Mooing Donks and Wild Horse Pooh

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MOOING DONKS AND WILD HORSE POOH Gary Goldsworthy Overnight snow at camp above Otamateanui Stream Claire Goldsworthy The Kaimanawas. Those hills on ccommodation on Friday night procession oftrucks andmotor vehicles was a concrete floor, provided busilywindingtheirway alongtheD Desert the other side off the Desert Road. (unwittinglylby theNZ Armyat Six Cross Road. With akeen windknifing through Popular hunting destination for Camp. Having arrived in the dead of US, however, we didn't linger long, and night, inatypicallywetandcoldWaiouru turned instead to fasten our intentions those seeking to stalk the wily norwester, anythingdrywitharoofwas on the gently undulating hills rolling Sika deer, and home of the going to do just fine. away to the east. recently "thinned out" and fully By morning the weather was looking A good poled route took US down into protected wild horse herd, on more promising, though the wind still the bush and out again onto the open had a good bite to it as we trudged up tussocklands beyond. Clag, drizzle, whose ancestors' backs our a tankt track behind: Six Cross to join the and occasional snow flurries blotted forefathers unburdened the local southern boundary access track to the out the scenery at times, butt by using a inland Kaimanawas. Our pace was combination of4 wheel drive roads and Maori of the stresses of land quickened somewhat by the staccato the poled route, we quickly made it to management. A place of bursts of machine guni fire drifting upto the low saddle between the Waipahihi US from the direction from whence we Stream andthel Moawhango West River comparatively few tracks and came. Maybe the Army had got wind catchments. Rather than follow the even fewer huts, and a place that a party of tramps was dossing at tank track which climbs steeplyuponto one oftheir camps and were goingi int to the Te Putaotehaki Range, we dropped where Claire, my patiently flush them out. More likely, they were down into the head oft the Moawhango suffering wife, Alwyn Courtenay, Army grunts practising for Bosnia. West River and followed the sidle track down the true right. Chief Guide of the Hutt Valleys, The track climbed steadily and topped andiplannedi to leave some. boot out near a translator aerial. The view We sought shelter from the incessant from here was a pleasant surprise as it drizzle and cold wind and had a quick prints during ANZAC weekend gave a grandstand perspective of the lunch, huddled together under a small '94. Central Plateau, Mt Ruapehu, Mt cliff. Conditionscouldbestbed described Ngauruhoe etc. and the endless as bleak. TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING

HaffwayupthehilltoNgawhareangarua finally out of the wind and snow, we when travelling cross-country as they we spotted the first wildl horse "dump", made our way down to alarge flat area are not always obvious on ther map and alargepile ofdry, fibrousballsindicating onthebushlinewhichthemapindicated you could find yourself following thel lip two things; mightbeagoodspottocamp. Whatt the of one of these ravines for quite some 1) they eat a lot of roughage, map doesn't show is the clumps of distance before being able to cross it. II) they fart a lot (a perfectly natural tussock and scrub that can make lying Luckily we didn't have this problem response to roughage, So my doctor downabituncomfortable. Nothingabit (except for the Otamateanui) but the tells me). of gardening can't fix. potential was there. Wel lefti the poledroute at the summit of For some reason I decided we should We crossed one of these ravines near Ngawhareangarua and elected for a camp out in the open rather than in the our camp, climbed the spur opposite, more directline acrosstheMoawhango shelter of the trees. It seemed like a and descended into Akeake Stream. Valley and onto the Motumatai Range. goodi idea att the time, to wakeupinthe The sun was out and last night's snow EvidenceoftheKaimanawahorses was morning and watch the sun rising on was quickly melting, but a chill wind everywhere; from their flat dinner plate the surrounding snowy peaks from the whipped away any warmth we may hoof prints in the clay pans, to vast comfort of the pit. However, as Claire haves got. Spreadout! before US was our hectares of tussock clumps, skilfully and left later in the evening to fill the route along the range, starting with a munched to resemble hedgehogs. water bottles from a nearby stream, it broad plateau going over a couple of Alwyn.commentedontheidyllic-looking began to snow heavily. By thet time we humps, then deteriorating into some campsites sprinkled amongst the returned 15 minutes later, our camp formidable-looking pinnacles before pockets of beech dotted about the was buried under a blanket of white. finishing on Karikaringa. tussocklands, but closer inspection And it was bloody cold. revedledtheunderstorytrampled While sitting in the sun beneath to a pulp and a vast richness of thepinnaclesandgnawingaway garden manure of the likes that II onlunch, wev wereserenadedby none of US had seen he before. gave a a couple of stags in the valley Obviously these were places below, their lusty roars drifting wherethehorsescametounload roar and came up to US on the tops. Our and shelter from the weather, departurewasinterruptedwhen and to do whatever horses do Claire spotted a deer watching out in the whops. charging up usfromthebushedgel 100metres away. Idug out my binos and However, it wasn't until we had through the scrub tunedthem int to confirm that the crossed the Moawhango and deer was a stag with what climbed up onto the spur on the towards appeared to be a rather large other side that we us, actually saw rack of antlers. With nothing to some horses. Two shaggylose and after some persuasion haired ponies paused in the his hormones in from Claire and Alwyn, I gave middle of their afternoon tea to him a "moo" to see what would II gazecuriouslyatthethreesweaty overdrive . happen. It was a feeble noise, trampers watching them. sounding more like a bull with his goods in a knot than a roar Upthepooh-splatteredandwellhooofed It wasn't any warmer in the morning likely to strike fear into the hearts of trail andinto the mist we climbed, snow either. Theplan fort the daywastohead stags for miles around. Expecting him flurries becoming more persistent. In down the spur to the Otamateanui tot turn and disappear into the bush, we the murk on top of the broad ridge, it Stream, climb up the other side to T2, were: somewhat astonished, andali little wast time to get outt the compass and as traverse the tops around to Motutere, alarmed too, I might add, to see him wemadeourway north towardsaridge anddropdowninto theWaipakihi Valley suddenly standbolt upright, givearoar, junction near TI, steady snow was from there. Not far down the spur, our then come charging up through the settling on and around US. We startled plan was shaftedbyt bluffs. Rather than scrub towards US, his hormones in two morel horses and they bolted out of waste a lot of time and effort trying to overdrive. My pulse quickened and I sight before curiosity got the better of find a way down through them, we must confess to having a quick look them and they returned to peer at US decidedi tol head back cupandi make our around for a handy tree to climb, but through thegloom. Howpeculiarto: see wayto thel Waipakihiviathemainrange alas, zilch. My thoughts went to a these animals on the tops in a and Karikaringa. certain cupboard at home where my snowstorm. wondered if they were rifle stood. The hunting permit had thinking the same thing. A feature of the Kaimanawa upland arrived on Friday, but because the areas seems to be the rolling nature of weather forecast was for southerlies Wel battled on in the blizzard along the thec country. AG glance at the map would andsnow, Idecidednottot bringit along crest of another broad ridge towards indicateeasylopstravel andidyllic alpine this time. Inow rued that decision as theOtamateanuivalley, following, ofall basinsi in which to camp. But these are Claire, spotting with thel binos, said she things, tyre tracks (motorcycle spoor). often bisected by deep ravines and could count 11 points on his antlers. He Peeling off the side after a while and canyons. This can be a bit of a hassle sure made the small Red John Busby TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING

