Otaki and Ohau bush-bash – Tararua Forest Park

Day 1: Friday 12 January – Poads Road to Waiopehu HutThis trip was planned as a Medium-Fit trip in and out of Mid Otaki Hut via Poads Road. However, when it became clear a few other people couldn’t make the trip, and Mon and I wanted to visit South and North Ohau Huts as well, … Read more

Mid Otaki

Upper Otaki River

Waitangi Day offered the perfect opportunity to take an extra day off and explore a little further in the Tararuas. I had been keen for a bit of a river trip for a while and decided on the Ōtaki Our route was Poads Road to North Ohau Hut, over to mid Ōtaki, then along the … Read more

Ohau Huts

We started out from Wellington station on Friday night with the five of us in the van. After competing with Friday traffic for a couple of hours we had our dinner stop in Levin – spoilt for choice we all went for the same kebab place for a great pre-tramp meal. When we arrived at … Read more

North Ohau Hut

The planned trip had initially been to go into North Ohau Hut via the Mangahao River. However the forecast for the weekend was not so good. So plans were altered to a less weather dependent route for North Ohau Hut via Deception Spur. The contingency if the weather was really terrible was to go up … Read more

Mangahao Valley to Ohau

Friday night we made the long drive from Levin to the Mangahou road end. The evening was cold but very still at the tail end of the miserable southerly which had blown hard all week. Morning saw a cold and very light drizzle, we donned coats and warms and made haste round the lake, getting … Read more