Back to the Back of Beyond

Machine-read text (unproofread)

Read from the scans by software, so it contains mistakes. Typing it up properly would help blind readers: use Suggest an edit.

Back to the Back of Beyond Harry Smith "How about going back to the Seaward Kaikouras for 6 days at Labour Weekend?" asked Allen Higgins back in September 'woy years before Ihad been on one of Allen's to just past a razorback section and drop down scree trips to the Seaward Kaikouras and it had slopes into the head of the stream, our guidebook turned out to be one of the most awesome told us, or sidle in from lower down the spur. Well, trips I had done for a long time. Travelling around don'tknow where the sidle was supposed to be, but the back of the range into the catchment of the all I can say is that it looked absolutely horrendous Clarence River, we had discovered the Clarence to me, SO we continued up the spur to the razorback Reserve, a huge area of former high country station section (which hardly deserved the name) and land which was now part of the DOC estate: a vast, dropped down the steep scree slopes, as instructed. empty landscape of barren hills, prickly briar and As small side creek led us down to the head of Middle matagouri, towering mountains, steep screes, Head Stream, and up around the corner a spectacular gorges, and brilliant little bivvy huts left reasonable campsite on tussocky flats materialised over from the Forest Service days that seemed to get as promised. It was the end of the day, we had visited about once every two years and all this climbed 1700 metres with heavy packs, and I was not all that far away across the Strait from the rush exhausted. and bustle of the mad, incessant human tide of Dayi two saw us climbing out onto the spur to the downtown Wellington. A return visit was an offer north of our campsite and following it up to the crest that was simply too tempting to ignore and of the range. High peaks beckoned to the north and although I had officially retired from tramping at south of us, but they would have to wait for another Easter, I had always been careful to keep a list of occasion. Descending a few hundred metres to the permissible exceptions", and the Seaward south, we stopped forl lunch in a saddle looking down Kaikouras was on it! easy slopes into the head of Dubious Stream. This Wednesday night before Labour Weekend saw is the easiest crossing point of the main Seaward Allen and Sue Higgins, Jonathan Kennett, Bronnie Kaikoura Range anywhere between George Saddle Wall, Eric Blumhardt and myself arriving at the Mt to the north and thel Blind Saddle road to thesouth. Fyffe carpark at about midnight in Allen and Sue's From here, Dubious Stream, despite its name, van. Two hours' walk up the Kowhai River the next provides reasonable travel all the way to the Clarence. morning brought us to thel bottom of Snowflake Spur, Allen had planned on camping somewhere down our intended ascent route. From the raised grassy in the lower reaches of the Dubious, near thej junction terrace where the hut used to be, a nasty bush and with Packer Stream, which provides a route over scrub bash to gain the end of the spur appeared on into Fidget Stream, but the afternoon's 's travel proved the cards. But Snowflake Spur was a recognised rather slow, and when we finally reached Dubious route there must surely be a track, we reasoned. Bivvy half way down the river in the late afternoon A little bit of hunting around and sure enough, we we decided to call it a day. The last kilometre above found it in the gully at the back of the flat. Emerging the hut was particularly slow going, with big boulders from thes scrub, we stopped for lunch on a flat section and scrub and wild rose briar. The bivvy turned out off the spur with views up the Kowhai to Sandy Flat to be a raised terrace in the middle of several acres and on up to Hapuku Saddle. of briar, but fortunately there was a track up out of After lunch we plodded on our way, slowly, the river. exhaustingly gaining height. Ift there's one thing you The briar cloaking the hillsides got thicker as we cang guarantee about the Seaward Kaikouras it's that continued on down the Dubious the next morning. the climbs are sure to be long and steep, and the When the guidebook was written this was probably height gains huge when you start at close to sea still all open grazing country; twenty years later, in level andt the crest of the range is at over 2000 metres, overgrown conditions, the quoted travel times were that's s pretty much a foregone conclusion. The target proving a little bit on the short side. At Packer Stream for the day was a campsite in the waterfalled head we had to decide whether we were going to go up of Middle Head Stream. Either climb Snowflake Spur and over the pass to the Fidget, or whether to go the Tramping and Mountaineering 2000

Making our way in the top section of Dubious Stream HarrySmith longer way around via the Clarence. But the look of aj pure water supply. Beyond the river, thel high peaks the tangled vegetation in the stream made the of the Inland Kaikouras Tappy, Alarm, and Mitre decision for us - it looked awful, and it would reared skywards in the distance. Beyond them, probably take us longer to go over this "short-cut" out of sight in the head of the Hodder River, the than it would to go the long way around. annual hordes were no doubt assembling, jamming We stopped for lunch where the Clarence Valley like sardines into the Hodder Huts for the annual 4WD vehicle track crossed the stream, a fewhundred Labour Weekend onslaught on Tappy. Who would metres. upstream from the junction with the Clarence want to be there on a busy holiday weekend when itself. The sun beat down on us from above, and they could be here, in the middle of nowhere, I there was no shade anywhere. We tucked in under thought. We hadn't seen a single other person the the briars, trying to escape from the sun as best we whole weekend. could. After lunch we sweated up the road out of the Allen's original plan called for us to go on up Fidget stream, and followed it north towards Stony Flat. Stream to Fidget Bivi that afternoon and have a rest Hundreds of hectares of abandoned farmland day exploring there the next day, but Stony Flat Hut surrounded us, thick with briar. This must count as was such a pleasant place we decided to stay there one of the worst ecological disaster areas due to an for the night instead. So we cranked up the primus introduced plant species anywhere in New Zealand, and put on a brew, and the rest of the afternoon was on a par with the wilding pinus contorta on Mt spent relaxing. Ruapehu. Without the vehicle track this area would Next day wel headed up the Fidget. We passed the be simply impenetrable; you would need a machete knoll on the left which we had come down from two or preferably a flame-thrower to make your years previously, fighting our way through the briar way through. to reach thes stream bed. We stopped forl lunch at the We arrived at Stony Flat Hut early in the afternoon junction of Spring Gully, then it was a pleasant a neat and tidy little 4-bunk hut in a welcome afternoon side-trip up the stream without packs in grassy clearing in an ocean of briar. The Clarence search of thel hot spring. We reached the head of the River snaked past the edge of the flats, cloudy and stream without finding it - the map placed it in the uncrossable with the snowmelt in thel heat of the day. middle of a hillside of scrub. But on the way back Willows lined the river bank, providing some green down we noticed a trickle of water coming down relief to the eye and some welcome shade. A fenced- the hillside from the right. Following up, we found in spring twenty metres away from the hut provided the hot spring, quite a bit downstream from where it Tramping and Mountaineering 2000