Patutu and southern Kaimanawa tops Gary Goldsworthy and I sent to heaven the previous trail winding over and around them. river was amazingly cold and I felt a weekend look pretty puny. From the snowy windswept summit of twinge of sympathy for people with Karikaringa, we got some excellent evens shorterlegsthanmine. Icyneedles He continued on up the hill, stopping views of the surrounding mountains; of horizontal rain lanced US as we every 20 metres or so to check US out, Makarako, Thunderbolt, the Kawekas, leanedgrimlyintothewindandtrudged give abarrage ofroars, andi thrash any the volcanic plateau, and Lake Taupo downthelongriverfatsooftheWaipakihi piece of scrub within reach with his etc. into theteethofthesoutherly. Definitely antlers. Standing across a small gully not a nice day to be out in the hills and 50 metres from US, we traded bellows We picked up the northwest spur and we would probably have liked to have for a while andlgot a couple of photos dropped effortlessly down through the been somewhere else. However, the before he trotted up to the top of the bush to the Waipakihi River to camp Waipakihi Valley is a beautiful place ridge and out of sight. under the trees for the night. With the andthisfact was not lost on US, despite darknesscamet thecoldandwehuddled the weather and the excess rubbish I knew he was going to circle round roundthefiretryingtokeepwarm, while lying about the numerous campsites behindtotryandcute ourwind solraced out on the river flats Jack Frost was along the way. off up the hill with my camera ready, already on the job. The irony was that hoping to surprise him and get a close despite the fire, it was actually colder A couple of hours to kill at the roadend shot before he did so, but he beat US to down here in the valley than it was before our transport arrived to pick US it. Thethreepolypro-encrustedtrampers camped on the tops in the snow the up and time to reflect on an interesting must have smelt pretty bad, as he previous night. trip. I always find it a pleasure to wasted no time in vacating the area. By encounter deerinthewild; suchgraceful, now the whole valley had come alive The "heel haw" whistle of a Sika stag on alert creatures. But horses - that's with the sound of bellowing stags. the rivert flats woke me in the weel hours another matter. can only wonder why and I noted that the previously clear, these big, dumb, scruffy animals were The roaring continued for a while but starrynighthad givenwayt to the gloom ever given full protection, considering gradually petered out as we made our ofaheavy, leaden sky. Rain was on its the damage they do to the tussock and way over the pinnacles. Throw a bit of way, nothing surer. forest understory. Deer were declared snowonsteepcountryanditwillalways a noxious animal for this exact reason, look more impressive or worse than it Itwas already drizzling by the time we so thesooneri thesehorsesgefr trounded actually is. The pinnacles proved to be packed up and left at 10.00am and up and squeezed into jellymeat cans, no real obstacle, having a fairly good shortly afterwards, it begant to rain. The the better. TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING