Tramp Reflections 798 - Whanganui National Park

24-26 October 2008

This year’s Labour Day weekend tramp was to Whanganui National Park. Eight of us headed out on Friday Night. Our fearless leaders Michiel & Anna were joined by their typical crew; Val, John, Kevin, and Grant as well as two newbies; Don and Clare (apparently it is a tradition for the newbies to write the trip report). We had a quick dinner and fuel stop in Taumarunui and then drove on to the republic of Whangamomona, where we stayed in cabins at the campground. Michiel’s driving was superb except for a few missed stop signs at railroad crossings; luckily train traffic was slow that night.

We were all up bright and early the next day and off to the start of the Matemateaonga track, a short 1 ½ hour drive. The track was in good condition and we quickly arrived at our turn off onto the route, which was also in fair condition, at least in the beginning. Grant and Kevin would check our location with their GPS devices at every clearing, more for fun than for need, I think. Kevin’s new GPS was a little off initially but seemed to do better as we went along. The weather was good. Some rain but nothing unreasonable. We made good time to Charlie’s clearing where we originally thought we might camp. Since it was still relatively early in the day and we wanted to keep our tents dry if possible, we decided to push on to the Puteore Hut.

Now things began to slow down. The route got muddier, there were more ups and downs, more windfalls, and my pack got heavier. Or was I just more tired? We lost all the time we gained in the beginning of the day. The tramping was slow and at times, painful. We easily climbed over the first dozen windfalls but soon most of us were moaning and groaning our way over. I say most because I am not sure I ever heard Michiel or Grant moan! Grant did gallantly push one small windfall off the track for us only to turn around and see an even larger one waiting for us. There was just no way out of climbing over more trees! We all get our fill of tree hugging. Finally, after 9 1/2 hours, and one last steep hill, we arrived at the hut at 6pm. It was no surprise that we were the only ones in the hut. Dinners were cooked and eaten and we all were settled into bed by 8pm and asleep about 5 minutes later.

The next day we were up bright and early. We ate, cleaned, packed and were ready to go by 7:30am. We started the day with some steep downhill and a light rain. We eventually got to the river we had to cross. The crossing was deep, especially for Anna, who went up to her chest. Don managed not to get his pack wet, the luck of the tall. Once across the river, we had to find a way to climb up steeply from the river and continued tramping up a steep hill for the next couple of hours. We then continued up and down and up and down some more for the next 5 hours. We lost the track often and needed to send out search parties to find the markers. The going was very slow. I think this may have been the shortest part of the whole trip but it took us the longest due to all the obstacles. We eventually found our way back to the Matemateaonga track and decided to detour 45 minutes up it to sleep in a nice dry hut, the Pouri Hut. Once again we had the hut to ourselves and enjoyed a lovely meal and good company before a comfortable sleep.

Up early again, we were rewarded with a beautiful view from the hut. The valley was covered in patches of low clouds and the tip of Ngauruhoe was sticking out of the top of the clouds. Today’s tramp was luckily an easy one. It was a mere 24 kilometers on a flat, good track. We did a side trip up Mt Humphries, minus packs, and were rewarded with more good views of Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu and Taranaki. The most exciting part of this day was when Kevin’s GPS device beat out Grant’s for speed and accuracy at one clearing. Finally the 20 year curse was broken! It was an exciting moment for us all.

We all arrived back at the van in one piece. The newbies, Don & Clare, were sore and tired but alive; with lots of good bush tramping stories to send back home. The number of windfalls, size of the trees, depth of the river, steepness of the hills, sting of the bush lawyer, number of lost trail markers, scratches on our legs and amount of bush whacking will get worse with each retelling but of course our strength and endurance will improve! The memories of the hardships were already fading fast in the van on the way back home and we had all signed up for the next overnight tramp before we even arrived home from this one.

Don and Clare

Photographs by unknown (Canon PowerShot SD800 IS).