Holdsworth to Ōtaki

Text taken from the club newsletter.

HOLDSWORTH TO OTAKI

An unusual Tararua crossing by SPENCER CLUBB

Friday night. No car. No Club van. Just me, my pack and a one way train ticket to Carterton. Just like the old days when I first moved to Wellington. I would take the train to the Wairarapa and walk to a popular turnoff and hitch rides into the mountains, then hitch home again, usually from Holdsworth or Kaitoke. People even bought me beer and drove me to my door. It was fun.

The plan tonight was to walk a couple of k’s along SH2 to Chester Road, stick the thumb out, and catch the wave of Wellington traffic taking the quick route to Holdsworth. Easy. I was in the correct spot, just about 30 metres along Chester Road on the verge. Cars had to slow down for the corner, had time to see me and had to be going my way. There was just one problem. It was dark. Really dark!

I must have appeared for a split second in their headlights like a ghost or an apparition. Frightening them out of their skin, causing them to swerve into the ditch and maybe drop their incredibly tasty Istanbul kebabs on their laps and spill their lattes. After half an hour of frightening people I was starting to get depressed and was weighing up the idea of jacking it all in and walking back to catch the last train home again. Then I got lucky.

I got picked up by a car coming the other way. Locals that had taken pity on me and decided to drive me to Holdsworth even though they weren’t even going there. They were from Masterton Tramping Club and just the loveliest, coolest people you could ever hope to meet. I was off!

I was heading for Otaki Forks via Totara Flats, Neill Forks, Maungahuka, the Tararua Peaks and Field. I decided to get a bit of a head start and do some climbing so I hiked up and spent the night at Mountain House. It was a bit out of the way, but meant for one less climb the next day. Mountain House was a bit windy and cold as it has only three and a bit walls. It has great indoor-outdoor flow though!

I was up at first light, ready for a reasonably big day to Maungahuka. However, I had only gone about 20 metres when I had to stop in my tracks. The sun had risen and was pouring through the trees which were, themselves, still shrouded in early morning mist. It was a magical scene, with rays of light illuminating the mist and creating beautiful shadowy patterns on the ground. I grabbed the camera and fired off a few shots, trying to get a good composition and working out how to deal with having the sun shining right towards the camera. I knew I had been lucky to come across such a scene, but did not realise till I got home that the photos had come out really well and looked beautiful. This photo was the winning entry at the FMC photo competition.

While the original image was very strong, it was the shape and form of the trees and shadows that made the shot, so it was a natural choice to try a monochrome look. The final image is actually a split tone rather than a pure black and white, which gives it a very pleasing, warm, sepia-like tone. This is very easy to do in Lightroom.

Time was pressing on so I put the camera somewhat reluctantly away and headed down to Totara Flats then popped over the hill to Neill Forks. By now it was getting towards mid afternoon and I was feeling a bit tired. The thought of a steep 1,000 m climb was not exactly exciting me but it had to be done. Once out on the tops it was all worthwhile, climbing steadily through the tussock as the clouds wafted past. It was a beautiful afternoon and I was looking forward to making the hut—after a pretty decent nine hour day. Shortly after arriving I met a grumpy hunter who had spent an hour stalking a nice deer that I had unwittingly frightened. Luckily I wasn’t wearing my camo hat so he didn’t shoot me by accident.

After dinner I went outside and encountered an amazing sunset. There was a lot of low cloud creeping up the ridges from the valley below and some lovely orange afterglow from the west. Again I couldn’t believe my luck—two great shooting opportunities in one day! I took a series of shots, one of which came runner up in the Club photo competition for ‘above the bushline’, though it did not seem to impress the FMC judges. To get the final image I had to increase the exposure as the original shot was a little dark, but I wanted to keep the shadows dark so that the ridges formed more of a silhouette. I did not need to touch any other settings as the colours were already great.

The next day I tramped out over the Tararua peaks, headed to Otaki forks and got my thumb out. I didn’t even have time to stretch when the first car that came along picked me up and insisted on driving me all the way home, despite some very bad wet sock smells wafting uncontrollably around the car!

ABOVE: Maungahuka Tarn

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