the cool mollusc fossils I remembered from last time. After a stiff half hour climb we reached the summit. The views were magnificent but Taranaki and Ruapehu remained shrouded in cloud, hidden from sight.

As a consolation prize I got to witness a three-man light sabre fight between three of the esteemed jedi of the WTMC. Following this duel we retraced our steps and I got distracted by many fungi.

We did eventually reach our packs. From the junction we continued along the old road, soon passing the site of the old Humphries Hut site (built in the early 1970’s by the NZFS, removed in 2000 by DOC). Before long we passed the point where our twelve hour bushbash had begun. To add salt to the wound about we passed a large DOC sign marking the start of the ‘route’ that was ‘no longer maintained’. I took a photo for Regan and we plowed on. At 12:30pm we reached Pōuri Hut, the last stop for the brownie Hancock had been carrying and an ideal place for lunch. A disgruntled goat took off down the track.

We ate lunch at the strangely proportioned picnic table in the clearing by the hut. The sun even made an appearance.

From Pōuri Hut we wound our way along the barely undulating ridgeline. I managed to find a few excuses to get the silky saw out as we went, hacking and slashing at the odd bit of vegetation that dared to encroach on the track.

A nice hunter had left a boar’s head on the side of the track for us to admire. Hancock almost got run down by the friendly Pōuri Hut goat.

We had ‘climbed over’ Otaraheke by the time we stumbled into the girls. Their discovery was a relief, not lest because it meant our dessert had safely made it to Ngapurua Hut.

The girls said the track was alright from the river, although rather rudely they had not been undertaking any track clearing activity. We bid them farewell and continued for another twenty or so minutes to reach Ngapurua Hut (and shelter, a two for one bag [toxic]).

We occupied the next hour or so in the mid-winter twilight cleaning up the shelter, which has become a rather palatial woodshed. We swept, cut and stacked some fresh wood and picked up as much rubbish as we could. The others then retreated into the hut while I continued my frenzy, clearing the vegetation from around the hut in a fit of productivity. No fern was safe.

Ngapurua Hut was built in 2010 by DOC to bridge the potentially long day between Pōuri Hut and Puketōtara Huts, which for the easiness of the track should be no longer than about 4 hours walk. Ngapurua is the second hut on the site, the first being erected in 1968 by the NZFS. This first hut was replaced by another at Otaraheke (Otaraheke Hut), which was removed in the early 2000s.

After our labours in the woodshed we thought it fitting that we should have a fire. Soon enough the hut was toasty inside and we got started on cooking our dinners. Following dinner we were delighted to unwrap our treat for the night, a DIY apple crumble! I am happy to say it tasted delish. We sent out the night with a rite of passage, arguing over a card game under the flicker of candlelight.

3. Jet boats and vampire jets

Ngapurua Hut to Whanganui River It was a sluggish start the next day, the cold keeping us in our warm cocoons for as long as we could. The air out was crisp but the weather was fine. It was nearly 9am by the time we were underway again, meandering our way along to Pipipi.

The flowering rātā added a bit of flair to the track, as did the debate Daniel and I were having on club politics. Mysteriously Hancock and James W dropped out of earshot of us?? On later reading apparently we were so engulphed in our conversation that we missed several notable features, such as:

the wreckage of an RNZAF Vampire Jet???! • fossilised shells embedded in the track • a cave with stalactites.

Okay in our defence on the last one, we did stop next to the sign that largely proclaimed “THE CAVES”. I popped my head in to the dank hole near the sign and was thoroughly unimpressed. My research since has led me to suspect that this was just in fact a dank hole and not the caves we were looking for. We soldiered on, past Arawiri to Te Ahu, enjoying some good views over the low hills of the national park as we went. There were a few small treefall that my silky saw couldn’t quite handle.

We sidled the flank of Ngatokorua as the forest transformed around us (I wish I had something wonderful and botanical to say about this, sadly I need to brush up on my tree identification). Glorious rays of light welcomed us to Puketōtara Hut.

We were treated to a cheese and cracker board here courtesy of that sophisticated man Hancock. With any remaining treats polished off our last task for the day was to get down to the river. Here the track left the old road behind and plunged directly down a spur in the direction of Ramanui and the river. Honestly the elevation change was rather refreshing.

A few slips and slides later the gradient began to relent and we crossed easier ground to the edge of a large paddock. We frolicked across this in the company of foals, cows and pīwakawaka to make our way down to where the jetboat would pick us up next to the river.

We out did ourselves with our efficiency (it was 12:30pm and our ride was at 1pm). With time to kill we did what any group of grown men would do and threw rocks into the river to pass the time. It also gave us a chance to bag the derelict hut near the track start, although its resident river rat let us know our presence was not welcome!

Our final treat of the trip was of course the jetboat ride to Pipiriki. Loading our gear into the boat we sat down and all instantly regretted not putting on more layers. Still, it was a beautiful place to get hypothermia.

Usually this is the part of the article where I struggle to think what to write in summary. This time it is easy — go walk the Matemateāonga Track. No Type II fun to be had here (on the track), only negligible undulations, comfortable huts and some damn nice trees. Transport is a bit of a pain if you are not part of a tramping club or similar, but in terms of ease of walking it is probably the next best thing to a Great Walk; no booking required! Go show it some love.