Six of us left the Catchpool carpark just after 9 am in slightly cool conditions. We were soon in the Orongorongo Valley and headed upstream to Goat Stream. At Goat Stream Hut we had morning tea. We didn’t see the person staying at Goat Stream Hut, but the door was unlocked and there were signs of habitation in the hut.
The trap line route to South Saddle is generally easy to follow and apart from the first part, is not particularly steep. The main Mt Matthews track up from the Orongorongo River, that also goes to South Saddle, is much steeper.
After a while we could see the saddle and we arrived there about noon. We had lunch at the saddle and enjoyed the views to the Coast and over the Orongorongo Valley. It was a bit breezy at the saddle, and chilly, so we only had about 20 minutes for lunch before we moved on again.
We descended the main Mt Matthews track and arrived back at the Orongorongo River. We stopped in at Baine-iti Hut (the oldest hut in the Orongorongo Valley) and then kept travelling downstream. On the way back to the Orongorongo Track we also stopped off at Xanadu Hut, where we peered in the windows.
Once back on the Orongorongo Track it didn’t take us long to get back to the carpark. We had been on the go for 7 hours in total and had all enjoyed a fast-paced day tramp.