Tutuwai Hut and the Geographic Centre of NZ – Tararua Forest Park

We departed from Wellington Railway Station at about 7.30am for the drive over the Remutakas and past Greytown, to the Waiohine Gorge carpark entrance of Tararua Forest Park. It was a lovely sunny winter day. We started our walk at 9.20am – going straight across the Waiohine Gorge suspension bridge. There were great views up and down the … Read more

Aborted Southern Crossing; Alpha Hut via Marchant Ridge. Return to Kaitoke via Omega Track and Tutuwai Hut

I have been keen to complete the Southern Crossing after visiting Kime Hut in the snow last year. We had two groups completing the Southern Crossing; one from Otaki Forks to Kaitoke starting Friday afternoon, the other from Kaitoke to Otaki Forks starting first thing Saturday morning. I liked the concept of an early start … Read more

Tauwharenīkau River – Tararua Forest Park

Trains, Tubes, Bikes and Boots ‘The 9.55 am train to Masterton has been delayed’ boomed the loudspeaker at Wellington Railway Station. Harry was unfazed. ‘This always happens to me’ he sighed. With a tight timeframe, we planned to train to Woodside, cycle to Bucks Road, tramp to the Tauwharenīkau River, tube the gorge and then … Read more

Mount Reeves – Tararua Forest Park

Due to poor weather, the plan for this trip ended up changing quite a bit. Originally, this was meant to be a Howletts Hut overnight trip in the Ruahine Ranges, but due to this walk having a decent portion of ridge travel and river crossings, we decided to do a loop walk a little closer … Read more

Cone to Alpha Huts (via Neill, Winchcombe and Hector)

We headed into Cone Hut from the Waiohine roadend on Friday night (after getting Chinese takeaways in Greytown – recommended!), and got to Cone at 9.45 that night. Cone is a great little hut and is renowned in arachnologist circles for having some of the hugest spiders in the Tararuas. We crashed almost as soon … Read more

Tutuwai instead of Alpha

The trip was originally planned as a navigation trip to Alpha hut via the Quoin Ridge, and then returning via the Eastern Hut river. Amanda’s initial email warned that this would likely be at the upper end of the medium grade with two longish days of up to nine hours. In the end there five … Read more

5-bar Tararua tramping

Some people, particularly trampers, rejoice when heading into our wilderness while others have a fearful attitude towards these areas that they believe should be completely avoided—for they are places that they consider are hideous, desolate and uncomfortable—where people suffer and sometimes die. However, nowadays it seems that many of those who do actually want to … Read more

A Pleasant River Trip

Having a spare weekend in mid-February, I decided to sign up for a club trip. There were two trips going from the Kaitoke road end, meaning a Saturday morning start (yay!). The Medium trip appeared to involve a long slog along the Marchant Ridge, which I’ve never done, having been deterred by its reputation. The … Read more