On this beautiful sunny Saturday morning our group left Wellington Railway Station at 9am. Lizzy was having her first overnight tramp and we couldn’t have hoped for a better day for it. In Featherston we stopped for coffee and when we arrived at the Kiriwhakapapa road end the day was still looking great.
As we geared up for our tramp, a carload of men arrived, followed by another; surely they wouldn’t be going to Blue Range? Then another two carloads followed in quick succession. Turns out they were a men’s wellness group out for a walk on the Old Tram Track.
We headed up to Blue Ridge Hut at midday in no particular hurry, arriving around 2.20pm.
The Hut was empty and after claiming three of the four bunks we went out on a walk to Te Mara, a high point (1104m) along the Blue Range main ridge. We left the main track at Latitude -40.798542 / Longitude 175.517235 and headed up the ridge toward Te Mara, keeping to the high ground. The trees around us were typical goblin forest – marvellously mossy and twisty.
I had expected more of an off-track scramble but there was a trap line running along our route, so it turned out quite easy. From Te Mara we followed the ridge back in a more northerly direction and returned to Blue Range Hut along the main track – which was actually less easy than the trap line path.
As the sun dropped behind the main range, we prepped and cooked dinner and made a chocolate chia pudding. We enjoyed a good meal, dealt with the washing up, and hit the sleeping bags for a bed-time read.
The weather forecast had suggested showers around 6pm and the rain arrived bang on time, lasting all of about one minute. Later, we saw a starry sky. It was pretty cool overnight, but not so much that we wanted to light the fire.
In the morning, from the lower bunks, we could see either the orange disk of the rising sun just appearing through the trees or the pink glow it cast over the higher points of the Tararua Range.
After a leisurely start, we left the hut just after 8.30am and made our way steadily down to the carpark. Before leaving Kiriwhakapapa road end we walked an anti-clockwise circuit of the Loop Track, then headed back to Wellington via a coffee stop at Carterton.