Crossing Dubious Stream HarrySmith was shown on the map. Unfortunately the water was our steps for three days. Or we could follow the only lukewarm and there was no pool to sit in Clarence Valley 4WD track all the way out over Blind just some running water down a bank. My hopes of Saddle a road bash of at least two days! a relaxing soak were dashed! Surprisingly, none of these options seemed Back down in the main stream, we shouldered particularlyi inviting! After much umming and ahhing our packs once again and carried on up. The stream we decided to continue on our way and hope that was running high compared to our previous visit, the stream would drop overnight and the gorge would and one gorgy section proved too deep to be be passable in the morning, before the snowmelt passable, but after a bit of prospecting we managed caused the stream to rise later in the day. to find a way around. Breaking through a barrier of Fidget Bivvyi is an awesome spot, a great little twobriar we found a natural scree pathway along the man bivvy set in a barren landscape of steep narrow bank to the top of the gorge, whereanotherl break in gorges, with huge mountains looming in the the briar led us back out to the stream bed again. background. It seems to get visited on average about The next couple of kilometres proved slow going. once a year. The log book is still the original one, The stream was definitely running high with all the dating back to the early 80s when the bivvy was put snowmelt. Sections which we had strolled up last in; it is currently up to about page eight. At this rate, time ankle-deep were now rushing torrents, and we barring the unlikely possibility that DOC will turn had to be careful with the crossings. Should we carry this into a Great Walk, it should last well into the on? We knew from two years ago that the section of 23rd century. Amazingly there were three or four gorge up from Fidget Bivvy was tricky; with the river entries in the last couple ofyears, though two of them like this it would be impassable. Suddenly the trip were by the same DOC goat culler passing through. took a serious turn. We were in isolated country, and Before that was our previous entry, two years earlier if we didn't go on we would have to find another back in 1998. The bivvy seems to have been subject way out. We discussed our options. We could try to a veritable traffic jam that year two other parties heading out the way we had come in two years ago, came through besides ourselves, including one poor over Haycock Saddle to Jam Stream, and out over unfortunate group who had climbed Manakau from George Saddle, but if the Fidget gorge was difficult, the Kaikoura side without a proper map and had what would the gorge in the Jam be like? We could descended in a white-out, thinking theywere coming always turn round and go back the way we had down the Hapuku River, only to reach the bivvy and come, back up the Dubious, but that meant retracing discover with total bemusement that they were on Tramping and Mountaineering 2000

Stony Flat Hut Harry Smith the entirely opposite side of the range! We hadn't scary part of our previous route. Lunch was had heard of any search and rescue operations at the beside a trickling stream high up the vague ridgeline time SO presumably they made it back out to we were following. Further up the going was civilisation successfully. Before that the next previous unpleasant rock and scree, but then we dropped entry was in about 1995, and the next one before down to the lefti into the stream bed wel had followed that was in about 19931Ifyou'rel looking for a hut to the previous time. Two years ago this was a rock visit where you can minimise your chances of scramble; now it was an exhausting snow plod. Allen meeting anybody else, you could hardly do better led the way and untiringly plugged deep snow steps. than here! Icarefully brought up the rear, and cursed loudly as, Next morning we were away earlier to beat the being the heaviest in the group, Ibroke through every snowmelt. Thestream had dropped a lot overnight second step and floundered around exhaustingly, and was straightforward. It soon closed in to a waist deep in the snow. It took us a good couple of spectacular gorge, but was still quite passable. Even hours to reach the crest of the range, then it was off the tricky traverse along a narrow ledge around an down the ridge and into the basin to camp by the 8-metre waterfall seemed a lot easier than last time. stream. "Ididn't know such country existed, saidJonathan. Next day it was out down Surveyor Spur, and the By mid-morning we reached the foot of the Hapuku River. The Hapuku is getting to be old hat distinctive spur we had climbed out on last time, and for Allen and me -I Ithink this was the 6th time I've debated which way to go. Our previous route above been up or down it now. Even the falcons nesting in the spur had been slow and tricky, and unpleasantly the bend below the waterfall swooped and attacked exposed in places was there a better way? The predictably and on schedule, but nobody was hit. route guide was vague, but it gave the impression Upon reaching the roadend, Allen called into a that you could follow the stream all the way to the farmhouse and rang up a taxi van from Kaikoura, saddle at the head. So even though the next section and soon we were back at the Mt Fyffe carpark and of river looked awful, we decided to give it a go. But Allen and Sue's van. Almost as soon as we loaded we soon found our way blocked by an impassable upt the van, it started raining, the first rain in six days. snow block in a narrow gorge. It was back to the It was a fitting end for a great trip in which we had spur... spent six days of brilliant weather visiting some From the top of the spur Allen prospected a awesome country which deserves to be visited more deviation over to the right, and So bypassed the most often. Tramping and Mountaineering 2000